FIFTEEN
Alex stared at the picture and the note that Natches slapped on his kitchen table the next morning.
“Why the hell aren’t you at the apartment?” Natches bit out. “Whoever’s watching her is close, Alex.”
“She threw me out,” Alex murmured, staring at the image someone’s camera had captured. Janey, locked against him, his hold dominant, appearing forceful. It looked bad. It had been hot as hell when it happened.
“And you’re not covering her ass? You didn’t call any of us?” Natches stomped around the kitchen. “How do you know she’s safe?”
“I called in backup and told Faisal to keep an eye on her. That boy is hell in a fight, you know.” He stared at the letter, a frown brewing on his brow. “What the fuck is this?” He slapped the paper to the table. “They think she’s somehow corrupting me?”
“Yeah, go figure,” Natches sneered as he threw him a hostile look.
“And this was waiting in Ray’s truck last night after hours?”
“That’s what I said.” Natches was livid. A livid Natches was not a comfortable sight. “Who’s watching Janey?”
“Tyrell Grayson and Mark Lessing. And as I said, Faisal is inside.” Alex stared at the picture again. “This was taken from across the street, wasn’t it?”
“Good guess, Sherlock,” Natches grunted.
Alex’s lips thinned. “Natches, work with me here.”
“I worked with you when I mistakenly thought you were looking out for Janey, rather than looking for a way into her bed,” he snarled. “Hell, Alex. How would you feel if those were pictures of Crista? What would you have done if you had had photos of the night she spent with Dawg when she was eighteen? Would you have been a happy little camper?”
Alex clenched his jaw. Hell no. He hadn’t had pictures and he hadn’t been a happy camper.
“Some things a brother doesn’t need to know, or see. Hickeys on her lover’s neck, a man too old for her to begin with. And pictures of him manhandling her.”
“Fuck you,” Alex growled.
“Not in this lifetime, hotshot,” Natches snapped back.
Alex ran his hand over his head. Natches had to be one of the most stubborn, difficult bastards he had ever run across.
Natches was an aggravation. This picture was dangerous.
“I’ve had Tyrell and Mark watching the apartment when I’m gone since the night we found the note in her kitchen. So far, nothing’s happened. No one’s been overly curious, and no one’s been following her.”
“Where is she now?” Natches glared back at him.
“I talked to her just before you arrived. Called her cell phone. She was getting ready to go to the office to get some work done.”
“Your men check the office and restaurant?” Natches’s voice was hard, cold.
Alex nodded at that. “They have a key to the office as well as the apartment. They finished checking it out just before I left. They have surveillance set up on the three entrances and are watching Janey specifically.”
“You brought in two of your men,” Natches growled. “Your gut’s crawling, aint it?”
Yes, it was. It had been for days.
“I’m moving in with her tonight for good,” he told Natches. “There will be no more leaving in the morning. I’ll set up there, keep a better eye on her.”
“Shit.” Natches braced his hands on the counter and stared out the kitchen window. “Hell, Alex. She was supposed to be safe now.”
“She will be.” Alex wouldn’t have it any other way. “She is safe, Natches. And she’s damned careful. Janey’s no one’s fool. Pay attention to something more than your pride sometime and you’ll see that.”
Tyrell and Mark had noticed it. Staying out of sight, Mark had reported, was becoming increasingly hard. Janey was sharp, and she watched people, cars. She wasn’t the least bit casual about her own protection.
It was something Alex had noticed as well. That picture was an anomaly. Normally, Janey was very careful about pulling her curtains closed once they entered the apartment. He’d distracted her that night.
“This is bad,” Natches finally said, his voice weary, worried. “This is bad, Alex. Whoever’s doing this is serious.”
“We already assumed that. That’s why we’re seriously watching her, Natches.” He turned to the other man, seeing the tense set of his shoulders. “But if you don’t get off her ass and let her live her own life, when it’s over, she’s going to walk away.”
Natches knew that. Alex knew he knew it. But it bore affirming.
Natches finally shrugged. “You’re still alive.”
“Barely,” Alex grunted as he collected the picture and shoved it into the envelope Natches had handed him. “I’m going to keep this. Check a few things.”
Natches shrugged and turned back to him as Alex picked up the extra bag he had packed that morning. Clothes, a few extra weapons. He was prepared to move into the apartment that night, despite Janey’s objections.
“You going to show her that picture?” Natches asked, nodding to the envelope.
