Adam’s features closed. He stared at Tony, deliberately keeping his gaze from the temptation of Gina. “You’re wrong about that, too. Haven’t you heard, Tony? I don’t do happy.”
“You used to.”
“Used to do a lot of things,” he said shortly, turning his back on his uninvited guest, as well as his wife, and heading back into the barn.
Tony, of course, followed him. “You just determined to be a miserable bastard, Adam?”
“Go with your strengths,” he said, never stopping, never turning for a look back at the other man. He didn’t want to make nice with Gina’s family. He didn’t want to watch Gina and feel a yearning. He wanted his world back the way it had been before Gina had become a part of it.
He walked straight to the rear of the barn and into the tiny office. Jerking his head at his foreman, an unspoken message was passed between them. The other man jumped out of the chair, nodded to Adam and Tony, then hurried out of the office, muttering something about seeing if Gina needed any help at the corral.
Adam didn’t watch him go. If there’d been a door on the office, he’d have slammed it. But he had a feeling, that wouldn’t have slowed Tony down anyway. Like his sister, the man refused to be ignored.
“So what’s the deal, Adam? You too scared to admit you care for my sister?”
Adam’s head snapped up and he shot Tony a glare with so much ice in it, the man should have been sliced to ribbons. Naturally Tony looked unmoved. “My brothers don’t get away with talking to me like that. What makes you think you can?”
Tony shrugged indolently, then took off his wide-brimmed hat and ran one hand through his hair. Lifting his gaze to Adam’s, he said, “Because I’m worried about my sister and I figure you can understand that.”
Damn, he was right. Adam did understand all too well. Family loyalty. The instinct to defend and protect. These were things the Kings were raised with as well as the Torinos. So he was willing to cut Tony some slack in that department. But that didn’t mean that he was willing to discuss his private life. Or his marriage to Tony’s sister.
“I get it,” Adam said. “But I’m still telling you to butt out. Gina and I will handle what’s between us without your help or anyone else’s.”
“That may be the way you want it,” Tony mused, stepping into the room. He put his hat back on, bent down and planted both palms on the edge of the cluttered desk. “But that’s not how it works. Gina’s family. My baby sister. I look after my own.”
“So do I,” Adam countered.
“That right?” Tony’s eyebrows lifted. “Not how I remember it.”
Adam flushed and felt the rising tide of anger rush up from the soles of his feet to fill his head and his vision until the very edges of it were a cloudy red. “You got something else to say, say it and get out.”
Tony pushed up from the desk and scrubbed a hand over his mouth as if he could physically call back the words he’d just said. “That was out of line. I’m sorry.”
Adam nodded, but he wasn’t willing to give more than that.
“All I’m saying is, you’re an idiot if you don’t give what you’ve got with Gina a real chance, Adam. And I don’t figure you for an idiot.”
“Tony,what are you doing?”
Both men turned to face Gina, standing in the doorway of the small office. She looked from one man to the other, fury flashing in her eyes and Adam felt a solid punch of something that was much more than desire.
That’s when he knew for sure he was in trouble.
“I thought you were with the horses.”
She brushed that aside with a wave of her hand and narrowed her eyes on her older brother. “Not that it’s any of your business, but Sam’s taking Danny around and talking to his parents. I want to know what you’re doing here.”
“I’m having a talk with my brother-in-law,” Tony told her easily, but being a wise man, he took a short step back.
“And you?” She shifted her look to Adam.
“Let it go, Gina,” he said.
“Why?”
“Because it’s over,” Adam said with a glance at Tony as if to make sure of that fact. “Isn’t it?”
“Yeah.” Tony nodded and edged toward the door, clearly trying to slip past his sister before she could turn her fury directly on him. “It’s over. Adam? Good to see you.”
Adam nodded again and waited until Tony was gone before looking at the woman who was his wife. And only then did Tony’s words reverberate through his mind.
It’s over.
If only, Adam thought, staring into Gina’s amber-colored eyes, it were that easy.
Ten
When Tony left, it was as if Gina were alone in the small, cramped office. Adam, though physically present, had shut himself down so completely, it was as if he’d forgotten she was even there.
“Adam,” she said, moving in closer, despite the unwelcoming chill in the room, “what’s going on? What were you and Tony talking about? And why do you look so angry?”
“Angry?” He glanced at her and his eyes were cool, dispassionate. “I’m not angry, Gina. I’m simply busy.” To make his point, he picked up a sheaf of papers, straightened them and tucked them into a manila file folder.
“Uh-huh. Too busy to talk to me but not too busy to talk to Tony, is that it?”
He swiveled in the desk chair, propped his elbows on the narrow, cushioned arms and folded his fingers together. Tipping his head to one side, he said, “Your brother showed up, I had no choice but to talk to him. Just as I had no choice but to put my own work aside when I heard that boy screaming.”
Gina shrugged and tried a smile. It didn’t get a reaction out of him. “Danny was excited, that’s all. His parents are buying the young mare for him and his sister and it was his first ride.”
“I didn’t ask why the child screamed,” Adam said, then reached for a pen laying on the desk. Absently clicking the top of it, he continued. “I only said the noise is distracting. I’m not used to having all of these people coming and going from the ranch. And I don’t like it.”
Now Gina flushed a little with the small whip of anger that jolted her. The way he sounded, she might as well have been holding parades every day. One or two people a week was nothing. It was normal. And hey, if he’d come out of the barn or his office and talk to them, maybe he might not hate it so much. Instead he kept himself in solitude. He was always working. On the phone, riding the ranch on one of his horses, closeted in the office with buyers.