The Pride of Jared MacKade (The MacKade Brothers 2)

She didn't struggle. Instinct warned her it would be worse if she struggled. Instead, she kept herself stiff and turned her mind off. Cold rejection, she knew, was more effective than heated protest.

But both her body and her mind betrayed her, and she trembled.

It thrilled him—that quick, involuntary shiver, that low, helpless moan. But temper was still sparking through him when he jerked away.

Her face was flushed, her breath fast. He knew by the look in her eyes that she wanted as he wanted. At the moment, that fact only infuriated him.

"I owed you that," he said tightly. "Now you can tell me again how much you're not interested."

She was interested. Interested in having a man look at her, just once, the way she had seen Rafe look at Regan. And, oh, it was demoralizing to realize she had that vulnerable need inside her.

"In a quick tumble, Jared?" In a deliberately insulting gesture, she brushed her fingers over his cheek. "Sure, baby, when I've got the time."

"Damn it, Savannah."

"You see." She sighed, shook her head. "I knew you'd take it personally. You're the type. And like I said, that's not my type. You're terrific to look at, and you've got a lot of heat. But—" she lifted a hand, tugged on his tie "—just too traditional and by-the-book. Now, Lawyer MacKade, you know all about the laws against trespassing, the sanctity of someone's home. I'm going to ask you real nice, since you like things real nice, to leave. You wouldn't want me to have to call your brother, the big bad sheriff, would you?"

"What the hell has gotten into you?"

"A dose of reality. Now go away, Jared, before I stop asking nice."

He'd be damned if he'd beg. Damned if he'd let her see that she'd wounded him where he'd never expected to be wounded. Iron pride chilled his eyes. He turned and left without a word.

When she heard his car start, and the sound of it going down her lane, she sank back onto her stool and shut her eyes.

She gave Bryan permission for his promised sleep-over and enjoyed the noise and bother of two active boys lasting late into the night. She was in the bleachers on Saturday, cheering on her son and his team. And if she looked around now and again, scanning for a tall

man with dark hair and green eyes, no one else knew.

At Cassie's insistence, she dropped both boys at Connor's late Saturday afternoon. Home alone, she paced the house, fidgeted in the quiet, and finally went back to work.

The queen was finished, but she still had the prince to sketch. No wimpy, soft-eyed dreamer for her Snow White, Savannah mused as she began running the pencil over the thick white pad. Her Snow White deserved some fire, some passion, some promise of a happy-ever-after with heat.

It was hardly a wonder that her first rough sketch resembled a MacKade. Dragonslayers, she thought with a grim smile. Troublemakers. Who said a prince had to be polite? Hadn't most of them won their thrones in battle first?

Yes, she could see Jared as a fairy tale prince. Her kind of fairy tale. The kind of story that had inspired the legends that had been passed down through the ages, before they became softened and misted to lull children rather than frighten them.

Warrior, avenger, adventurer. Yes, that was the prince she wanted to create.

She began to enjoy herself. The familiar process of bringing something to life through her heart and mind and hand was always fascinating, if not always soothing.

If things had been different, she wouldn't have made her living from assignments, but from that heart and mind. Painting what she saw, what she felt, what she wanted—for the joy of it.

She was lucky, she reminded herself, to have this much. There had been no art classes in her life, only stolen moments with a pad and colored pencils. Dreams no one had ever understood.

Yes, she was lucky, because her work and the payment for it allowed her to take time for painting, to justify it as a harmless, not terribly expensive hobby.

Quickly, fueled by instinct, she began to add details to the sketch—the diamond-bright dimple at the corner of that sensual mouth, the arrogant arch of an eyebrow, a hint of muscle beneath the cloak, more than a hint of danger in the eyes she would certainly have to paint a grass green.

Hell, she reflected, if nothing else, her brush with Jared MacKade had given her the perfect model for her assignment. The illustration would be a good one. She couldn't have asked for more.

She should never had let herself get caught up in the idea of painting for Jared, or selling him work that she had done for herself.

The sound of a car had her bracing and fighting to squash a little flutter of hope.

But when she went to the door, she saw Regan MacKade. The two women studied each other coolly. After a long moment, Savannah opened the door and stepped back.

"I don't know what's between you and Jared," Regan said without preamble. "And if you think it's none of my business, you're wrong. He's family. But I'd like to know why you've decided you can't stand me to the point where you won't even take a potentially lucrative job just because we'd rub elbows occasionally."