“Why wouldn’t I?”
Janey deserved to know. It was her life, her protection. She had to know to be on guard.
“You going to tell her where you got it from?” Natches asked.
Alex flipped the envelope around to show his name on the front. “What do you think?”
“Bastard!” he snorted.
“Why didn’t you bring this to Janey?” Alex leaned against the table, curious. Natches was fierce in his protection of his sister, but Alex hadn’t seen a lot of interaction between them.
Natches shrugged. “Look, Hickey Man, keeping her ass safe is your job.” He glowered at Alex’s neck.
“No, it’s her job as well,” Alex pointed out. “She can’t be on guard if she doesn’t know what the hell is going on. If she knows, then she knows to help me protect her.”
“No shit,” Natches muttered.
Damn Mackays. There wasn’t a one of them that was easy to deal with.
“What do you want from me, Natches?” he asked. “You want me to walk away? Leave her unprotected?”
“What I want isn’t the question.” Natches shook his head. “Time for me to go.”
“Why don’t you try talking to your sister, Natches?” Alex asked as he headed for the door. “Is it that hard?”
Natches paused at the door, staring out the window, tense. Angry.
“She doesn’t talk to me,” he finally said. “I get yes. No. Okay. Whatever. I get polite smiles and noncommittal answers.” He turned back slowly. “Does she talk to you?”
Alex felt it then. The thing he couldn’t put his finger on since staying with her, since touching her.
“She talks to her cat,” he finally admitted. “She doesn’t talk to me.”
He could hear her mumbling every morning to that damned cat, behind the closed bedroom door after he left her. She snuggled it in the evening, fed the little bastard ground steak, and pampered it so much Alex actually felt a little jealous at times.
Natches grimaced. “Well, hell. I don’t feel so damned pissed off now. At least I’m not alone.”
Which didn’t make Alex feel any better.
As he opened his lips to return a mocking retort, his cell phone rang. Having checked the number, he answered it quickly.
“You’re calling me,” he murmured, turning away from Natches. “Is everything okay?”
Janey had never called him.
“You know a lot about computers, right?” There was an edge of frustration in her tone.
“A little bit.” He arched his brows. “What’s wrong?”
“My computer, obviously.” She sighed heavily. “There are files missing, jumbled. I can’t make sense of half of what’s on here. Can you come look at it? I need to locate my suppliers file and bills I do through my accounting software. It’s messed up, Alex. Bad.”
“I’ll be right there,” he promised her. “Keep the chair warm for me.”
There was silence on the line.
“Are you cold?” There was an edge of amusement in her tone, but also confusion.
“I could be.”
“I’ll turn the heat up,” she promised. “See you soon, Alex.”
She disconnected the phone as he pulled it back and stared at it with a frown. Hell, she didn’t talk to him or flirt with him. Damned stubborn Mackay female. He glared at Natches.
“Let me guess. Janey?” Natches flicked the phone a brooding look.
“Her computer’s messed up.” He shoved the phone back into its holster before gripping the duffel bag and moving to the door. “I promised her I’d come look at it.”
“Is she going to keep your seat warm for you?” Natches mocked angrily. “Moron.”
“Asshole,” Alex growled back at him, though he couldn’t help the grin that tugged at his lips. “I hope that kid of yours is a girl.”
Natches stopped on the sidewalk. A full, hard stop as Alex turned back to see his pale features.
“Take that back,” he seemed to wheeze.
“What?”
“The D word,” Natches bit out. “Take it back, Alex. You little bastard, don’t make me kill you.”
Alex laughed. “Scared, Natches?”
“Shaking in my fucking boots,” Natches whispered, slowly moving again, heading for his motorcycle. “Oh Lord, I’m shaking in my fucking boots.”
“I swear, Janey, I think either your computer has been hacked or someone managed to get into it.” Rogue stepped back from the desk, a cup of coffee in hand as Janey disconnected the call with Alex.
She looked at the security system next to the door of the office thoughtfully. She knew Alex had tweaked the security, said it would be harder to bypass now. Someone had gotten into her apartment easily enough; it would be entirely possible that the stalker had gotten into her office.
“This is going to turn into a headache.” She sighed as Rogue brought her coffee over to the seating area and lounged back in the very same chair Alex had taken her in the night before.
She was so glad she had thought to use cleaner on the leather furniture. She could just imagine her horror if Natches had sat in it before she cleaned it. Oh Lord. Her head was a mess. Alex had messed her up bad last night and she wasn’t recovering very well.
