Falcon might have spoken gently, but his expression was savage, his gaze icy. He was furious. Completely furious. That was never a good thing.
“I will not—” she began to object.
“Now.” Raeg directed the full force of a gaze so demanding and fierce she stared back at him in shock.
“Go on, little girl,” her daddy drawled. “Go on back in the house with the women. I’ll just discuss this myself with these two.”
Little girl? Her daddy called her little girl?
No, he had not!
“Daddy, I won’t have this,” she informed him, pressing the fingers of one hand to her temple. She could feel that migraine coming for sure now. “Stop it this instant.”
His smile was slow, anticipatory.
“Now how do you think you can enforce that, little girl?” he drawled, that vein of satisfaction deepening in his tone.
She thought fast. It wasn’t the best plan. But maybe …
“I can do exactly what I should have done when I first got here,” she informed him furiously. “I’ll stay a night in town and tell everyone I meet my daddy disowned me and I’m moving back to DC. Dragovich’s men will definitely follow me then.”
She put her hands on her hips to keep from wringing them in pure approaching hysteria. Her daddy was up to something, she knew he was. She just wasn’t certain what or why. But what he was doing was simply not good for her peace of mind.
“The hell you will,” he snapped, frowning down at her.
“Daddy, you just don’t want to bet on that.” Her voice rose, her panic along with it.
“Little girl…”
“I have a name, Daddy!” she yelled. “You should know it. Momma let you choose it, and that name was not ‘little girl.’ I’ve not been a little girl for many years now.”
“Well now, a grown woman would understand the shenanigans these two are up to.” He waved toward Raeg and Falcon.
“That’s enough out of both of you.” Raeg was suddenly beside her, yelling at the two of them.
“He started it.” She stabbed her finger in her daddy’s direction furiously.
Oh, she was so mad at both of them now, the reason to her father’s behavior suddenly clear. “My personal business is just that. Mine. And he’s just set to provoke me because you’re so ugly with him.” She turned on Raeg, pushing his arm away as he reached for her. “Get the hell over it right now or you’re gonna be sleepin’ in Caleb’s barn instead of my home. You will not continue to cause all this trouble, Raeg.”
Raeg stared down at her incredulously. “You’re joking?”
“Raeg.” Falcon stepped onto the porch then. “We do not need Summer in this discussion. Let her go inside first—”
Raeg’s bark of laughter wasn’t a comfortable sound.
“She’s joking, isn’t she?” he snapped, his gaze filled with incredulity and anger. “Damn, Falcon, what good would letting her escape accomplish? All you want to do is kiss his ass anyway. You’re just as bad as she is to ask how high, when he says jump. I’ll be damned if I’ll do it too.”
“That’s my daddy,” Summer protested, staring back at him in shock. “You cannot be so rude to him in his own home.”
“I can’t be rude to him?” Furious, mocking amusement filled his face. “Summer, he all but called you a whore to your face—”
Before the last word left his mouth, her daddy moved. His arm flashed past her face, the solid, powerful whack sounding before she could even follow the move and swing around to Raeg …
… who went down.
Backward.
Sprawled out on his back, eyes closed.