signals up to the moon. They both turned and started walking toward him.
“Are you and the kids settling in okay?”
Naomi nodded. “The kids were all over the place this morning looking for the dog. T.J. said he had a blast. Even Sam seemed to have enjoyed herself. The fresh air is probably good for them.”
“I can’t wait to meet them. And to see Janus.”
“You will. We can all have lunch together.”
“Perfect.”
Naomi’s face was an entire movie cast of emotions, Jax realized, and he couldn’t look away. Everything she felt showed. Perhaps that was what fascinated him. In his line of work you never let anyone see what you were thinking. Naomi let it all hang out.
“So you found a dog,” Claire said when she made it to the porch, her own ink-black hair loose around her shoulders. Up until he’d met Naomi, he’d thought Claire had the brightest blue eyes he’d ever seen. Now he realized they hadn’t even touched the surface.
“He was on the front porch when I got here yesterday.”
“And you tried to catch him.”
“Actually, no. I thought he belonged to Jax.” She glanced at him, smiling. “It was only later that I realized my mistake, and when we tried to catch him earlier, he ran away.”
Jax stood, and he didn’t hesitate to open his arms. Ethan’s wife was petite as a butterfly, but she had the strength of an armored truck. Her son, Adam, had been diagnosed with cancer at a young age. But throughout his many treatments, she’d been there for him, nursing him and caring for him, and you would never have known how sick Adam had been watching him ride around the ranch these days. She’d truly been through hell and come out on the other side and he admired her for it.
“What?” she asked, drawing back. “Tired of chasing bad guys? You have to run off a poor, defenseless dog?”
“It wasn’t my fault the dog got away.”
“Sure it wasn’t.”
He just shook his head. “We need to catch it.”
“Catch him and feed him and get him cleaned up,” Naomi interjected. “Then we’ll decide what to do with him.”
Jax crossed his arms in front of him. She stared right back, not backing down. It made him want to kiss the defiance right off her—
Whoa.
What?
“Okay, you two. Whatever you decide to do, we have to get the dog first. I’ll go get the trap, show you how to work it.”
Naomi was still staring at him. He shifted his gaze to Claire.
“I should fire you,” he heard himself say, and it shocked the hell out of him because he’d never, not ever, said such a thing to an employee.
“Even if you do, I’m still going to leave here with that dog.”
And she would, too. They stared at each other, Naomi’s jaw thrust forward in what he’d come to realize was stubborn defiance. Yet far from making him mad, it made him want to smile.
His gaze moved to Claire. She stared at the two of them in avid fascination. For some reason he went from amused to uncomfortable.
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