TWELVE

She was shaking.

Lyrica could feel the shudders. They originated inside her body and reverberated outward, trembling through muscle and bone until it was all she could do to keep her teeth from chattering.

Her Jeep was surprisingly intact. Whatever the hell kind of tank Dawg had turned it into during the years he’d driven it had saved her life.

“Ms. Mackay? Are you sure you’re okay?” The young woman who had helped Lyrica out of the Jeep and up the ravine to her own car stared back at her with the wildest damned green eyes. “I called for help. They’ll be here soon.”

Lyrica had never seen eyes quite like hers. They were aqua green, vivid and bright, and filled with concern as she ran her hands over Lyrica’s arms and legs and up her rib cage.

If she hadn’t recognized the experienced search for broken bones and internal bleeding, she would wonder if the other woman was copping a feel.

Lyrica focused on the woman’s face again, realizing she’d seen her before.

“You . . . you’re my neighbor.” She felt disoriented, her thoughts scattering easily.

“Yeah, I moved in about three months ago.” Sitting on her haunches, the other woman frowned back at her. “Are you certain you’re okay?” She held up fingers. “How many?”

Lyrica blinked back at her. “Really?”

“Give me a number, girlie,” she demanded with a quick grin and firm voice. “We don’t have all night here.”

“Two.” A tickle at the side of her head had her lifting her hand. She came away with a vivid swipe of scarlet against her fingers.

Blood.

Hell, she was bleeding.

“Is it bad?” she asked the woman. “If you called an ambulance, my family will probably beat them here. They don’t handle the sight of blood really well.”

At least, not the blood of those they cared for.

“It’s not bad,” she was assured.

The woman whisked her shirt off, revealing a minuscule white undershirt, the lace bra beneath it apparent as she took the black T-shirt and dabbed at the blood.

“You were lucky. Damned lucky, girlie. That van should have crumpled your Jeep instead of just throwing you into that ravine.”

Thankfully, Lyrica had been hit from the passenger side instead of the driver’s. Otherwise, the force of the blow would have probably killed her.

“His lights were off,” she whispered, her heart beating so fast it was hard to speak.

The gleam of the full moon against chrome had been her only warning, giving her a fraction of a second to lessen the impact. Still, she’d been unable to avoid it. That, along with the sharp twisting of the wheel, had unbalanced the Jeep and sent it careening into the ravine.

“I saw that.” Her rescuer nodded, watching her in concern. “Are you sure you’re okay? No double vision or anything?”

She felt her lips tremble.

“I’m alive, right?” For a moment, she couldn’t understand why she was alive.

“Amazingly.” Eyes somber, the aqua green of her gaze staring down at Lyrica in concern, the woman brushed back her dark bangs and nodded. “I was sure you weren’t for a few minutes there, though.”

The sound of a powerful motor accelerating toward them, tearing along the blacktop, had her sighing in resignation.

A Mackay hadn’t arrived first, it seemed.

The young woman crouched in front of her was suddenly on her feet, one hand reaching behind her back as she moved to the front of the car. Tires screamed behind the little sedan and Lyrica watched the woman’s gaze narrow for a moment before she seemed to relax.

Black as death, the top down, the Viper came to a rocking stop, seeming to shudder in the sedan’s headlights.

Graham jumped from the open car as the sound of another powerful motor came screaming around the curve. Just as the Viper had, the Corvette’s tires screeched in protest as the engine suddenly began powering down, finally coming to a stop just ahead of the Viper.

“Lyrica.” Graham was in front of her, kneeling in the dirt next to the sedan, his hands going over her much as the woman’s had done.

“It wasn’t mistaken identity,” she whispered, staring into the golden hue of his eyes. His eyes went gold only when he was pissed. Or when he was aroused. She rather doubted it was arousal at the moment.

“Are you hurt?” He didn’t answer her.

His hands cupped her cheeks, his gaze holding hers with an intensity that seemed to mesmerize her.

“I’m scared.” Her voice trembled, shocking her with the weak, horrified sound of it. “Someone really wants me dead, Graham.”

