Page 21 of Her Guarded Hero

“You’re looking kind of pale.”

“I’m fine,” she protested.

“No, she’s not,” Gunnar inserted. “She already admitted she plans to take it slow, that means she must be feeling like crap. What’s more she’s drinking coffee when she shouldn’t have caffeine.” She turned and glowered at her grandfather.

“I can take care of things today,” Dalton said quietly. “Gunnar’s right, you should be resting.”

“Great just what I need, two mother hens.”

His eyes started to sparkle. She liked it.

“Whatchya thinking?” she asked.

“It’s only fair I get to be someone’s watcher. I just called mine this morning.” He grinned broadly before bending forward to take another sip of his coffee.

“You have someone mothering you? Who is she?”

Oh shit, had she really asked that?

* * *

He looked up and raised an eyebrow, Dalton liked that she’d asked the question. Really liked it.

“There’s no she,” he answered slowly. “Just teammates. The nosey one is Dex. I woke him up out of a sound sleep and it served him right. He’s been hounding my ass since I got here.”

Gunnar put plates in front of him. “Sounds like how my brothers are. Hell, even since Arvid and Einar moved back to Norway they still call and kibitz.”

“Older or younger?” he asked.

“I’m the baby and they don’t let me forget it. My people last a long time.” As soon as the words were out of his mouth a look of profound sadness passed over his face and he turned back to the stove. Dalton looked over at Aurora, she gave a small shake of her head. Dalton realized that the older man must be thinking of his dead wife. He couldn’t imagine feeling that kind of love for a woman. A child yes. A woman? No.

“So, tell me more about your nursemaid,” Aurora asked changing the subject.

“Dex is in charge of communications for our team.” Dalton didn’t explain that the man was also an experienced hacker and gathered all the intelligence for the Black Dawn SEAL team. “I think because he does so much communicating, he tends to act as a liaison between all of us and is constantly in touch. Whenever one of us goes off the grid, it drives him crazy.

“So, you went off the grid?” He watched as Aurora swirled her bacon in syrup and licked it off the meat before taking a bite. He looked into her eyes and realized it was a totally unconscious action, but that didn’t stop him from getting worked up.

It took him a moment to remember her question. “We all go off the grid from time to time when we have leave, it’s the nature of the beast.”

Aurora chuckled, and he took a bite of his apple French toast. “Gunnar, this is fantastic,” he raved. Gunnar sat down with his own plate and smiled.

“I’m not the ranch hand I once was, but I’ll make sure you have three squares while Aurora runs rough shod over you and our other two part-time ranch hands.”

“Don’t you cook for them?” Dalton asked.

“I’ll send out lunch to the stables. They prefer to handle breakfast and dinner in their cabins.” Gunnar answered.

“So, Dalton, did you tell your friend Dex that you would be working on a ranch?” Aurora asked.

“I did. He thought that was a great idea. Valhalla has one of the best reputations in the state of Nevada for training horses. I didn’t realize I was in the presence of a real live horse whisperer.” He was never surprised at the amount of information that Dex could get his hands on, but he was amazed at what the man had found out about Aurora.

Blushing, she bent and swirled another piece of bacon and delicately licked it. He had to stifle a groan.

“I’m just lucky that the horses tend to respond well to me.”

“That’s a load of crap. She’s been like this since she was a little girl, she charms them. The foals used to follow her around,” Gunnar grinned. Dalton liked the pride he heard in the man’s voice.

“I look forward to seeing that today.” Dalton saluted her with his coffee mug.