She ignored the hairs rising at the back of her neck, the nervous beads of sweat that collected along her spine.

She was alone with Father Paul in the house of God, here for the sacrament of penance. She let out a long breath and began speaking again as she told herself she was safe.

No one could harm her here.

Or so she vainly tried to convince herself.

CHAPTER 24

CHAPTER 24

“The dog can stay with you,” Slade said as he carried his empty beer bottle into Val’s kitchen. This cozy little cottage, so different from the rambling ranch house in Texas, still felt like home. Because of Val, he realized.

“I can keep him?” she called from the living area, where the television still droned on, the volume low.

“For the night.”

Bo lifted his head but didn’t alter his position on the rug near Val’s feet. She pushed herself out of her chair, and the hound was instantly on his feet, ready to follow her anywhere.

Like you? he silently asked himself, and hated the fact that he was weak where she was concerned. His brothers were right—he was whipped with a capital P.

“Maybe I’ll keep him,” she said.

“Fat chance.”

She was teasing, a spark of humor in her hazel eyes. God, he’d missed that, the way her face could change from pensive to amused in a heartbeat.

“We’ll work it out in the doggy-custody hearing.”

“He stays with me, on the ranch. End of subject.” Slade walked to the front door, and the damned dog didn’t so much as look at him. Bo, it seemed, was as pathetically hung up on Valerie as he was.

“Gee, I love when a man tells me what to do,” she quipped. “Or how it’s gonna be. Like I can’t figure my life out for myself.”

A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth as she snapped off the television and walked up to him, the angle of her chin definitely defiant. “Sassy, aren’t you?”

“Sassy. Is that the new PC term for bitchy?”

“Hey, if you want to fight, we can. Your call.” But he was grinning by now, and there was a part of him that wanted to meet the challenge in her eyes, yank her off her feet, and haul her into the bedroom he’d noticed just on the other side of a short hallway. He’d seen the foot of her bed through the open doors, noticed a familiar area rug covering the hardwood floors. But he figured the surest way to push her into going through with the divorce was to move too fast. When she didn’t respond to his challenge, he opened the door, though the screen was still latched.

“You’d lose any fight,” she said.

Man, she was asking for it. “Careful, Valerie.”

“Of what?” Again with the arched brow and angled chin.