“Come on, baby, we have to get you out of this car. Angel has to go.” Reaching down, he lifted her gently from her seat as her hands gripped his shoulders, her head falling against his shoulder.

She’d known it the moment she’d realized the van was going to plow into her Jeep—the attempt on her life in London hadn’t been a mistake at all. It had been deliberate.

“Get the hell out of here before the ambulance arrives.” Graham snapped out the order as he lowered her into the passenger side of the Viper.

She was aware of the woman getting into the sedan, the driver of the Vette jumping back into it. Just that fast, the two were pulling quickly away and racing from the scene of the wreck.

As the other vehicles sped into the night, Graham hurriedly closed her door before running to the driver’s side and jumping in.

“Call Dawg,” he ordered crisply.

The order didn’t make sense until Dawg’s voice crackled through the car’s stereo system.

“I have her,” Graham snapped, the Viper continuing to accelerate as he raced away from the wreck. “You know where we’ll be.”

“Status?” Dawg seemed to be snarling.

“Quick exam shows no broken bones or internal injuries,” he reported. “I’ll know more once we reach the safe house.”

“Contact immediately if that changes,” Dawg ordered him. “I’m with Alex, coming on the scene now. We’ll contact you once we’re finished.”

The call disengaged as the Viper flew around the curves of the road leading away from her mother’s inn, where she’d been heading.

They were heading toward the lake, she realized.

The top was still down, though the lights of the dash were dark and she realized the car’s headlights weren’t on, either. She couldn’t see the road well enough to know if they were driving along the mountainous road or racing into hell.

Looking over at Graham, Lyrica realized he was wearing glasses. Sunglasses? They were dark, wrapping around his face with the faintest hint of color at the very edges.

She had to have died, she thought.

None of this could be real.

None of it made sense.

Just as she was certain they were going to go tearing off the road and flying into oblivion, the car’s lights were suddenly back on and Graham was tearing the glasses off, dropping them onto the console next to him. The headlights revealed a mile marker placed about a half mile before the turn leading to his home.

The Viper slowed enough to take the turn comfortably, without the scream or whine of the tires’ protest.

“We’re almost there, baby.” Broad, powerful fingers covered hers where they rested on her lap and gave them a gentle squeeze.

She stared down at his hand. His fingers laced between hers, dark and broad, safe. Once again, he’d saved her. Once again, it was Graham who’d reached her first, who’d raced to her rescue as though he had no other purpose in life.

There was no escaping him, no escaping the heat and the hunger that shadowed her every waking and sleeping moment, she realized.

She belonged to him, and not just because he had saved her life. She had belonged to him since the moment she had met him.

Whatever he wanted.

However he wanted her.

For as long as she had, she was his.

—

Graham pulled the Viper into the garage, aware of the door closing securely behind him as he turned off the ignition and pushed open the door. Moving quickly, he strode around the vehicle, jerked Lyrica’s door open, and reached in for her.

She was staring at him as though she’d never seen him before. Those emerald eyes, dark with shock, filled with terror, stared back at him with such heavy fear and confusion that he felt his chest clenching in fury.

As he’d raced to the scene of the wreck earlier, he’d realized how very close the present was coming to the past. Except this woman belonged to him. For whatever reason, he couldn’t walk away from her, couldn’t get her out of his head.

Long ago and far away, he thought. That night seemed a lifetime ago. The explosions, the gunfire ripping around them, and the woman in his arms, with her bright green eyes and black silk curtain of hair that, despite the short length, he had imagined more than once was Lyrica’s.

As she died in his arms, her lover, the man he had once called a friend, stood over him with a hard, cold smile, his weapon aimed at Graham’s head, his finger tightening on the trigger.

“House is secure,” Elijah called from the kitchen as Graham snapped back to the present and stepped into the house, Lyrica cradled in his arms. Elijah’s expression was tight, savage as Graham passed him.

“No word on the van that hit her,” Elijah reported as Graham strode quickly through the kitchen and took the stairway at the back of the house that led upstairs to his room. “Angel’s mounted video camera recorded it all, though. Angel was coming around the curve behind Lyrica just as the van raced toward her from the side road. Timothy will have it within the hour and begin breaking it into frames for evidence.”

