“You don’t get to join the family unless we know everything about you,” Clark pointed out.
Kilraven scowled. “What family?” he asked suspiciously, and glanced at Winnie, who blushed as warmly as Keely had.
“The Jacobsville family,” Clark returned. “We’re not a town. We’re a big extended family.”
“You don’t live in Jacobsville, you live in Comanche Wells,” Kilraven retorted.
“It’s an extension of Jacobsville, and you’re avoiding the issue,” Clark said with a grin.
Kilraven’s wide, sexy mouth pulled up into a faint snarl. “I’m leaving. I don’t want to be part of a family.”
“With that attitude, I wouldn’t worry about it,” Winnie said under her breath.
He paused to look down at her. “Your director will talk to you in the morning about some more training. He’s going to do it personally. I don’t want you fired. Neither do any of the other law enforcement and rescue personnel. You’ve got a real knack for the job.”
Kilraven turned on his heel and stalked off back to his patrol car. He got in under the wheel, coaxed the engine into a roar and shot out of the driveway without a glance, a wave or anything else.
“Well, he’s sort of nice,” Clark had to admit.
“He’s sort of scary, too,” Keely said, watching Winnie.
Winnie was smiling through her tears. “Maybe I’m not a lost cause, after all.”
Keely hugged her. “Definitely not a lost cause,” she laughed.
“Well, I guess I’ll go inside and find something to eat…” She stopped, her gaze moving from Clark to Keely. “What are you two doing together?”
“Driving Boone mad,” Clark said, and he grinned.
“Would you like to explain how?” his sister asked.
“I invited Keely over to ride horses with me, and Boone was in the barn when we drove up together.”
“So that’s why,” Winnie began thoughtfully.
“Why, what?” Keely wanted to know.
“Why my brother was sitting on the shoulder of the road in his car with a Texas Department of Public Safety car flashing its lights behind him, with a trooper sitting inside running wants and warrants.”
“How do you know what he was doing?” Keely asked.
“Because I run tags all the time at work for the troopers and the local police,” she replied.
“What was Boone doing?” Clark asked hesitantly.
Winnie chuckled. “Teaching the trooper new words, from the look of it. I didn’t dare stop to ask.”
“Oh, dear,” Keely said, glancing at Clark.
“Stop that,” Clark said firmly. “It’s none of Boone’s business if I want to ask you over here to go riding with me.”
“It shouldn’t be,” Winnie told her brother. “But he’ll make it his business. He thinks Keely’s too young to go out with men. Any men.”
Clark’s eyes popped. “She’s almost twenty years old!”
“Well, of course she is,” Winnie said gently. “But not to Boone. To him, she’s still in pigtails trying to teach her dog how to fetch newspapers.”
“Don’t dig that up,” Keely moaned.
“That was when your folks rented that place down the road while your house was being remodeled. You’d have been about eleven. That dog was very good at fetching newspapers,” Winnie replied. “It was just that it was easier for him to bring you Boone’s paper from our front porch than it was to fetch yours out of the paper box at the end of your driveway.”
“Boone yelled at me,” Keely recalled with a shudder.
“Boone yells at everybody,” Winnie reminded her.
“Almost everybody,” Clark qualified.
Keely’s eyebrows arched. “Almost?”
“It didn’t work when he yelled at Bentley Rydel, did it?” He chuckled. “Winnie told me,” he added when Keely looked puzzled.
“Bentley isn’t afraid of anybody,” Keely agreed, smiling. “He’s been good to me.”
“I’d think he had a crush on you, except for his age,” Clark said. “He’s even older than Boone.”
“I guess he is, at that,” Keely said.
“Want some lunch?” Winnie asked them after a moment of silence. “We’ll have to get it ourselves, because our Mrs. Johnston is off today, but I can make a salad and Keely can make real bread.”
“I’d love homemade bread.” Clark sighed. “The lunchroom ladies used to make it at school when I was a kid.”
“Would you mind?” Winnie asked her best friend.
Keely smiled. “Not at all. I love to cook.”
It would also give her an excuse not to have to go home for a while. Her mother would be getting up pretty soon, hungover as usual and driving Keely nuts. With a little luck, maybe Carly would come over and take Ella out partying, since it was Saturday. It would give Keely a lovely quiet night at home alone if she didn’t get called out; something she rarely experienced.
* * *
THE THREE OF them worked in a companionable silence while they whipped together a light lunch. Keely took a little of the dough she was using for rolls and added real butter, pecans, cinnamon and sugar and made cinnamon buns for dessert.
Winnie’s pasta salad had time to chill while the dough sat rising. Within an hour, Keely had fresh bread on the table and cinnamon buns cooking in the oven while they ate their way through pasta and fresh fruit.
In the middle of the impromptu feast, Boone walked in. He stopped in the doorway, his nostrils flaring.
“I smell fresh bread,” he remarked, scowling. “Where the hell did you get fresh bread? Is there a bakery in town that I don’t know about?”
“Keely made it,” Clark mumbled, working his way through a third yeast roll liberally spread with butter. “Mmmm!” he added, closing his eyes and groaning at the delicious taste.
“Did you get a ticket?” Winnie asked, trying to divert him from the penetrating glance he was aiming at Keely, who squirmed in her chair.
“Ticket for what?” Boone asked, digging in the china cabinet for a plate.
“Speeding,” she replied.
He put his plate on the table and fetched silverware and a napkin. He poured himself a cup of coffee from the pot and sat down with the other three. Keely’s heart was already doing overtime, and she had to work at acting normal while Boone was so close.
“I got a warning,” he
