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?”
Get a room? Gunnar gritted his back teeth as he stormed back to the Suburban. If Piper weren’t too old to spank …
He huffed out a frustrated breath. Who was he kidding? He’d never lay a hand on his sister in the name of discipline. But that mouth of hers! And when had his baby sister learned about sex and pheromones, for cripes sake? The idea Piper had become a young woman while he was deployed unnerved him, and the thought of some randy teenage boy coming sniffing around his sister …
Gunnar flexed and balled his fists a few times to work out the tension. He knew all too well what boys Piper’s age thought about girls. It was pretty much the same thing men his age thought about women—especially perky young women with short blond hair and Bambi eyes … sassy, petite women with ample curves and pouting lips that begged to be kissed …
Grunting, Gunnar scrubbed a hand over his face. Damn it, Piper was right. As annoyed as he was to see the film crew on the ranch property, Gunnar had found trading barbs with the feisty actress incredibly … invigorating, arousing.
Yanking open the driver’s door of the ranch’s Suburban, Gunnar growled under his breath. If he wanted to get involved with a woman—which at this juncture in his life, he did not—a spoiled and superficial starlet was the last person he’d consider for a fling. And a starlet with kids? He shuddered. No thank you. He was not a glutton for punishment.
Cranking the engine, Gunnar glared through the windshield at the people assembled on the ranch lawn, and a sour feeling gnawed his gut. He knew he’d been inordinately rude. Guilt kicked him for having assumed a hostile demeanor. But after the incident in town, his nerves were already jangling, and all he wanted was to go back to his cabin, reheat some leftover stew for dinner and kick back in his recliner for the Penn State football game—alone, without distractions. He wanted to think—or not think if his thoughts dwelled too long on the way he’d made a fool of himself in town or the fool of himself he’d made in front of the movie crew.
He squeezed the steering wheel impatiently as Violet Chastain’s dressing room bus lumbered down the driveway, out of his path. He cut another glance to the tiny woman who’d stood up to him like a warrior or a mama bear when he’d challenged her. The spark that had lit her brown eyes had intrigued him, enticed him. He sent an appreciative gaze over her formfitting green minidress and tan leggings, the spots of color the cold air put in her cheeks. With her pixie haircut, petite stature and gamine face, was it any wonder she conjured images of Tinkerbell for him? She was a grown-up Tinkerbell … with a hot body and lush mouth. And a dead husband. And kids.
Gunnar shook his head to clear it and jammed the SUV in gear as the bus finally cleared the road. The blonde actress stirred too many confusing and contradictory feelings in him. His gut told him she was trouble with a capital T. While the movie crew filmed in town and at the Double C, he’d do well to stay far away from the temptation and aggravation that was Violet Chastain.
Violet stamped up the steps into her tour bus, then stopped for a moment as a shiver rolled through her from the cold, from unspent adrenaline after her confrontation with Gunnar, and from … okay, lust, because Gunnar Colton, jerk that he was, had a to-die-for physique, a rough-hewn square jaw and knee-melting hazel eyes. Too bad he had the personality of an angry badger.
The rest of the Colton family she’d liked. Derek had been charming and gracious. Piper was clearly bright, if starstruck, while Sawyer seemed shy and soulful, his dark eyes keenly assessing, much like her Mason’s did.
As if her thoughts of her contemplative son had conjured him, Mason toddled out of the bus’s bedroom and spotted her. “Mommy!”
“Hey, sunshine!” Violet hurried to scoop her son into her arms for a hug. “All done napping?”
Mason gave her wet kisses, then pressed his chubby hands to her face. “Cold.”
“Yeah, it’s cold outside. Brrr!” She poked