He was going to kill the bastard, Graham promised himself as he moved quickly into his suite.

“Pull up the advanced security protocols,” he ordered Elijah as he strode through the small sitting room and into the large bedroom.

There, he laid a still, silent Lyrica on his bed, the uncomfortable feeling that he had no idea what the fuck to do now almost overwhelming him.

She did that to him sometimes, he thought. Made him feel as though he were touching a woman for the first time, feeling things he hadn’t felt before.

“Everything’s in place.” Elijah entered the bedroom, carrying the medic bag he kept with him whenever possible.

“I’m okay,” Lyrica assured Graham, her voice still trembling as she glanced at the bag.

“I have to be sure, baby.” He touched her cheek with the tips of his fingers because he couldn’t help himself. Because he had to touch her, to feel her warmth, to be certain she was alive.

She was silent as he moved back, her gaze following him, holding his gaze, as Elijah began his own examination.

Elijah was gentle, his expression, his actions showing no hesitation, no personal emotion as he touched her. His hands went over her arms and legs, his fingers pressing into her belly, her sides. His voice was quiet as he questioned her. Checking her temple, he then ran his hands over her head and through her hair before sitting back.

“I’d still prefer she be x-rayed and checked over by a physician,” Elijah finally announced as he rose from the side of the bed and packed the blood pressure cuff and stethoscope back into the bag. “So far, though, she appears fine.”

“Dawg’s Jeep is built like a tank,” she stated, her voice still weak. Too weak to suit Graham. “I had enough warning to twist the wheel before they hit, though. The moon was shining on the chrome. They had their lights out.” It would seem Tracker’s backer had taken matters into his own hands without giving the mercenary a chance to complete the contract after all.

“They made a mistake,” he assured her.

It shouldn’t have happened this time.

His fists clenched at his sides as guilt struck at his chest. If he’d heeded his own instincts, then it wouldn’t have happened. If he hadn’t trusted her brother’s precautions and instead done as everything inside him had demanded and kept her with him, then no one would have had a second chance to attempt to take her from him.

She looked away from him before turning on her side and drawing her knees up slightly. She looked lost, forlorn. As though this attempt on her life had somehow drained the hope that the first one hadn’t touched.

Waving Elijah from the room, Graham locked the door before turning back to her, his eyes tracking over her slender figure.

She was dressed in white shorts and a sleeveless shirt. White leather sneakers covered her feet, though her clothes and the shoes were dirt streaked now. Her fragile arms and legs were scratched and heavily bruised, the sight of them striking a match to the rage already simmering inside him.

“Dawg and the others will be here soon,” he told her, striding across the room to stand beside the bed. “Are you leaving with them, Lyrica, or are you staying here?”

He didn’t expect her family to demand she leave, but with Natches, anything could happen.

She looked up at him, vulnerability darkening the emerald depths of her eyes as her lips trembled momentarily.

“Answer me,” he growled, his fingers curling into fists at his sides at the thought of her being taken from him again. “If they demand you leave, Lyrica, what will you do?”

She licked her lips nervously, the resigned fear that filled her eyes slowly evaporating as that sparkle of determined will began to return.

“What do you care?” she demanded mutinously, color beginning to return to her pale face as she pushed herself into a sitting position.

Before he could answer, a determined knock at his door sounded.

“Graham, let me in!” Kye cried out. “I know she’s in there. Let me in.”

Grimacing at his sister’s demand, he turned away from Lyrica’s question and moved to the door instead. As soon as he unlocked it and pulled it open, he was all but run over by his sister in her haste to get to her friend.

“Oh my god.” Coming to a stop in front of Lyrica, Kye rocked back on her feet, staring at her friend in shock. “Lyrica, sweetie, you have to stop getting into trouble,” she demanded, her voice thick with tears. “I don’t know if my nerves can take much more.”

His sentiments exactly, Graham thought with a spurt of affection for his sister.

