Page 20 of Stolen Hearts

The smile froze on Rhae’s face as she saw him.

Denver emerged from the shadows, hands tucked in his pockets, shoulders hunched as if he’d braced himself against a storm. Her heart stopped, and then kicked back into a frantic rhythm, drumming against her ribs with painful insistence.

He was coming toward her.

* * * * *

Denver’s stare found Rhae the instant he turned the corner. Every step he took toward that fire brought a flood of questions…and a flood of emotions.

With the way they left things, he had no idea where he stood with her. No promises were made. If she felt anything for him, she buried it as deep as he did.

He issued a low rumble. The wind snatched the sound, but it echoed back through the rustle of tree branches. And as he drew closer, the crackle of the fire met his ears.

She didn’t know he was watching her, which gave him a few more seconds to study her. She wore her hair a bit shorter, falling to the tops of her breasts with a part down the middle, but it had the same soft, thick texture that made his fingers clench just looking at it.

She had on a thick jacket that hid her shape, but he knew every curve. Every silky inch of her drop-dead sexy body. She was just sitting there, looking relaxed. But he saw her tell—the way her hands were stuffed in her pockets instead of casually resting in her lap spoke volumes.

She was concealing her nerves from everybody else, but she couldn’t hide them from him.

Except she hid more than nerves. For all these months.

She wasn’t holding the baby. A quick glance around the group revealed the pink bundle in his brother Colt’s arms.

Seeing his brother holding the child—hischild, if he was right—made his heart squeeze with a sharp pain. He overfilled his lungs with air in an attempt to calm his nervous system, SEAL style.

Denver was ten steps away from the fire, still in the ring of shadow beyond the flickering light. But at that moment, Rhae looked up and saw him.

Her gaze fastened on him. For a heart-throbbing moment he thought he could read everything in her eyes. All the things she never could show him before when they were having clandestine meetings.

Her chest heaved, and she stuffed her fingers deeper into her coat pockets.

“Denver. Glad you could join us,” Willow called out from her seat next to Rhae.

Everyone swung their heads to look at him, tossing out greetings and nods. He ignored all of them and grabbed a lawn chair on his way to Rhae.

There wasn’t much of a gap between her chair and the one Willow was in, but he carried the chair straight to the gap and made it fit. The arms touched. The chair was wedged, but it would work.

He felt Rhae stiffen as he plunked into the seat. His forearm brushed hers, and she drew it tight against her body.

“I would have moved.” Willow smirked.

“No need.”

All the guys and his brothers were staring.

His gaze fell on the baby. The guy they called Dutch held out his arms to take her from Colt, and his brother passed her over.

Denver’s throat thickened.

Deliberately, he leaned over and made eye contact with Rhae. Direct. Full of purpose.

“Take a walk with me. Talk with me.”

Those misty blue eyes traveled over his face for a long heartbeat that he felt to his toes.

He held out a hand, half expecting her to refuse. But she took it.

The warmth of her fingers clasped in his own did things to his body he wasn’t prepared to analyze, but it did worse things to his goddamn heart.

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