Arriving for Sunday dinner, Barrett parked the truck around the side of the sprawling house instead of the circular drive as he had the first time he brought Quinn to his mother’s. Signaling her to wait, he jogged over to the passenger door and opened it. He couldn’t imagine a better reward than the smile lighting her face—at least while he was keeping his imagination tightly reined in where the woman was concerned.

“We should probably decide on some kind of signal,” he said, walking her around to the back of the house where the porch faced the lake.

“Signal?”

Quinn stopped walking. Barrett captured her wrist, certain she would bolt once she understood just how much of his family might show up.

“If it gets overwhelming. You let me know and I’ll come up with some reason we have to leave early.”

She took a deep breath in, held it, her tongue darting out to take a nervous lick at the top lip. Seeing the moist, pink tip emerge was a punch to Barrett’s gut. His balls pulled tight and his cock reacted to the fresh infusion of hot blood, the shaft thickening and straightening.

Turning his head to the side, he faked a cough before continuing to brief Quinn.

“I can only guess at how many people are showing up. I know Sutton fetched Aunt Dotty. Or he is fetching her. That was Walker’s truck in the circle drive. That means him and his wife Ashley. Then there’s everyone that lives with Mama—Adler, Sage, Leah, and Jake. That puts it at nine, not counting me.”

Quinn started to pale, her head swiveling to look behind her.

“It’s not that anyone wants to throw all these people at you. But we sometimes forget how many of us there are. And nine is just scratching the surface.”

She nodded. “We don’t need a signal. I just need to do a few breathing exercises before we go in.”

Barrett cocked a brow. Was this some kind of Hollywood thing?

“For the gallery showing,” she explained. “I was certain I was going to freak out having to mingle with all those people, needing and wanting them to like my work. The gallery owner taught me some techniques. I didn’t get to try them out, but they helped a lot later.”

“Okay.”

Quinn closed her eyes. The lines of her face relaxed. The breaths she took were controlled, deep. Barrett found himself subconsciously changing his rhythm to match Quinn’s, his body swaying dangerously close to brushing against her.

They had stopped by his house before coming out, both of them showering. She had used his soap and shampoo. This close, it was like smelling his scent on her, like their bodies had been intimately intertwined earlier in the day.

His fingers twitched with the need to touch her, to start by taking the delicate hand in his, placing his lips against the warm flesh and moving upward. He took a long, silent step back right before she opened her eyes and indicated that she was ready.

“I should have mentioned something else before you went through all that breathing.”

Quinn waited, somehow holding onto the calm she had just found while Barrett sensed his completely unraveling.

“Some of my family is going to look at this as me bringing Jester’s kin over, helping you learn more about him and meet people in a new town…”

Seeing the first fresh line begin to scratch its way across Quinn’s forehead, he tried to bottle up the point he was getting to.

She stepped closer, her body leaning toward him ever so slightly.

“Please, go on.”

“Others are going to think of it more as me bringing a woman to Sunday dinner for the first time.”

“Oh…” The lovely lips parted in surprise.

Barrett wanted to kiss them shut, then tease them open again. That was just the start of what he wanted to do with her lush body.

That Quinn was Jester’s kin was no longer part of the equation. He wanted her. He wanted her to meet his family, to like them, to see how she could so easily slide into his world.

“Well,” she smiled after a few awkward seconds. “The facts will settle eventually.”

“That’s cryptic.”

Quinn shrugged, her smile growing bigger as she slid her hand in his and continued in the direction he had been leading them.

“I thought I heard a vehicle pull up by the garage,” his mother called from the back porch. She had her apron on and a hand towel draped over her right shoulder. “You must have just missed Boone and Claire behind you. They pulled into the front drive about thirty seconds ago.”

“My father’s brother and his wife,” Barrett whispered in Quinn’s ear before turning his gaze on Lindy. “How full a house are we expecting?”

She held the door open, ushering Quinn and him in.

“Well, Emerson sends his regrets. Work, he says, but it’s an easy excuse for him since he can always claim national security when I try to poke a hole in his story. You saw Walker’s truck out front. Still waiting on Sutton to get here with Dotty.”

Shutting the door, Lindy gave a little eye roll. “As Boone’s kids didn’t spend much time up at Jester’s, I told them they’d have to wait to satisfy their curiosity. You can imagine the trouble I had driving that idea into Siobhan’s head and getting it to actually stick.”

“She’s going to be a cop one day,” Barrett reminded Quinn. “If she liked math more, she’d probably be a scientist instead. She can be a bit too curious about things and relentless in looking for answers.”

Sage came into the kitchen with Ashley and Claire.

“Sage you know,” Barrett said, making the introductions. “This is my aunt Claire, Boone’s wife, and Ashley. We’re still not sure how Walker convinced her to marry him.”

“Well, it’s not every day a man throws an entire tree at a Jeep to get your attention,” Ashley laughed.

“True,” Quinn smiled. “Barrett settled for jumping in front of mine with an axe in each hand.”

Ashley winked at her brother-in-law. “Busted.”