“Yeah, I’ll get right on that—promise,” Lyrica said with heavy irony. “Why don’t you be a real friend, Kye, and get me some clothes or something? I really need a shower.”

Kye glanced back at him in question.

Nodding, Graham let his gaze move over Lyrica one more time. She wasn’t shaking now, and the terror that had held her in its grip seemed to be relaxing marginally. Not that he could blame her for any of it, but he needed her fighting.

“In a minute, I’ll do just that,” Kye promised as she turned and dragged the chair Graham kept by the bed into place where she could face Lyrica.

Graham watched in resignation as his sister sat down, crossed her jean-clad legs, and stared at her friend like a prosecutor prepared to drag a statement free.

“Ah, Kye,” Lyrica groaned, her head hanging as she braced her hands on the mattress beneath her. “Don’t look at me like that. I don’t have any answers for you. I swear I don’t.”

Graham leaned against the door frame, almost grinning at the mutiny in Lyrica’s voice. His sister could be a demanding little wretch when she wanted answers, and that look on her face was well-known.

“I haven’t asked any questions yet,” Kye snorted. “I was more concerned with how you’re feeling.” Concern filled her face as she reached out to push back Lyrica’s hair and check the scratch on her face. “Lyrica, I told you not to be out driving at night, didn’t I?”

“You did.” Lyrica sighed.

“You didn’t listen to me, though, did you?” Kye demanded almost angrily.

“Kye, regardless of what you think, I don’t obey your every whim.” Amusement mixed with the exasperation in Lyrica’s voice. “Come on, I’m okay, right? Let’s just focus on that. And once you get me some clothes, I can get a shower and face my brother and cousins and god only knows who else before they arrive here soon.”

Kye’s head lifted, her eyes narrowing as she turned on Graham then.

“I’m not leaving again,” she stated stubbornly.

Graham frowned back at her. “You know the rules, Kye,” he reminded her. “You can stay with Sam, or I’ll have you flown out to California. It’s your choice.”

He didn’t leave room for argument.

“I hate this,” she snapped. “Lyrica’s my friend, Graham. She shouldn’t be stuck here alone.”

His eyes widened at the outburst as a deliberate chuckle left his lips. “What am I? She’s not alone, Kye. I’ll be here and god only knows who Dawg Mackay will try to force me into allowing to stay. I won’t have you endangered by this, and besides, how am I supposed to seduce her if you’re here to run interference? Think about that one, since it was your damned idea.”

Whatever argument was brewing in her sharp mind was thrown into reverse as Lyrica suddenly swung her head around to look at him, her eyes narrowing as he turned and stalked from the room.

He might as well put it out in the open now, he thought. He’d be damned if he’d let Kye’s little rule about being her friend affect his chances of keeping her in his bed any more than he’d let her brother’s objections.

She was his. He’d already made his mind up, and by god everyone else could step the fuck back or else he’d just push them aside. As of tonight, her objections could go to hell. She wanted him just as damned much as he was aching for her, and he was damned well about to do something about it.

—

Lyrica turned and stared back at Kye, who seemed to look at everything in the room but her.

“What have you done?” she asked her friend wearily. “Kye, dammit, I thought we agreed that sleeping with your brother was against the friendship rules or something.”

Kye’s gaze swung back to her then, the militant light gleaming there making Lyrica’s neck itch in warning.

“Well now, that was just before someone decided to try to kill you, right?” Kye burst out, her hands gripping the arms of the chair so tight her fingers paled. “This is one of those exceptions to the rules. I told him if he had to seduce you to protect you, then I’d rather you be his lover than see you dead.”

Lyrica blinked back at her, her stomach tightening at the reminder that dead had become a possibility earlier.

“How do you get this stuff into your head?” she groaned. “First I’m part of a power play by your brother to take the Mackay throne or some crap; now you’re throwing me in your brother’s bed because you think it’s the only way to save me.” She shook her head at Kye’s machinations. “Really, you need to find a hobby, because you drive the rest of the world crazy.”

