I’m off on vacation today (Portugal!) but the excerpts will continue as I countdown to BRODY! Three more days!!!!

The sparks between Olivia and Brody are hot enough to start a bonfire. She doesn’t mean to be as hard as she is, but that doesn’t mean Brody doesn’t want to dig deeper and find out why…

***

It was a good thing the coffeepot was metal or it would have been busted to bits the way Olivia slammed it around. Brody hadn’t expected to have sex with the prickly Olivia Graham, and he sure as hell hadn’t expected her to be angry at him because of it. She was purely furious at him and her reaction confused the hell out of him.

What right did she have to be angry?

He watched her make coffee with a vengeance, never once glancing in his direction. She mumbled under her breath a lot though and he swore she used “son of a bitch” and “bastard” more than once. He’d often wondered what had made Olivia so damn ornery, much more so than anyone else in her family, and now he might have figured out why.

She’d been hurt by a man, likely the same one who had taken her virginity.

Whoever he was, he was obviously a complete idiot. Brody had bedded plenty of women, many of them working gals, but not a one of them had the passion Olivia had shown. She was a hellcat, scratching and writhing more wildly than he’d expected. It surprised him, pleased him and scared him. He could get addicted to a woman with that kind of fire burning inside her. Of course, he could get scorched if he wasn’t careful.

It would be better to keep his hands off her, no matter how ferocious she was in bed. Or on a rock.

“You fixing on throwing that pot away after you’re done denting it?” The words popped out of his mouth before he could snatch them back. It was the wrong thing to say.

Her anger, which had been bubbling to a boil, cooled to a dangerous low. He liked her better yelling at him. Now she was glaring a hole through him. He wondered if he should be careful when he went to sleep that night.

“I’d like to dent your head with it.” She poured herself a cup of coffee, then pretty as you please, poured the rest of it on the ground.

“That was a waste.” He’d been looking forward to that coffee, dammit.

“You can make your own, Ranger. I wouldn’t serve you if you were a king and I was a serf. I’d rather be whipped.” She pulled out what appeared to be biscuit, canned peaches and dried meat, then proceeded to eat the impromptu meal in front of him.

His stomach yowled and she smirked at him.

“I’ve got my own vittles, you know.” He did but they weren’t nearly as appetizing as what she had. His jerky was older than dirt, just as tasty too. He also had a bunch of broken crackers and a can of beans. He had planned to stock up after he’d stopped at the Grahams’, but things had gone haywire.

Hell, they were still going haywire as far as he was concerned.

“Good, because you may not share my food.”

“You sound like a little girl, you know. Not wanting to share her toys with anyone. Selfish.” He got up and she held on to her biscuit as though he meant to grab it from her. “I ain’t gonna take your food, Liv. Jesus, is that what you think of me?”

Her cheeks colored. “No, what I think of you does not include your taking my food.”

Brody snorted and headed to his saddlebags, purely done fighting with Olivia. He had to plan his route into Mexico and what he would do afterward, and that did not involve Olivia Graham. No, he was going to bring her to the next town and pay someone to take her home. There was no way he was going to bring her into Mexico, for two reasons. First, her brother Matt would kill him. Second, she might be killed there because she was white. With Brody’s dark hair, and some help making his skin a little darker, he could sneak into Mexico unnoticed. He’d done it before; he’d do it again.

Olivia had light brown hair and skin like cream with cinnamon sprinkles. She would stand out too much to risk it. He did not look forward to her reaction when he told her, which he would do at the last possible moment, of course. He didn’t want to wake up tied to a tree with his horse gone――no doubt she would do it too.

He sat back down with his meager meal and tried to ignore the fact she’d dumped out perfectly good coffee. The water in his canteen would wash the dry food down his throat just fine.

“My brothers accuse me of being bossy.”

“I find that hard to believe,” Brody responded dryly.

“Shut up while I get this said.” She clenched one fist. “Please.”

***