He rolled his lips, his body flushing as hot as when he was rigged up in his jumpsuit.

“Aunt Dotty is in the great room,” Sage said, saving him further embarrassment. “She’s got all her photo albums with her and can’t wait to meet you.”

“If it’s alright with Quinn,” Lindy started, “you ladies can take her in to Dotty. I need these muscles for a few seconds.”

She squeezed Barrett’s arm, but he knew when his mother was stretching the truth.

“I’ll be right along,” he assured Quinn.

Once she was out of the room, he let his mask slip as he looked questioningly at his mother.

“You know what I told your daddy when you came home from the Army?”

He shook his head. He had gone through a wandering phase when he left the military. He knew where he wanted to be, but not what he wanted to do with himself.

“You were ‘seeing’ a lot of girls then, some of them at the same time.”

Cheeks burning hot all over again, Barrett shoved his hands in his pocket like he had when he was little and getting scolded.

“Your daddy wondered when you were going to make up your mind about the girls.”

She drew one of his hands out of its pocket and brought it to her cheek.

“I told him you’d make up your mind the first time you laid eyes on the right one. And it would be true and lasting. You’ve always had a special sense when it comes to people. Animals, too.”

“Mama, I brought Quinn here to learn about her uncle and to meet some more folks from around the area.”

“Of course.”

If Barrett didn’t know better, he would have said his mother was smirking at him, her smile too loaded with meaning to be genuine.

“You were always happy to let a certain kind of woman chase you. But you always stayed away from the nice ones, child. Quinn is one of the nice ones.”

He closed his eyes, Quinn’s face swimming up in front of him. Beautiful, vulnerable, trusting and wary, every turn a contradiction and a challenge.

“I know, Mama.” Pulling away, he gestured toward the double doors that led into the dining room and the great room beyond that.

“Believe me, I know.”

* * *

Sitting in front of the coffee table, her photo albums spread open on its surface, Aunt Dotty held court. Quinn sat directly next to her on the right. Boone was on the left, sorting through one of the albums to find pictures of a young Jester.

“Wow,” Quinn marveled. “He was quite dashing in uniform.”

“That’s right before he shipped out to Asia,” Dotty said. “We still called him Jasper then. He was different when he came back.”

“Still a great guy,” Boone clarified, pulling out a picture of Jester on a boat in combat fatigues, jungle eating away at the banks of the river he traveled upon.

Dotty turned a wet gaze on Quinn. “Yes, that he was. He just decided he would not have any sons who could be sent off to war or daughters who had to sit and wait for that knock on the door telling them their soldier or sailor was never coming home except in a coffin.”

“Is that why he never married?” Quinn asked.

Dotty nodded and, for the first time, Barrett understood why his grand aunt had also remained unmarried.

Resting some of his weight on the back of the couch, he put his hand on Quinn’s shoulder. She looked up at him, her dark gaze and trembling smile signs that she had just glimpsed the same truth about her uncle and his aunt.

“Sutton, you brought that box in?”

Sutton snapped to attention at Dotty’s question. “Yes, ma’am.”

Walking over to a side table, he picked up a wooden box about six inches wide and deep and some nine inches tall. He carried it toward the coffee table, leaning forward to hand it to Dotty.

She waved it away. “My hands are in bad shape today. Let Quinn open it.”

Seeing her take a rough swallow, Barrett gave Quinn’s shoulder another reassuring squeeze. He was aware that not every gaze in the room was fixed on Quinn and the box. All three of his brothers present were keenly watching him, particularly the small touches he exchanged with Quinn.

“Did my uncle make this?” Quinn pulled a finely carved crow from the box, the wood a deep reddish gold with black striations.

Dotty nodded. “It’s Makassar ebony. He carved it while he was over…there. He used to call me Crow Girl because I had one that would eat out of my hand when we were teens.”

“This is the only piece of his I’ve seen,” Quinn told the old woman. “There’s nothing left of the cabin or the totem poles.”

Boone passed a photo to Quinn, she held the crow in one hand and the picture in the other. The image showed Jester somewhere around age forty, the work on his first totem pole half complete.

“Look for other spots on the land,” Dotty suggested. “There’s close to a hundred acres. He had hunting blinds and I suspect another small building or two. He’d be out in his woods for days without going back to the cabin.”

Dotty fixed her bright blue gaze on Quinn.

“Tell me, do you plan on staying up on the mountain or at least here in town, or will you sell once the title transfers?”

Barrett bit down on his back teeth to keep from giving Quinn another squeeze, this time for his comfort. He didn’t think she had anything to go back to in California and all signs seemed to be pointing to her staying. Walker had been out to Jester’s with Sutton and accounted for which burls had survived the fire. He had called before heading to the homestead with some rough numbers for what Quinn could expect. Weather permitting, Walker would extract the highest value burls first—once the land was officially Quinn’s.

“I want to stay,” she answered. “It looks like I’ll be able to afford it, especially if I can find work. The challenge is being at the property at six in the morning and ten at night. I think prisoner work release would be more flexible than what Mr. Cross has ‘relented’ to.”