“I can see you’re enjoying cohabitation with the luscious soldier you’re hiding upstairs.” Rogue grinned, glancing at her neck. “You did a good job masking it. Almost.”
Janey rested her elbows on her knees and pushed her fingers through her hair in irritation. “Thanks, Rogue,” she muttered.
“Come on, Janey. It’s cute.” She laughed. “But I hear his is even better. A real branding.”
Janey groaned. “Stop. He’s on his way over here. He’ll know we’ve been talking about him if you keep this up.”
“He reads minds?” Rogue’s brow arched.
“Probably.” She restrained a shiver. Last night, he’d sure read hers. He’d taken what she’d given him and built on it until it blew her mind. Now here she was, a mindless waste without a hope of repairing the damage before he walked through the door.
“Gossips are going crazy, my friend,” Rogue drawled. “No one’s figured out who’s doing you yet. It’s killing them.”
“The gossips are always going crazy over something.” Janey shook her head and stared back at Rogue.
Long red gold curls seethed from the crown of her head and flowed down her back. Dressed in jeans, boots, and a long-sleeved T-shirt, she looked like a wild, untamed pixie.
“Yeah, but this gossip is getting weird.” Rogue shook her head in confusion. “I’d have expected that little manager of yours, Hoyt, to be accused of it, but no one breathes his name.”
“Hoyt?” she gasped. “Hoyt’s a sweetheart. Everyone loves him. Besides, he’s too young for me.”
“He’s your age, Janey.” Rogue laughed. “You’re just too fixated on that whole older-man thing.”
No, she was fixated on Alex. That was her problem.
She groaned in frustration. “I should have stayed in California.”
“And miss all the fun here?” Rogue laughed. “Really, Janey, that’s so selfish of you, wanting your privacy and peace over our entertainment. Alex should spank you.”
She flushed to the roots of her hair as Rogue squealed in glee.
“Oh my God, has he spanked you?”
“No!” She glared at her friend. “Leave me alone. You’re too bad, Rogue.”
“You liar.” Rogue laughed, amusement sparkling in her violet eyes. “He spanked you, didn’t he?”
Did those few little slaps last night count? Oh hell yes they did, because she wanted more.
“He didn’t spank me. Now stop. This is embarrassing.”
“Only because you never had a real friend before.” Rogue waved her comment away as she propped her feet on the glass coffee table and wagged her brows suggestively. “You should give me all the deets, you know. That way, I can look bored and uninterested when all the good juicy gossip pours in. I can be a mystery, and let everyone think I know absolutely more than they do, which I will. It ups my standing in the little demi-community I live within.”
The demi-community, as Rogue called it, consisted of bikers and misfits, criminals and troublemakers. Somehow, Rogue knew all of them.
“I think you can manage to make them believe you know even when you don’t,” Janey pointed out. “You don’t need deets.”
“But deets make it much more fun.” Rogue sighed heavily. “Oh well, since you refuse to accommodate me . . . Do you think Alex will bring that sexy sheriff with him?” She lifted her brows suggestively.
“I’d guess he’ll bring Natches with him if you saw his motorcycle in Alex’s driveway this morning.”
“Yes. I did. All that testosterone in one place.” Rogue gave a false shiver of pleasure. “It’s enough to make a woman have naughty thoughts.”
“Try living with all that testosterone.” Janey sighed. “You’ll change your mind fast.”
“No doubt.” Rogue cocked her head and listened as Janey heard the deep throb of a Harley pulling into the back lot. “Sounds like that testosterone is about to invade your office.”
“They fight,” Janey muttered. “They’re making me crazy.”
“Like two little boys over a toy.” Rogue’s laughter was light and compassionate. “Poor Janey. All that love and she doesn’t know what to do with it.”
Janey gave her a sharp look. Rogue grimaced and rolled her eyes. “Yeah, that’s all my bitterness coming out. Ignore me.”
It wasn’t the first time Rogue had made a remark, or given that explanation for it. Rogue had her “daddy,” who sent her presents, gifts, and pretty clothes. And he left her in Somerset to face the hell Nadine Grace had built for her when Rogue first arrived in town, as a teacher of all things.
