FOUR

“Roofs are clear,” Elijah confirmed as Graham checked the clip to his handgun before pushing it back into place and chambering the first round.

“Keep your eyes open,” Graham ordered.

As he stepped cautiously from the Viper, the motor still throbbed powerfully, waiting for the lightest touch to throw it into gear. Leaving his door open, he stepped around to the passenger door, opened it quickly, then moved into a protective position at the edge of the Dumpster.

“Lyrica, move it,” he commanded.

For several long seconds nothing moved.

“Lyrica, baby, come on, move it. We don’t have a lot of time.”

What if she’d been found? What if she’d had to run again and hadn’t been able to reengage the battery in her phone to contact him?

He was ready to turn to Elijah and order him to call in the team when he heard the first sob. A second later her dark head peeked around the far edge of the Dumpster and she was moving to him.

Her pale face, filled with stark fear and hope, was scratched, the shoulder-length mass of silky black hair falling mussed around her face as she struggled to get to him. Reaching out, he shoved the Dumpster a few inches out of the way and reached in and grabbed her shoulders before hauling her into his arms.

“Oh god. Graham.” Sweet, warm, and far too fragile, she laid her head against his chest, her trembling fingers fisting into his T-shirt as she shuddered in his arms.

“Let’s get out of here before we’re seen.” Moving quickly, he eased her into the passenger seat. “Get down as far as you can, and keep your head down. Let’s get you out of town before anyone’s the wiser.”

Slamming the door closed, Graham loped around the front of the car, gave Elijah the signal to head out, then slid into the driver’s seat and threw the vehicle into gear. Before accelerating he pushed her head to his lap and pulled the jacket he kept behind the passenger seat over her head and shoulders. Then he followed Elijah with a surge of power.

“We’re moving slowly out of town,” he told her as he felt her fingers pressing against his thigh, her cheek far too close to the erection swelling beneath his jeans. “We’re going to just take it easy, draw no attention to ourselves, and once we reach the interstate we’ll make sure no one’s following.”

“What about your tags?” Her voice was muffled, her heated breath wrapping around the heavy flesh of his shaft like a wicked, ghostly touch.

“Tags are counterfeit,” he grunted. “Think James Bond.”

She was silent for several long moments, but her nails were flexing against the denim covering his thigh in a sensual little caress sure to drive him crazy.

“Are you and Dawg related?” There was a heavy sigh of resignation in her voice. “The Jeep was like that before I bought it.”

Graham had to grin at the thought of Dawg’s Jeep Wrangler.

“Did he change the engine out before he let you have it?”

“Of course.” She sighed. “Took him and Natches two weeks to get it ready for me.”

Graham didn’t doubt that a bit. The male Mackays were careful bastards—the females of the family, on the other hand, were far too soft, gentle, and fragile.

“We’re coming up to the next alley. There are two men in the shadows up ahead. Don’t move, baby.”

The windows of the Viper were dark enough that he was certain she wouldn’t be seen, especially with the black leather jacket covering her. The figures remained motionless where they were hidden between the two buildings, no doubt watching his and Elijah’s vehicles carefully.

Theirs weren’t the only vehicles on the small side street, though. Another had pulled out behind them, and a pickup waited just ahead to turn onto the street. Each of them was carrying more than one occupant, giving Graham a reasonable assurance of security as they passed.

Elijah’s left turn signal blinked on; a second later Graham flipped the right signal of the Viper on. They’d converge at the entrance to the interstate a mile or so away.

Where Graham was keeping the appearance of casual boredom, Elijah on the other hand was moving a little fast, his body language nervous as he appeared to be watching everything and everybody and to be suspicious of it all.

If someone was going to follow any of these cars, it would be the pickup with the redneck acting like he had something to hide. And if anyone did follow him, Elijah would take care of it.

Keeping his speed just a mile or two above the limit, the driver’s-side window down halfway, country music loud enough to assure anyone who cared to be nosy that he didn’t give a damn who saw him, Graham continued toward the interstate.

The tags showing on the car were Lexington tags. The direction he would take would make it appear he was heading that way. And he’d make damned sure no one but Elijah was anywhere around when the tags flipped and he made the turn toward Pulaski County and Somerset.

“This is crazy.” Lyrica shuddered as they neared the entrance ramp and Graham flipped his turn signal on again. “Why would anyone follow me like this? Why would they try to shoot me, Graham? It’s been over a year since Dawg, Rowdy, and Natches helped Brogan take down the rest of that homeland terrorist group. Besides, that was Brogan’s deal. Why come after me?”

Because the Mackays had far too many enemies?

“Hell if I know, baby, but we’ll figure it out.”

“Stop calling me ‘baby,’” she snapped, her ire clear in the sharp retort. “I’m not your latest flavor of the month.”

