“You are mine,” he asserted in that sharpened, confident-sounding drawl. “I know it; you know it. And so will anyone else who looks at you.”

“Did you just do what I think you did?” he exclaimed.“Depends on what you think I did,” Jake shot back with a signature grin as he thumped down the front steps and strolled forward to retrieve his flip flop. “That’s what we do. You think and Ithrow things,” he explained. “So I’ll make you a deal. You stop thinking,” he drawled, bending to pick up the shoe and wave it around threateningly, “and I’ll stop throwing things.”

“„Ty, the horses are not conspiring against you.” Ty crossed his arms and shook his head. „He looks at me. And he talks to me! And he knows I don't know what he's saying!” Zane squinted at him. „Okay. I think you've been out in the sun a little too long.”

“I know you don’t….” He shook his head and glanced up at the stark white wall across the way from his cell, starting over. “I know you care about me. That’s all I need. I just figured… we have enough secrets between us,” he continued as he looked back up at Zane and smiled nervously. “Now it’s just one less.”

“I just need to be able to trust you, Ty,” he whispered. “You can. I swear you can. I’d die for you, Zane.” Zane’s heart was in his throat as he studied Ty’s profile. “I know.”

“You’re not dessert, Zane. You’re the main course, Ty informed him in a husky drawl. And you have about five seconds to take your pick of flat surface before I do it for you.”

“She told me to wait,that I was going to lose a finger." Earl looked toward the kitchen and back at Ty and Duece. He snorted. "I asked her, did she think I was stupid? Then a couple of snips later, whack. Off went the finger. And you know what that woman said to me? I said 'Mara you cut my finger off.' And your mother said to me, 'Well Earl who's stupid now?”