Lena Rogue Walker had come into town as a high school teacher, and her first day on the job, Nadine Grace had invaded her schoolroom, along with the principal, demanding to know if Rogue was related to the Walkers that lived near the county line. Rumored moonshiners, a hard-drinking, rough-living lot that Johnny Grace had once tried to steal from.
Unfortunately, Rogue had been related to them. Her father was one of them, though he had left before the trouble with Johnny, and made a small fortune in electronics and the stock market.
What happened in the months after that had become Rogue’s personal nightmare, and still had the power to leave her shaking in fear, Janey knew.
Maybe it was the reason they were drawn to each other as friends. A similar hell. Nightmarish visions they couldn’t always separate in their dreams, and couldn’t forget while they were awake.
Whatever the reason, they had survived, and despite the other woman’s harder edge, Janey was coming to trust her as the only true friend she’d ever had.
Rising to her feet, Janey smoothed her hands down the sides of her jeans and straightened the snug T-shirt she wore before opening the door.
Right on time. Natches and Alex walked into the office. Both were scowling and neither seemed in a pleasant mood.
“Rogue, how did I know the two of you would end up hooking up?” Natches grinned when he saw the other woman. “Come here and give us a hug, sugar.”
Rogue was out of her chair and squealing like a little girl. “Oh boy, when the hags in town hear you gave me a hug, they’re going to be so green.”
She all but jumped into his arms as he laughed at her. When he set her back on her feet, he wagged his finger at her. “No gossip. Chaya will kick my ass.”
“You’ll love every minute of it.” Rogue wrinkled her nose as she turned away and lifted her bag from the coffee table, before turning to Alex. “Hey, stud, someone either hacked her ’puter or they manually inserted a bad boy virus that’s fucking with her. It’s beyond me.”
Alex paused at the desk and turned to Janey, his expression tight and controlled. “You called her first?”
Janey shrugged. “She was coming over this morning anyway.”
The look in his eye assured her that he wasn’t pleased that she hadn’t called him first.
“Looks like Rogue kept your chair warm for you, Alex.” Natches poked at him with a gleeful laugh.
“I am so out of here.” Rogue laughed as she turned to Janey and shook her head in sympathy. “Good luck, girlfriend. I don’t think I envy you after all.”
The door closed behind her as Janey watched Alex and Natches. Tension was riding high between the two men, and it had the power to make the back of her neck tingle.
“What’s going on?” she asked her brother.
Natches ran his hand over the back of his neck as he turned to Alex, glaring at him.
Janey felt like shaking her head as Alex stared back at her brother coolly.
Alex shook his head as he came around the desk, pulled a folded envelope from the pocket at the side of his duffel bag, and handed it to her as he pulled his jacket off.
Staring at the two men suspiciously, she lifted the envelope. “What’s this?”
“Someone left Natches a picture of us,” Alex told her quietly. “The night I went up to your apartment with you. They snapped a picture from the empty second-story room in the building across the street.”
The abandoned store across the street. Okay, this shouldn’t be too bad. A picture of them. They had kissed, but nothing else.
She glanced at Natches’s closed face before drawing the photo free from the envelope. She stared at it silently.
Oh, that didn’t look good. Her lips twitched at the sight of the hold Alex had on her. It was dominant, powerful. She lifted her eyes to him. “You’re still walking. Chaya must have a good influence on Natches.”
Alex grunted at that. “Read the letter.”
She was pulling the letter free. She blinked at the words and then lifted her gaze back to him and drawled, “I’m so naughty. Should I be spanked? Or killed?”
Natches’s muttered curse almost had her smiling, but the tight knot of fear growing in her stomach wouldn’t allow for it.
She tossed the papers to the table and pushed her fingers through her hair as she sat back on the couch and breathed out roughly.
“So what do we do now?”
“You come back to the boat,” Natches bit out.
“And endanger your wife and child?” she asked him.
He stared back at her in disbelief. “Excuse me here, Janey? Mackay Marina. Smack-dab in the middle of the Mackay dock? I don’t hardly think so. No one would dare try to strike out at you there, and we’d catch whoever was watching you.”
“Well, let’s see,” she mused. “There’s the drive to work. And back. Back is the kicker. Sometimes I don’t leave this office until after one. Then there’s the fact I have to be here early for deliveries. Speaking of which, I hope you have some cash on you. Desmond’s fresh vegetables are due any minute, and I don’t have my computer running for the check printout.” She looked at Alex as he stared back at her, his expression brooding. “Is it running?”
“Not yet.” His smile was hard.
