Colton's Ranch Refuge. Beth Cornelison
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she used to get before taking the stage or filming a difficult scene. Pressing a hand to the flutter in her belly, she met Gunnar’s gaze with dredged up courage. “If you’ll ask me.” She paused to swallow. “Nicely.”
Big brother Colton blinked his surprise and cocked his head as if uncertain he’d heard her correctly.
Gunnar’s siblings chuckled, and Mac shifted his feet uneasily, probably worried about PR or something that Violet no longer cared about. Why should she care what the public thought of her if they gave so little disregard to her feelings, her needs? The speculation and insinuations that filled the media coverage after Adam’s death still stung, and the invasion of her privacy while she was grieving infuriated her.
After glaring at her for a moment, Gunnar turned to Derek and huffed an impatient sigh. “When I got home in May, all I asked was that I be given privacy and quiet. Is it so much to ask that my home be a refuge while I decompress from the crap I had to deal with in Afghanistan?”
Decompress? Violet found his choice of words intriguing. If Gunnar was still wound tight because of his war experiences, no wonder he was acting like such an ogre.
“No, it’s not,” Derek returned, his expression calm.
“Yet you’ve invited a horde of strangers to bring their cameras and lights and dressing rooms—” he cut a meaningful glance at Violet “—onto the ranch for who knows how long. Hardly my idea of rest or privacy, Derek.”
“Which is why I’ve told Mr. Gremble that your cabin and the woods around it are off-limits. Any filming they do will be in and around the main house.” When Piper drew an excited breath, her eyes widening, Derek aimed a finger at her. “You have to promise to stay out of their way and respect the confidentiality agreement. You can’t tell anyone they are filming here. We don’t want the media or rubberneckers milling around here.”
“I can’t even tell my friends?” Piper asked, aghast. “But—”
“Not even your friends,” Derek said.
“Especially not your friends,” Sawyer added. “Talk about gossip central. TMZ has nothing on Tiffany and Amber.”
Piper glared at Sawyer. “Shut up, twerp.”
“You shut up, Amazon.”
Groaning, Derek scrubbed both hands over his face.
Gunnar grabbed Sawyer by the back of the coat and pulled him away from Piper. “Both of you give it a rest. Why do you have to antagonize each other all the time? Sheesh.”
Violet flashed a lopsided grin. “So … is this what I have to look forward to?”
“I promise you they’re not always this bad,” Derek said.
“Oh, I didn’t mean them.” Violet waved her hands in denial. “I meant when my boys get older.”
“You have kids?” Gunnar asked in a tone that said he found it difficult to believe.
Violet faced him again, bemused by his attitude. “Eighteen-month-old twins. They’re with their nanny … in my dressing room.”
She shot him a look that dared him to comment on that fact.
Gunnar sent her an annoyed look. “Your kids are here?”
“Yes. In the bus, napping.”
“With a nanny.”
“Yeaaahhh,” she said drawing out the word, warily. “Where else would they be while I’m working?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe with their father? Or don’t you Hollywood types believe in raising your own children?” Gunnar crossed his arms over his chest and sent her a condescending look she itched to slap off his smug face.
Violet gaped at him, too stunned to answer right away. The reference to Adam landed a punch in her stomach and sucked the air from her lungs.
“Um, Gunnar … helloooo?” Piper said. “Sawyer and I have a nanny.”
He shot his sister a quelling look. “That’s different.”
“How?” Piper returned.
“It just is.”
Mac stepped into the breach, shouldering in between her and the loutish Colton. “Look, pal, I don’t know what your beef is, but if you—”
Violet grabbed Mac’s sleeve, and shaking herself from her momentary daze, she shoved her director out of the way. Planting herself toe-to-toe with Gunnar, she met his gaze with a steely glare. Even standing as tall as she could, he dwarfed her by over a foot, but she refused to let his size or his gruff manner intimidate her. “My husband is dead, you oaf! Not that you’d know that since you don’t keep up with ‘Hollywood hype.’“
She poked him in his broad, rock-hard chest. “And while I’m on location, I keep my children near me, in my dressing room, because there is nothing, nothing more important to me than my boys. I want to be a part of their lives and involved in raising them as much as possible with my filming schedule.” Fisting her hands at her sides, she raised up on her toes and stuck her face as close to his as she could. “Or don’t you military types believe in women having a career and earning an income to feed her family?”
Around them no one moved, and the only sounds Violet could hear were the pounding pulse in her ears and her own angry breaths sawing from her lungs. Gunnar’s hazel eyes bore into hers, unflinching, piercing, until her belly quivered with that disturbing energy again.
Finally he unfolded his arms and clapped slowly, mockingly. “Bravo, Ms. Chastain. You are very convincing as the offended and protective young mother. Oscar-worthy performance, for sure.”
Violet knocked his hands out of the way and crowded so close to him that her body bumped his muscled torso and sparks skittered through her veins. “You’re an ass, Gunnar Colton.”
He simply lifted a corner of his mouth in an aggravating grin and said in a cloyingly sweet tone, “Thanks, Tinkerbell. Now would you pretty please move your oversize dressing room from my driveway, so I can get to my cabin?”
Tinkerbell?
Violet held her ground, chewing the inside of her cheek and deciding her best response. This close to him, his body heat and pine scent surrounded her, teasing her senses, her ability to think going haywire.
“Oh. My. God!” Piper groaned. “Enough with the foreplay. Would you two just get a room already?”
Gunnar’s dark eyebrows snapped together, and he whipped his head toward his younger sister. “What?”
She shook her head smugly and rolled her eyes. “Come on, Gunnar. I may be sixteen, but I’m not naive. I know sexual tension when I see it, and you two are giving off so many pheromones that wild animals are going to start showing up here in a minute.”
Gunnar frowned and shot Derek a look. “What have you been teaching her, Doc?”
Derek lifted both hands. “Don’t look at me.” Then twitching a grin, he added, “And for the record, I agree with Piper. I’m also sensing a certain … vibe between you two.”
Violet’s mouth opened, but only a sort of choking sound came out. A sexual vibe between her and the boorish linebacker? No way …
Gunnar scoffed and backpedaled from their nose-to-nose standoff, grumbling, “Give me a break.”
With one last dark glance at her, the older Colton brother stormed back toward the SUV.
“So then you’re okay with them filming here as long as they avoid your cabin?” Derek called after him.
When Gunnar didn’t answer, Derek grinned mischievously at Mac. “I think that’s a yes. When do you want to start?”
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