“Emma always feeds my crew. That’s just her way.”

“You don’t have a chef? Or a housekeeper?” That surprised Eli. The house was very large, and it was rumored Emma had a difficult time carrying her last baby.

“I hire people all the time. Emma fires them. Well, she’s too sweet to fire anyone, but she refuses to allow anyone else to cook the children’s meals or mine. We have people come in a couple of times a week to do the bulk of the cleaning, but that’s about all I can get away with. The woman isn’t the least bit afraid of me.”

Jake said the last as if he’d failed miserably. Eli hid his grin. Jake, like Eli, needed control, especially around those he loved, yet he didn’t sound too upset that Emma wanted to run her household.

Eli was surprised that Emma insisted on doing the cooking for her family. He liked that. He liked that it mattered to her, and he could see Jake liked it as well. Jake looked like a happy man, and when he rested his gaze on his wife, the dark, intense look of love and possession was starkly there on his usually expressionless face.

“We’re lucky men,” Eli observed. “Catarina likes to cook for me as well. Here’s to our women and the way they care for us.” He tapped the long neck of Jake’s beer bottle with his own.

Jake smiled at him. “I like that your woman cooks. They’ve been talking nonstop about recipes and brands of pots and pans and now stoves for the last hour. Emma sounds happy.”

“I’ve been taking notes,” Eli admitted, with a small grin. “I don’t forget much, and when it comes to something Cat wants, I especially pay attention. She wants that stove. She’s mentioned it a few times now.”

Jake burst out laughing. “I knew you’d be ordering her that stove.”

“She wants it, she gets it.”

“You’ve got it bad, Eli.”

“You have no idea,” he admitted, surprised that it didn’t matter that Jake knew that Catarina had somehow become his world.

The smile faded from Jake’s face and he looked toward the kitchen. “Emma is my life. Without her, I’ve got nothing. I would kill to protect her, and I have. I understand the concept of giving her whatever she wants because in return she gives me everything. It isn’t easy for women to live with men like us, Eli. Your woman is fragile right now. I can see that. She’s just learning what shifters are and what drives them. I run roughshod over Emma at times and she handles it because she knows how.”

“I hear what you’re saying,” Eli said. “My leopard rides me pretty hard, especially when it comes to Catarina. I can’t lose her, and she’s definitely in danger. I’m trying to teach her as much about self-defense as I can and my male is working with her female. She’s gotten beat up in the last couple of weeks, but she never complains.”

“I made a lot of mistakes with Emma,” Jake admitted. “I was just lucky she hung in there with me.”

Eli’s eyes met Jake’s. “I don’t like the fact that Catarina never had a choice, because I’ll never know if I am her choice, but I’d never let her go. I don’t care what it takes, but I’d find a way to keep her. Sometimes I wonder how much that makes me like Cordeau in her eyes.” He admitted the truth quietly.

Jake studied his face for a long time and then took a long pull on the beer. “I’d never give up Emma. If I had to, I’d lock her in my house and work my ass off day and night to figure out where I screwed up and how to fix it, but I wouldn’t let her go. She knows that. She accepts that in me. She accepts a lot of things in me. Because she does, I work hard to make certain she’s happy and that she stays that way. When something’s important to her, I give in, even if it goes against everything protective in me.”

Eli frowned. “Such as?”

“She loves the ranch, but we’re isolated. I think it will help with Catarina being close, given the things they have in common. But once in a while she wants to go for a ride by herself, or go into the city to shop. She doesn’t spend money and she’s always a little shocked when I give her extravagant gifts, but she likes to just be what she calls normal.”

“Of course she can’t. You have enemies.”

Jake nodded. “No, she can’t. But I want to give that to her, because it matters to her. Kills me to let her go off in a car by herself. I’ve got tracking on it and on her. And my boys are all around her. She knows, but as long as they don’t make it obvious, she doesn’t bitch at me. Shopping, she’s surrounded by a crew. Best I can do for her. She doesn’t like it, but she knows it’s got to be that way. She never objects when it comes to security for the kids, but it’s much harder to accept it for herself.”

Eli stirred uneasily. “You let her go shopping in the city without you? And drive her car around aimlessly?”

“Do you ever try to imagine what it’s like for our women to live with men like us, Eli? We’re not easy and we’ll never be easy. I don’t like her out of my sight. That can smother an ordinary woman. I’m the one in control, although I’ve done everything I can to make certain she feels she’s on equal footing with me, but we both know the bottom line is I’d never let her go. She’s my world. I swear to God, I lose that woman and I’m lost too, kids or no kids. And I love my children with everything in me.”

Eli raked his hand through his hair. He’d already known what Jake was saying to him. He wasn’t an easy man, and he didn’t have a lot of friendships. He was rough and arrogant and bossy and he liked control. His emotions were generally held in check, until Catarina came into his life. Suddenly everything was different. His feelings for her were intense, bordering on obsession. Letting go, even a little, was terrifying. He didn’t know if he was that strong.