Claimed by the Cowboy (Sons of Chance #3) - Vicki Lewis Thompson Page 0,1

came from somewhere in the back of the apartment. Like the bedroom. “Find out who it is, okay?”

Jack clenched his right fist. “The name’s Jonathan Edward Chance, Jr., and Josie Keller’s my girl.” Then he punched this Alex joker smack in the kisser.

Sad to say, it wasn’t much of a blow. Jack wasn’t as steady as he might have been and the guy dodged at the last minute. Failing to land a solid punch, Jack dropped his shoulder and threw a tackle. That proved to be more effective. They both went down hard. Jack lost his hat and a good part of his dignity.

Alex swore and struggled to get free but Jack had him pinned. It was a hollow victory, though, because Jack had knocked the wind clean out of himself.

“What in the name of heaven is going on?”

I’m guarding my territory. The thought went through Jack’s head, but he didn’t have the breath to say it.

“Jack Chance, get off my brother this minute!”

Thank God he hadn’t said it. Her brother? Jee-sus. The back of his neck grew hot as he pushed himself to his hands and knees.

Alex glared up at him. He didn’t look happy. But he did look quite a bit like Josie. Same blond hair, same gray eyes. Come to think of it, Josie had mentioned an older brother named Alex, but he was supposed to be in Chicago, not standing in her doorway barefoot giving the wrong impression, namely that he was fixing to be Jack’s replacement.

“Sorry about that, man.” Jack staggered to his feet and held out a hand to help the guy up.

Alex ignored Jack’s outstretched hand as he stood under his own power. Then he turned to Josie. “I take it you know this jerk, then.”

Josie must have been getting ready for bed. She was dressed in the silky black robe Jack remembered, but her jeans peeked out underneath, so she hadn’t completed the undressing process when Jack had arrived. She hadn’t taken her long hair out of its braid, either. Jack used to love when she did that.

She sighed. “Yes, I know him. This is Jack Chance, the guy I was dating last year.”

Dating. Such a lame word for what they’d had going on. Josie made it sound as if they’d kept each other company during the occasional dinner, followed by a PG-rated movie. Instead they’d spent hours having wild monkey sex in this apartment. Sometimes they’d even used the bed. There wasn’t a piece of furniture in the place that didn’t remind Jack of being buck-naked with Josie.

Well, maybe the stove. They’d never done it on the stove, because sure as the world they would have hit a switch in the midst of the crazy action and singed something vital.

Alex’s eyes narrowed and his fists clenched at his sides. “So this is the one.”

Stepping neatly between Jack and Alex, Josie put a hand on her brother’s chest. “I’m not angry about that anymore, Alex.”

Jack got a whiff of her perfume, which had always reminded him of peach schnapps. God, how he’d missed her.

“You may not be angry anymore, but I’m pissed as hell.” Alex’s jaw tightened. “As I recall, this SOB dropped you like a hot potato when his dad died. And now he has the unmitigated gall to barge in here as if—”

“I thought you were her new boyfriend, Keller. Sorry.” Nobody had ever accused Jack of having unmitigated gall. Not many folks around Shoshone, Wyoming, talked that way. Jack had been accused of having a hell of a lot of nerve, but never unmitigated gall.

Last Jack had heard, Alex was a DJ for one of Chicago’s drive-time radio shows. Stood to reason he’d have a big-deal vocabulary to go with his job.

“And what if I had been her boyfriend, hotshot?” Alex balanced on the balls of his feet. “You think you can dictate who she sees? Somebody needs to teach you some manners.”

Jack figured the guy could start swinging any minute. Although Jack had never had a sister, he could imagine how a brother might feel toward someone who had treated his sister the way Jack had treated Josie. Jack wasn’t proud of his actions, but at the time they’d made some sort of crazy sense.

He’d been in bed with Josie the morning his dad had called wanting his help to pick up a filly from a nearby ranch. Jack had put him off with the excuse that a storm was brewing, when actually he hadn’t wanted to leave