Barrett smiled at the twist she put on Cross “relenting.”

His mother glanced at her watch, no doubt timing what she had cooking in the oven down to perfection.

“Don’t you worry on the job front,” she told Quinn. “Sage is trying to bring an emergency clinic to Willow Gap as a sort of hub for the surrounding smaller towns and ranches. She’s chasing after several grants. She could use an assistant on that and the ranch.”

“Absolutely,” Sage agreed from the opposing couch. “You just figure out a day this week and we’ll sit down and find what fits for you.”

“Thank you, both,” Quinn said, her voice growing more raw. Eyes shining, she looked over her shoulder at Barrett.

Dotty picked up another of her albums to thumb through.

“That’s decided, then,” she said. “But you’re going to need something a little bigger than that teardrop Barrett went and bought to get you through three months up there.”

Quinn was still looking at him when Aunt Dotty dropped her little bombshell.

His bombshell, really. And he didn’t know how his grand aunt knew that he’d gone out and bought the little trailer. He wanted to get a read on Sutton’s face, but he couldn’t just unhook from Quinn’s gaze.

His cheeks got hot. He couldn’t keep his mouth from twisting. Couldn’t keep his brain from spinning with the question of whether the new information would make Quinn back away from his helping her.

All he could do was offer a guilty shrug.

A forgiving smile spread across her face. Barrett’s worries melted away.

Shifting her attention to Aunt Dotty, Quinn broadened her smile.

“I’m just thankful with each day I can get closer.”

The old woman nodded, the bright blue gaze soft with approval.

* * *

Barrett didn’t get a chance to explain himself until the drive back to Jester’s.

“I’m sorry for giving you enough reason to think someone was lending the trailer.”

Quinn turned in her seat and stared at him, her face lit by the setting sun.

“It wasn’t expensive at all,” he continued, hoping to put her mind at ease. “And I’ll be able to sell it back close to the same price when there’s no more use for it. Maybe better than what I paid.”

Barrett saw the small curl of a smile but Quinn seemed intent on containing it. He knew from his days in the Army what a powerful interrogation tool silence could be. Apparently, Quinn knew it, too.

“Mostly, I didn’t want to scare you away. It doesn’t seem to me like people have done much for you in life, Quinn. Not nearly as much as they should have. I figured having a stranger do more for you than most of your family had done might spook you.”

She nodded then broke her silence.

“It might have,” she agreed. “Initially, I might have thought there were…expectations.”

Reaching the campsite, he stopped the truck and killed the engine before turning in his seat. Reaching across the cab, he stroked the side of her arm, the warmth of her skin reaching him despite the layer of fabric between them.

“There aren’t,” he assured her. “I just hope you’ll give living here or in town a go instead of selling it off when it’s yours and heading back to L.A. or out east where you went to school.”

She sniffled, head bobbing. “That’s what I want, too.”

Barrett let the answer settle, gave her time to bring her emotions back under control. He didn’t know what he would do if she lost it again like she had that first night outside the hangar. He had embraced her then. If he took her in his arms again, if he tried to plant a reassuring kiss on her forehead—well, he might miss and land on those soft, sweet lips.

Clearing his throat, Barrett unhooked his seatbelt but didn’t move to leave the vehicle.

“One thing’s been nagging at me,” he admitted.

Quinn nodded, her gaze narrowing slightly as she waited, the breath she had drawn in as he began speaking still trapped in her lungs.

“That truck you’re renting. Not the most economical choice.”

Relaxing back into her seat, she snorted, her head bobbing in agreement.

“I felt it was necessary for the first few days, until I knew what kind of land I was up against. I was hoping I would be able to figure out how not to do with a vehicle at all or find a cheap one to buy.”

“Good. I told you Sutton’s been flipping vehicles after doing a little tinkering with them. He’s not doing it for the money. I don’t think he spent a dime of what the Army paid him and he was in for almost ten years. He just makes sure he puts a little profit into the work to keep a lot of folks from asking him to fix things all the time. Especially boring repairs.”

“Yeah,” she laughed. “Every time I glanced at him tonight, I could almost see the gears turning. He was even staring at his fork at one point like he could improve on a design that’s been in place three thousand years or more.”

“I bet that was it exactly.”

Their laughter joining, Barrett and Quinn got out of the truck and set up camp again.

“In the meantime,” he said, stacking the logs next to the fire pit. “We can take the rental back into Billings tomorrow if you’re okay with that.”

“I am.” She pulled out packets of hot chocolate and a pot to boil the water.

A few hours later, Barrett led her over to the trailer, planted another chaste goodnight kiss on the top of her head, and returned to his tent and sleeping bag by the fire.

With the mini-camper’s dome light on, he saw the silhouette of her stripping her top shirt away, then her arms reaching behind her to unhook the bra. The last thing he saw before she pulled the little light’s cord was the release of her long, dark hair.

Sighing, Barrett shifted his gaze to the fire. Like his brother, he had jumped from planes in the middle of combat operations. But he knew, the time between being just a friend to Quinn and moving to the next level would be the longest days—and nights—of his life.