Free Guarded Heart by Anya Breton Page B

she’d married?
    He knew how. Morgan hadn’t wanted to remember. Lust had made
him stupid.
    “May I cut in?” he asked of his uncle now that he’d
successfully iced his baser needs.
    “If you must,” Irvin said with stiffness he ordinarily
reserved for their opposition. “We were enjoying each other’s company.”
    A glance at Brook merited no assistance. Her plump lips were
set together as they often were, neither thinner nor poutier than normal. She’d
been arguing when he’d arrived. But she wasn’t arguing now even though Irvin
had lied.
    Or had Morgan misunderstood what he’d overheard? It would
have been easy, especially given how badly he’d wanted to believe she hadn’t
been enjoying herself.
    Still Morgan stepped into their space. Irvin released her
waist and her hand and then moved with a mocking flourish to the left.
    “Do try to enjoy the rest of the dance.” Irvin’s
sardonic emphasis pointed out the fleeting moments left in the ensemble’s
current piece. He sauntered into the crowd without a backward glance.
    Morgan’s attention slipped away, settling upon Brook’s
face—her glaring face.
    “I was getting somewhere with him when you interrupted ,”
she said.
    “You were trying to stop dancing when I interrupted.”
    “What I was saying and what I was doing were
two different things.”
    “You?” Morgan brought his head back to give her a once-over.
The motion was meant to be feigned incredulousness—a mocking gesture she’d
surely understand. Instead, Morgan had noted how the silky fabric of the gown
skimmed her inner thighs far too closely. Lust he’d thought he’d conquered
melted his brief, icy resolve.
    “What is that supposed to mean?” she ground out before recognizing
the scene they created. Brook stomped forward in her silver sandals. She
grabbed hold of his hands, setting one to her waist and the other out to the
side, exactly as he should have done.
    It was an open invitation to touch her. And touch her he did,
forming his fingers over her firm hip. Her breasts thrust between them, barely
avoiding the brush of his chest. Morgan didn’t allow himself the pleasure of
stepping forward to fix that.
    “It means that you don’t like pretending,” he said when she
cleared her throat in noisy impatience. “The old Brook Lochlan wouldn’t have
said one thing and done another.”
    “The old Brook Lochlan wasn’t a Ranger,” she said at a
volume the vanilla humans wouldn’t hear. “She still doesn’t like pretending,
but sometimes it’s required for the job. And what the crap am I doing
speaking about myself in the third person? There is no Brook Lochlan anymore.
There’s only me. Brook Calder .” Her profile swung away—an avoidance
tactic.
    “I never thought I’d see the day you’d be a married woman.”
    Brook’s gaze snapped back, fixing on his probing eyes. Confusion. It wasn’t in her expression but he sensed it in her. He sensed
everything—the frustration, the confusion, the resentment and the desire .
    The link wobbled. Uncertainty. And then she opened
her mouth. “I’m not married.”
    Morgan experienced brief relief that he hadn’t been drooling
over a married woman for days. Words tumbled from his mouth he’d not meant to
ask her. “Is that against Ranger rules?”
    She gave a mirthless laugh. “No.”
    “Were you married?”
    “Priest Seaton, the surname is my mother’s. I took it after
my father died. You could have asked instead of fishing.”
    “Fishing is what Water witches do best.”
    “No, Water witches feel emotions best. And yours are all
over the place. Focus on one. It will help you calm the others.”
    “You don’t want me to focus on one, Brook.”
    Her head tilted to the right, a weary expression that didn’t
fit what he sensed from her. “You’re just going to have to fight it.”
    “What if I don’t want to fight it?” He let his hand slip
down her hip to her derrière. It clenched beneath his palm—a taut,