Kye gave a disgusted little snort at the thought. “Hobbies are for people without purpose. I have a purpose—”

“Directing the lives of those around you?” Lyrica charged as she gripped the blankets beneath her in desperate fingers rather than trying to strangle her friend. “Kye, I love you like a sister, but I don’t need any help where your brother is concerned.”

“Ain’t that the truth,” Kye drawled in amusement. “He’s been so hot for you for years that it’s all he could do to keep from jumping your bones at any given time. Why do you think he started the bimbo squad? He had to find someone to take the edge off all that lust until he could figure out how to keep your brother and cousins from killing him once he got you into his bed.”

Lyrica stared at her friend in disbelief for several long seconds.

Finally, she forced herself to her feet, keeping a wary eye on the other girl, and walked stiffly to Graham’s closet.

“I need a shower,” she finally muttered. “Maybe I need to clean the dirt out of my ears from that wreck or something. Because I can’t be hearing you right.”

“Leave Graham’s clothes alone,” Kye suddenly hissed, moving so fast she was blocking her way before Lyrica could open the door to the huge walk-in closet. “It’s only going to make him think you’re willing to give in to him easily. Bad mistake. Stay right here; I’ll go get you something.”

Kye moved from the bedroom before Lyrica could protest or agree. Lyrica could only shake her head.

Moving into the closet, she chose a soft, long-sleeved button-up shirt in dark gray. She’d seen him wear that one before. The incredible softness of the material had skimmed over the powerful muscles of his upper body and made her mouth water.

Taking it from the hanger, she stepped from the closet and closed the door behind her before making her way to the shower.

Déjà vu struck her with frightening awareness as she stepped beneath the heated water a moment later.

The sense that fate was determined to replay the danger against her until she realized she couldn’t escape wasn’t lost on her.

As hot water sluiced over her bruised flesh, a heavy sigh left her lips. Terror was just a thought away; that bleak, overwhelming certainty that she would never be free of the threat facing her tightened at her chest.

Why?

What had she done?

The same questions were going through her mind that had played through it before, and the same lack of answers faced her.

Perhaps this time, though, the answers would be found. There was no way to convince anyone, let alone her, that this was an accident.

As she showered, she replayed the night in her mind. The call to her mother and the overwhelming sense that something was wrong. Her mother had sounded nervous, frightened perhaps, but had refused to talk to her about it. Eve and Piper were there with Mercedes, but they had seemed hesitant to talk to her as well.

Between the guests of the inn and her sisters, she hadn’t felt her mother was in danger, but she had felt as though her mother, as well as her sisters, was hiding something from her. That feeling had convinced her to make the drive to the inn.

Once she’d left her apartment she’d called again, frowning as the voice mail picked up. She’d left a message that she was on her way, but no one had called her back.

God, had anyone even told her mother what had happened?

Graham had talked to Dawg in the car, she remembered. The shock and fear were slowly easing and allowing her to remember the accident with more clarity.

Dawg would have called Timothy, if Alex hadn’t. The woman who had helped her from the Jeep had said she’d called an ambulance. The report of the hit-and-run would have gone through Alex’s office. But how had Graham learned of it so quickly?

And who had arrived in the Corvette just behind him?

As she washed her hair and carefully soaped her body, the confusing details began to mount. As Graham’s car had raced around the curve, the young woman who had stopped to help her had moved to the front of the car. And though she hadn’t realized it then, Lyrica now clearly remembered the hardened expression on the woman’s face as she stood as though braced for danger. Just as she remembered the brief glimpse of the weapon emerging from behind the woman’s back until familiarity had flickered in her expression.

Lyrica hadn’t had a chance to get to know the young woman who had moved into the apartment beside hers just before life had exploded. And she sure as hell hadn’t known the man who had arrived behind Graham, though her neighbor seemed to know him well, just as Graham had known the woman—Angel, he’d called her.

Oh, someone had so many questions to answer. And this time, she wasn’t going to allow anger, arousal, or loyalties to hold her back. And if she didn’t get her answers, then everyone she suspected of withholding them would regret it. She wasn’t a Mackay for nothing.