“I hear what you’re saying,” Eli said. “My leopard rides me pretty hard, especially when it comes to Catarina. I can’t lose her, and she’s definitely in danger. I’m trying to teach her as much about self-defense as I can and my male is working with her female. She’s gotten beat up in the last couple of weeks, but she never complains.”

“I made a lot of mistakes with Emma,” Jake admitted. “I was just lucky she hung in there with me.”

Eli’s eyes met Jake’s. “I don’t like the fact that Catarina never had a choice, because I’ll never know if I am her choice, but I’d never let her go. I don’t care what it takes, but I’d find a way to keep her. Sometimes I wonder how much that makes me like Cordeau in her eyes.” He admitted the truth quietly.

Jake studied his face for a long time and then took a long pull on the beer. “I’d never give up Emma. If I had to, I’d lock her in my house and work my ass off day and night to figure out where I screwed up and how to fix it, but I wouldn’t let her go. She knows that. She accepts that in me. She accepts a lot of things in me. Because she does, I work hard to make certain she’s happy and that she stays that way. When something’s important to her, I give in, even if it goes against everything protective in me.”

Eli frowned. “Such as?”

“She loves the ranch, but we’re isolated. I think it will help with Catarina being close, given the things they have in common. But once in a while she wants to go for a ride by herself, or go into the city to shop. She doesn’t spend money and she’s always a little shocked when I give her extravagant gifts, but she likes to just be what she calls normal.”

“Of course she can’t. You have enemies.”

Jake nodded. “No, she can’t. But I want to give that to her, because it matters to her. Kills me to let her go off in a car by herself. I’ve got tracking on it and on her. And my boys are all around her. She knows, but as long as they don’t make it obvious, she doesn’t bitch at me. Shopping, she’s surrounded by a crew. Best I can do for her. She doesn’t like it, but she knows it’s got to be that way. She never objects when it comes to security for the kids, but it’s much harder to accept it for herself.”

Eli stirred uneasily. “You let her go shopping in the city without you? And drive her car around aimlessly?”