Page 12 of Crow Me A River

Not exactly sure what to say or do, Misty remained silent as they stared at each other. For the moment, she was perfectly fine with that. After what she’d just witnessed, there was a good chance anything that came out of her mouth would make her sound like a complete idiot.

It wasn’t that she’d never seen a fight before. Crows were well known for their tempers, and she’d witnessed her fair share of battles over the years. But she had never seen one man single-handedly take on six and barely break a sweat. It had been impressive, to say the least, and if she was being honest with herself...sexy as hell.

But as she stared at Vin, Misty realized it wasn’t the fight that had her heart beating a little faster. It was the fact that for the first time in longer than she could remember, someone had stood up for her.

And she had no idea what to do with that.

CHAPTER 6

Vin remained still and silent as he worked on getting his Jaguar under control. The damn thing wasn’t happy that Vin had kept him out of the fight, but sometimes he needed to take care of business without his Jaguar. This had definitely been one of those times. Six Crows were still six Crows, but he’d known before the first punch was thrown that he could handle them. What he hadn’t expected was how badly his Jaguar wanted a piece of them, especially Griffin.

His attention remained on Misty as he finally felt his Jaguar begin to settle. She hadn’t moved from where she was treading water, and when he noticed her shiver, he frowned. “Come on out now.”

Instead of swimming toward shore, she just stared at him. It took Vin a second to realize what the problem was, and when he did, a grin tugged at his lips. “Oh,”

“Yeah, oh,” Misty rolled her eyes. “Turn around.”

“You know, I have seen naked women before.” Vin said, then turned around his grin still in place.

Misty snorted. “Well, you’re not seeing this one.”

Too late, he thought his grin fading slightly.

The thought came fast, along with the memory of her standing on that rock with her back to him, singing beneath the night sky. Vin immediately shoved both aside. He hadn’t come looking for her hoping to catch her naked. Hell, he’d followed her to make sure she got home safely. Finding her swimming in the lake had been unexpected, and he’d done his best to give her privacy.

Mostly.

Chuckling, Vin turned his back to her, but that didn’t help much. If anything, not being able to see her only seemed to make him more aware of the woman behind him. He could hear her moving through the water and knew the second she stepped onto shore. His Jaguar, who had finally started to calm the hell down, became restless all over again and that caught Vin’s attention.

He’d been around beautiful women his entire adult life and had never had his Jaguar give much of a shit one way or another. Yet this Crow had the damn thing pacing inside him like it wanted something Vin hadn’t figured out yet.

Hell, maybe he didn’t want to figure it out.

“You can turn around now.” Misty said sounding out of breath.

When Vin faced her again, Misty stood watching him with wet hair falling around her shoulders. For once there wasn’t a smartass remark waiting on her lips, and he wasn’t sure he liked that nearly as much as he should.

“Thank you,” she finally said.

“You don’t need to thank me.” Vin’s voice was deeper than normal as he noticed how delicate she looked standing there.

“Yes, I do.” Misty glanced toward the trees where Griffin and the others had disappeared. “You didn’t have to do that.”

Vin stared at her, surprised that she actually believed that.

“Yeah,” he replied, holding her gaze. “I did.”

Something passed across her face that he couldn’t quite read before she looked away. Vin didn’t push. He was still trying to figure out his own reaction to everything that had happened. He’d followed a woman he barely knew into the woods because he wanted to make sure she got home safely, stood hidden in the trees while she swam naked in a lake, then stepped out and fought six Crows without giving any of it much thought.

Okay, when he put it like that, the shit sounded a little fucked up.

Especially the naked-in-the-lake part.

Thankfully, Misty had no idea about that, and Vin planned on keeping it that way. He hadn’t followed her to spy on her. He’d stayed because something inside him refused to leave her alone out here, and after Griffin and his crew showed up, he was damn glad he’d listened to that instinct.

His Jaguar agreed.

Vin had always had a strong connection with his animal, but this was different. His Jaguar wasn’t simply reacting to a threat or the possibility of a fight. It was reacting to Misty, and Vin had no fucking clue why. Or did he and he just didn’t want to admit that to himself.