Page 91 of Sniper's Pride

She was the one who straightened and smiled. And didn’t stop when he stared back at her.

“Come on, Griffin,” she said, mildly enough. “We’re friends, right? You can smile back at me.”

“I don’t...” He stopped. He considered the fact thatthis woman made Blue happy. He’d never really understood that before, and he didn’t want to think too much about it now, but it made him feel a kind of grudging gratitude. “I don’t dislike you. Particularly.”

Her smile widened. “High praise indeed.”

At her feet, half of his butt on those strange bright slippers she called shoes, Horatio straightened. Then whined slightly.

That was how Griffin knew that Isaac had appeared behind him. Without making a sound.

“Since we’re friends,” Everly said, in her warm, irreverent way—maybe it was justfriendliness, now that he considered it—“I wanted to give you advance warning. The way friends do.”

“What do I need to be warned about?” Griffin asked coolly.

But he already knew.

Because there was only one topic he could imagine Blue’s woman would think she needed to consult him about. Much lesswarnhim about.

He tried to feel the emptiness. He reached for it, wanting to clear out all of the things that made him distressingly human before they were the end of him, but all he could find were memories of hot, sweet nights and a drawl like honey and fire.

“I have a friend coming into town,” Everly said. And it was the fact that her voice was so kind that bothered him the most. He wasn’t some child who needed news broken to him gently. “I guess I’m neck-deep in friends these days. Anyway, she’s visiting. She’ll be here awhile. A week. I thought you should know.”

He didn’t insult them both by pretending to wonder who was visiting.

“I don’t know why you think I need that information.”

Everly opened her hands wide. “Maybe you don’t. My bad.”

Griffin didn’t watch her as she walked away, headed back toward the cabin she shared with Blue. He was too busy waiting for whatever sucker punch was coming at him from behind, as surely as night followed day, even in the light-soaked Alaskan summer. Eventually.

“You can relax, brother,” Isaac said in that low, easy way that only made wise men more tense.

Griffin wheeled around. “But I can’t relax, can I? Not with all of you clucking around me like a bunch of hens.I’m fine.”

“Clearly.”

“If you doubt that, fire me.”

He hadn’t known he’d meant to say that. But once he did, it was out there. Done.

And thrown down between them like a challenge.

When Isaac wasn’t the kind of man a sane person challenged. Ever.

But Griffin didn’t back down.

Isaac stared at him, a hint of his legendary temper—the one he kept under wraps for obvious reasons, such as everyone else’s safety—in his gray eyes.

But then he shook his head slowly.

“You’re bound and determined to cut off your nose to spite your face. What’s that going to get you?”

“There seems to be some concern that my performance is slipping.” Griffin sounded like the machine he’d always tried so hard to become. Stiff. Distant. But he didn’t feel clear inside. At all. “You want that rectified, say the word. I’ll be gone within the hour.”

Again, that flash of temper, and a whine from Horatio to underscore it, in case Griffin might have missed the danger he was in.

“First of all, dumbass, no one is concerned about your performance.” This time when Isaac shook his head, it looked a lot like he did it to keep from reaching out with his fists. “I don’t know what the wordbrothermeans to you, but I know what it means to me. And to everyone else. When we say family, we mean it.”

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