She turned to Jethro slowly, meeting his eyes, and whispered, “Dance with me.”
Hooded, his deep blue eyes wary, he watched her for long seconds before pushing his chair back and holding his hand out to her. Talk ceased behind them, every eye at the table turning to them as she took his hand and let him lead her to the dance floor.
Mac sat back in his chair as several of the other couples followed behind Keiley and Jethro, leaving him at the table with Joseph, his wife, Maxine, and her sister and brother-in-law.
“Ladies’ room trip,” Maxine announced as she grabbed her sister’s arm. “Come on, Fayrene.”
Fayrene rolled her pretty brown eyes before kissing her husband’s cheek quickly and following after Maxine.
“She hasn’t shut up since that damned picture hit her e-mail box,” Joseph sighed, watching as his petite wife made her way along the side of the room toward the restrooms. “I had to take the phone out of her hand before she called Delia Staten herself.”
“Delia’s not living peaceable.” Chase Sinclair, Fayrene’s husband, told him somberly. “I talked to her husband, Robert, today. He’s furious, Mac. He wanted to call you himself, but Victoria asked him to wait.”
Mac nodded. He hadn’t expected Victoria to take his side in this. She had her opinions on things, and her beliefs. She was more likely to toss Keiley from the charity committee than she was not to. If she felt Keiley had disgraced the rules of decency that she lived by, then she would cold-shoulder her until hell froze over. And the same went for Mac. Mac had no doubt it would snow in hell before she extended her hand in friendship again.
She lived by her own rules, she upheld them. She wasn’t a cruel woman, but she could be a strict one.
“Robert called the bank today and had Delia’s name taken off their account and canceled her bank cards,” Joseph muttered.
“I heard computers have crashed left and right across the county as well,” Chase commented. “Everyone who forwarded that e-mail that I know of has found themselves with the hefty expense of replacing them. The hard drives were totally ripped.”
Mac’s lips quirked. Gladsteen had a way about her, he had to admit.
“I have to admit, I was worried when Maxine started screeching like a banshee this morning,” Joseph said. “She was torn between laughing in amazement at your and Keiley’s daring and crying in rage at what Delia had done. She’s worried about the three of you as well.”
Mac’s gaze flicked to Chase.
“I saw the helicopter land at your farm, Mac, I’m not a fool. I don’t know what your problems are, but I’m betting they’re not easy. If you need us”—he nodded to Joseph—“we’re here.”
“He would be better off with the information,” Joseph muttered. “Chase is handy as hell in a fight, Mac.”
Mac explained about the stalker quickly to Chase, keeping his voice low, his gaze on the tables around them to make certain nothing was overheard. As he finished, he watched Chase’s blue-gray eyes narrow dangerously.
The Ranger was home on medical leave for a gunshot wound to his leg, taken in action. Rumor was he would never return to his unit, but that didn’t cancel him out of a fight.
“You have the house covered?” Chase asked when he finished.
“I have help.” Mac nodded. “We’ll catch him. Right now, I’d prefer to keep you and Joe out of the line of sight. I don’t want to give him someone else to target.”
“We catch him here, and he’ll never target anyone else,” Joe suggested softly, the lowered tone of his voice doing nothing to disguise his fury.
Joseph Bright hadn’t always been a banker. He had been a cop first, wounded in the line of duty just after his marriage to Maxine. It was then that he allowed his father to convince him to join him at the bank. He was the best damned bank president Mac had ever known.
“If I need you, I won’t hesitate to call,” Mac assured him. “Right now, I’d rather keep this on the farm, though.”
The other two men nodded before their gazes flickered to the dance floor, then back to Mac. It was well known that no other man ever slow-danced with his wife. But there he sat, relaxed, at ease, and on the dance floor Jethro Riggs was wrapped around Keiley like a winter blanket.
“You surprised me,” Joseph told him without censure. “He’s a lot like you were, though, when you first came home. Wary. Kind of dark. She fixed you.”
“And she’ll fix him.” Mac nodded.
The question Joe didn’t want to voice was in his and Chase’s eyes, though. They were his best friends, his only true friends from the years before he left town. Two of only a few men who knew the truth of the life he had led before his mother died.
“You know why, Joe,” he finally said. “I was never just like everyone else. This is just a part of it.”
Joe grinned at that. “Keiley’s living every woman’s sexual fantasy, you know that, don’t you? The rest of us are going to catch hell now.”
Mac looked back at him in surprise.