Her attacker had gotten away.
Erin stood silently as she listened to her brother’s report, aware of Turk close behind her. The warmth of his big body, the feeling of security he exuded kept that first, hard flare of fear from igniting inside her.
“Sorry, sis.” John D sighed, his light-blue eyes concerned as he watched her carefully.
“Nothing was taken from the apartment that I could see,” J.D. assured her. “Your window is being repaired as we speak. I’ll have a female agent come in and pack your things. When we leave I’ll make arrangements to have you transferred…”
“No.” Surprised, the word popped from her mouth before she could hold it back.
J.D.’s eyes narrowed slowly, tension radiating through his body with such energy. Erin swore every male in the room followed suit with instinctive dominance.
Give her a break. She was going to smother from testosterone at this rate.
“What do you mean, ‘no’?” her stepfather finally growled.
“I’m not leaving, J.D.,” she informed him firmly.
“Then I’ll fire you!” The threat was an old one. Even John D. smirked at the sound of it.
* * *
“And you’re not firing me either.” Erin moved carefully away from Turk, all too aware that he and Cooper were none too pleased with J.D.’s warning.
J.D. glowered back at her. “Erin, this is serious,” he informed her as he leaned forward slowly and braced his hands on the counter. “You were attacked.”
“I wasn’t hurt.”
Sometimes, it was best to simply stare him down.
“Have you looked at your face yet?” he snapped when she didn’t blink. “Take a look in the mirror then tell me you weren’t hurt.”
She snorted at that. “It hurt more when John D. wrecked the four-wheeler last summer. And the bruises were worse.”
J.D. turned to his son slowly. “You said you were alone,” he reminded John D. with a hint of anger.
John D. shook his head with an air of brotherly exasperation.
“Come on, Dad, I told you she lies on me. Those innocent green eyes are hiding a heathen determined to get me disowned,” he accused her
Erin rolled her eyes at his statement. Sadly, J.D. was used to them.
“I’ll get to the bottom of the four-wheeler wreck later,” he snapped, straightening from the counter. “Get your purse. I want to get you out of here before anything else happens.…”
“She said she wasn’t leaving!” Turk didn’t raise or lower his voice. He stepped closer to her, tension sizzling through the atmosphere around him.
J.D. and his son turned to him, nearly identical expressions of surprise on their faces now.
“I can handle this, Turk,” she breathed out wearily as she glimpsed the determination that filled his face and tightened his body.
J.D.’s smile was tight. John D. smirked back at her.
Really? she thought. Did she really have to deal with this bullshit tonight? Hadn’t she put up with enough already?
“I’m not a bone,” she informed them all as Turk moved in closer to her back, nearly touching her now.
John D. took a seat on the other side of the counter, propped his elbow on the counter, and rested the hard curve of his chin on his fist. The subtle wink he shot her as his black hair fell around the hard planes and angles of his face assured her he intended to be amused.
“Of course you’re a bone,” John D. drawled. “J.D. will never admit anyone else can take care of you.”
“John.” J.D. turned on him with a quiet, dark anger. “Get back to the van.”
John D. grinned but didn’t move.
“I’m not leaving. Leaving won’t solve anything. That attack was personal. It wasn’t a robbery,” she protested.
“All the more reason to have you reassigned,” J.D. pointed out, propping his hands on his hips like some Roman emperor surveying all he held power over.
He did not control her. She refused to allow it.
“All the more reason to stay here,” she argued. “If I run I’m always looking over my shoulder until the bastard catches me unaware. If I stay, Cooper, Turk, and the others will ensure it ends here.”
“Possibly ending your life as well,” he snarled. “And just how do you think your mother will handle this?”
“Don’t tell her,” she suggested blandly. “That’s where you always make your mistake. You blab, J.D.”
For God’s sake, why did he keep involving her mother?
“Don’t tell her?” J.D. asked her as though amazed she would suggest it. “And you think she wouldn’t find out?”
“What does it matter?” Crossing her arms over her breasts she found herself less than willing to continue this debate. “You can’t force me to leave. I won’t let you. Conserve your energy and the hair you’ll end up pulling out by figuring out who it is now rather than later. Or worse yet, when he catches me unaware and kills me because none of us were expecting it.”
“She’s right, Dad.” John D. was no longer amused.
“I didn’t ask you,” J.D. growled.
“If we keep her from sight,” Cooper cut in then, “let no one know where she’s at, someone will start asking questions. That someone would lead us to the answers we need.”
“I didn’t ask you either,” J.D. growled, casting Cooper a silencing look.
“Then ask me.” The sound of Turk’s voice had her wincing. “She stays right here. No one would know. They could suspect she’s here, next door at Iron’s place, or downstairs at Jake’s. They’ll have to come looking for her and when they do, we can eliminate the threat once and for all.”
Stay here? At Turk’s place?
“Well, sis,” John D. drawled then, obviously amused once again. “There are your options. Door number one or door number two?”
“Try door number three,” she murmured.
Her brother’s brow lifted as laughter gleamed in his emerald-green eyes. Behind her, Turk muttered a curse.
“And what would door number three be?” Only Cooper was brave enough to ask.
J.D. sighed. “She’ll decide once she makes up her mind which of us deserves to die first.” He looked at Turk. “She’s staying with you. I live with her mother, I know that look.”
She was quite certain he did. Since J.D. and her mother married nine years before and he’d seen their couch as a bed more times than once.
“I’ll sneak over and get her clothes,” John D. decided, then turned to Cooper. “Get Gabby over here to drive her car around and stay in her apartment with Jake. With a little work, she could look enough like Erin to perhaps fool whoever’s looking for her.”
Gabby was the bar’s camera and security tech, normally hidden in the basement of the bar and buried in code and camera surveillance.
John D. was all but rubbing his hands together in glee.
“Boys and girls, let’s have fun.”
“Good God, I should have drowned you at birth.” J.D. stared at his son as though he were demented. “Gabby will eat Jake alive, Miss Do-it-my-way-here”—he jerked a thumb at Erin—“will probably end up strangled before Turk realizes he’s done it and you’ll leave a hell of a mess for me and Cooper to clean up.”
John D. laughed. “And just think, I’m your heir.”
“It’s not too late to drown you, John,” J.D. assured him. “Not too late at all.”
His son only laughed back at him before shooting Erin another of those cocky winks.
Damn, J.D. could practically feel life beginning to twist and turn. What was would be no longer.
So why wasn’t he fighting it harder?