Janey looked at the computer and back to him with a sigh.
“I need some money, Natches. I have several deliveries coming in this morning and no way to pay for them.”
Alex moved to the computer as her brother glared at her.
“Moving from here isn’t an option,” she told him firmly. “We’ve discussed this.”
He sat down in the chair across from her. Thank God it wasn’t the one Alex had done her in.
“I’m worried, sis,” he said softly. “This isn’t good. Someone has focused their crazy on you, and I can’t figure out who it is.”
“Obviously someone who respects the hell out of you and Alex.” She flipped her fingers to the letter still lying on the table. “They need someone to hate for what Dayle did. They don’t know me. You were responsible for catching him. They just need to let off some steam.”
“You know better than that,” Natches said.
Alex watched the exchange closely. He could see Natches’s fears, his guilt that Janey was being targeted. Brother and sister both were fighting against a barrier raised between them, one Dayle Mackay had placed there. Natches had taken the beatings until he was twenty, to ensure Dayle never abused Janey. And she knew it. Her guilt was like a cancer eating inside her. Natches had watched out for her from afar, bullied friends into helping him when she went away to school, and generally made himself crazy because Dayle had still managed to hurt her six months before. He hadn’t been able to protect her, and his guilt added to that barrier.
“I know I have to deal with this on my own.” Janey shook her head. “If it gets too bad, then I’ll leave.”
“And when you do, whoever it is will follow you. And there will be no one to protect you,” Alex bit out. “Is that what you want?”
He thought of the child he’d almost bet she was carrying. His baby. The hell she was leaving.
“You have a better choice?” Janey asked, that damned remote mask of hers slipping into place.
“Exactly what we are doing,” Alex growled. “Whoever it is will mess up. When he does, I’ll be here.”
The look she gave him made him hard as hell. There was the barest flicker in her gaze of heat, of knowledge. She knew exactly what they were doing. Fucking themselves to death if they kept up the way they were.
“Enough!” Natches snapped. “Enough of the looks, okay?”
“Natches, you seem to have a problem with me having a life. Period.” Janey surprised him. Him and Alex.
There was the barest edge of stress in her voice, just the lightest hint of mockery as she stared back at her brother. “I’m over eighteen, remember?”
“And we both remember how we failed to protect you six months ago,” Alex told her as he rebooted her computer and moved to counter whatever was distorting her programs. “We don’t intend to let that happen again.”
Natches scowled at him. “Yeah, what he said,” he growled, then muttered, “Didn’t ask his opinion, though.”
Janey narrowed her eyes between the two men. “Is this normal?” She finally asked.
“What?” Natches scowled.
“The way you two are bickering?”
“I bicker with Dawg constantly,” Alex told her absently as he worked at the computer. “Crista lets him get away with too much. Someone needs to point it out.”
Natches’s scowl deepened.
“Okay,” Janey said slowly. “Tell you what, I’m going to go to the kitchen and let Desmond know the veggies are definitely a go.” She rose from her seat.
“Janey, why don’t you have the cash to cover the deliveries?” Natches asked softly. “You get a salary as manager.”
“Locked in the computer.” She shrugged.
“She’s lying to you,” Alex stated, frowning at the computer as she whipped her head around to glare at him. He knew her too well.
“Janey.” Natches’s tone was warning. “What’s going on?”
“I had bills to pay. I paid them.” This was a discussion she didn’t want to get into.
“Your apartment is free.” Natches began ticking off her bills. “No car payment; I gave you that car. Electric, water, et cetera, are in with the restaurant, so that’s covered. Groceries are your main concern.” He raked his gaze over her. “You’re not exactly eating a lot.”
“Go to hell.” She moved for the door.
“When Alex gets that computer up, I’ll check your salary,” he said lazily. “Maybe we need to discuss what you’re making.”
“I hope you have a daughter,” she muttered, jerking the door open and slamming it behind her as she stalked into the hall.
Natches glowered at the door, then turned to Alex as he chuckled.
“I thought she loved me.” Natches sighed. “I really thought she loved me.”
Alex sat back slowly from the computer. “She’s been hacked. A virus was inserted and all her information wiped from the surface. I think I can retrieve it, but someone knew what they were doing. This is serious, Natches. Someone wants to destroy her.”
Natches stared back at Alex and breathed in heavily.
“I’ll kill them,” he said softly.
To which Alex replied, “You’ll have to beat me to it.”