Enzo didn't know what to make of the situation. He'd never had much of an affinity for animals, but he'd never felt the lack in the least until today.
"Are you all right?" he asked.
Ally was trying to pull her boot off before her foot swelled so much she couldn't get it off without cutting it.
"Ally!" It was his turn to yell. "Are you all right?" He wasn't used to her ignoring him.
She glared up at him but didn't say a word. She took her sock off, and there was already a bruise forming, although she didn't think anything was broken. She reached around the corner and put on her sneakers, lacing the right one very loosely, then stood.
She'd forgotten just how big he was and had to guard against her personality automatically shifting into the submission she had come to know around him.
"What are you doing here?" she asked, putting her hands on her hips.
"I came to find you."
Ally's eyebrows went up. "I wasn't lost, dickhead."
"You were to me."
The bald truth of his words—and the feelings he conveyed with them—tugged at heartstrings she'd hoped had hardened with time, but apparently, they hadn't.
"That's not my problem."
"No, it wasn't. It was mine. I'd like to take you some place where we can talk—"
"No," she interrupted as she hobbled over to give Sundance his ration of mash. The rest of them were just going to have to go the night without being groomed. She'd have to spend extra time on them tomorrow morning, but that was fine. After him, she gave Shadow her ration, then on down the line, with Enzo trailing after her like a lost puppy.
Finally, she seemed to be done, turned out the lights and simply walked away from him.
But Enzo wasn't about to let her do that; he reached down to grab her arm just above her elbow, using her own momentum against her and pressing her back against the wall of the barn, trapping her there with his body.
He'd never forgotten one second of the sheer bliss it brought him just to be near her, and that had bloomed again as soon as he'd seen her.
"Ally, please. Just talk to me. I-I need to explain."
"No." She was amazed at how much she really wanted to hear what he had to say, but then she remembered how betrayed she'd felt when she found out he'd been spying on her, and denying him became a lot easier.
He wouldn't hurt her for the world, but he couldn't keep himself from bending down to try to kiss her, and although her lips were just as soft and welcoming as ever, she immediately began to protest, loudly, and beat against his shoulders as if he was trying to rape her.
That was when he heard the unmistakable sound of a gun cocking, an alarmingly short distance away, and the unmistakable sound of yet another Alpha male, who was standing directly behind him. "You let her alone."
Enzo didn't move. He didn't even raise his hands in the air like most people would when a gun was pointed at them.
"Move away from her, I said, or I'll have no problem blowing a hole in your head the size of Texas."
"If you do, you risk hurting her, too, and I doubt you'll do that, Captain Landers," Enzo replied with complete calm.
Ally rolled her eyes and sighed.
"How do you know my name, stranger?" J.D. asked, not having lowered his gun an inch.
"It's just what he does," Ally muttered only half under her breath. "He tracks and spies on and gathers information on everyone and everything for his own," she almost said 'nefarious', but she squelched it, "purposes."
"Do you know this man, Ally?"
"Yes, J.D., unfortunately, I do. His name is Enzo Matroni." It was only fair that J.D. know the name of the man he was threatening, since that man obviously knew him.
She could barely see around Enzo, but she had a good idea why J.D. was pausing. He didn't really want to know the answer to the question he felt he had to ask. "Did he hurt you? Has he hurt you in the past?" he asked. His tone was at least as calm and cool as Enzo's. Maybe more so.
Ally was horrified to realize that tears were rapidly gathering behind lids that she had to suddenly close against them. She would have sworn that she was all cried out about this, but she was wrong. The mere sight of him and she became just so much like Jell-O. She wrapped her arms around herself and answered shakily, "Not in the way you're thinking. Not—not physically." The last word was barely a whisper.
"Well, I'm not putting this gun down until Mr. Matroni here puts some distance between you two."
Ally felt and heard rather than saw Enzo sigh heavily. He wasn't used to being defeated, but he took two steps away from her and turned around to face the man who was holding a gun pointed at his head as steadily and surely as if he was holding a baby.
And Enzo simply stood there, not flinching, not even paying much attention to the gun at all. His eyes had turned to settle on Ally, as if he couldn't get enough of her.
"Ally, your foot—what happened?" J.D. asked, his eyes darting to her.
Ally barely noticed her foot any more. It had nothing on the pain that she was experiencing elsewhere in her body at Enzo's nearness.
"Son of a bitch!" Enzo knelt in front of where her foot had swollen to the point that it was practically busting out of the sneaker she was wearing, and, for the second time in less than twenty minutes, she found herself in his arms.
And J.D. found himself in a bit of a conundrum, because he could hardly order the big guy to put her down when that was