He snorted at the title. “Lucky for you. If you were, instead of snapping at me like a little brat you’d be putting that pretty mouth to a much better use. Sure you don’t want to reconsider the position?”

She was still, silent. He realized he was holding his breath as he awaited her answer. Damn, her lips were so close to the throbbing, steel-hard shaft that he could barely hold back the demand that she release him, that she show him the sweet heat of her hungry little mouth.

He was crazy.

Evidently he had a death wish, because there was no doubt Dawg Mackay would kill his ass if he ever found out Graham had touched his sister. Or that he’d encouraged—hell, begged—her to touch him in such a way. And that didn’t even count what Natches Mackay, her cousin, would do. Natches’s daughter, Bliss, was a Mini Me replica of Lyrica, so Lyrica gave the other man a hint of what his daughter would look like as she grew older.

Lyrica was Natches’s favorite among Dawg’s sisters, it was said. And it was rumored Natches had threatened to take his very elite, well-blooded sniper rifle out of retirement for any man stupid enough to hurt her.

And she would be hurt, Graham admitted. He was the wrong man for her. And this was the wrong time for him.

“Can I please sit up?” Querulous and tense, her impatient voice almost had him grinning as he sped up, the Viper cutting through the night with smooth power.

“For now,” he relented. “But try to keep your head lower than the headrest, just in case.”

She came up immediately, the jacket flipping from her head and pulling forward to rest on her lap.

“I need water.”

From the corner of his eye he watched as she licked her lips, as much from nerves as thirst, he guessed.

“In the bag at your feet.” Glancing at the rearview mirror, he watched Elijah’s lights pulling closer.

“Incoming call. Secured. Encrypted,” the computer announced.

Lyrica’s head jerked around to him as she tore off the plastic surrounding the water bottle’s lid.

“Accept,” he commanded.

“Hey there, buddy.” Elijah’s voice was friendly, relaxed. “It’s getting lonely out here.”

The other man was alone with no apparent tails.

“How about pancakes?” Graham drawled.

“Sounds great. Same place as before?”

“Meet you there,” Graham agreed before disconnecting the call.

Elijah would shadow their retreat and meet them back at his house. Increasing his speed, Graham drove comfortably, all too aware of every move Lyrica made beside him as she lifted the water to her lips, drank, then stared into the night silently.

She was thinking.

A writer, a thinker, Lyrica was the quiet one of the four sisters Dawg had found six years before. At twenty-four, she spread her work between her cousins’ various established businesses but hadn’t settled on any one vocation.

She wasn’t content. Graham had seen the restlessness just beneath the surface over the years. He’d ached to help her relieve it, and though he knew better than to touch her, he couldn’t seem to release the need to do just that.

“Dawg picked the wrong time to go on vacation.” She sighed, lifting a still-trembling hand to brush back the long fall of heavy, inky black hair that fell over her brow.

“Or was someone just waiting for Dawg to be absent long enough to get to you?” Graham asked softly.

That thought had been bothering him since he’d headed out after her. Why would someone strike now? Was it coincidence? Like the Mackays, he didn’t believe in coincidences. Someone had known that Dawg, Rowdy, Natches, and their families would be gone, and they had waited, believing that getting to Lyrica would be easy.

But they hadn’t counted on Graham. They’d jammed her phone, but nothing could have jammed the secured satellite and cell encryption on the stealth phone he used.

“Why would anyone want to get to me, though?” Her voice was firm—the trembling fear that had been in it when he talked to her on the phone wasn’t there now. “What would be the point?”

“That’s what I have to find out,” he murmured as he took the exit without warning, slowing only enough to make the turn that would take them to the lake and the house he owned there.

“We should call Dawg.” Turning to look at him, the brilliant emerald green of her eyes was filled with worry and concern for her brother and cousins and their families. “He’ll know what to do.”

“Every number on your contact list has been compromised,” he warned her. “If you even reinsert your battery into your phone, whoever tried to kill you will have your location instantly, Lyrica. Don’t worry. Dawg’s not stupid. And I have no doubt he’s already been informed that no one has been able to reach you. By now, he’s well aware that something’s wrong.”

But did that mean he would be there in time to help her? Graham wasn’t betting on it, but he was there. He had her. And he intended to keep her for a while.

—

She was exhausted.

Leaning her head against the back of the seat, Lyrica breathed out a weary sigh.

Her heart was still racing, but as much from arousal now as from fear. Having her face less than an inch from that impressive bulge in his jeans wasn’t exactly a calming experience.

For a second she was lying on his couch again, staring up at him, her body still trembling from the need for release as betrayal raced through her.

Hating him.

Realizing he had come from his lover and dared to touch her, to make her body burn, riot with such need that she couldn’t resist it, destroyed her.

Staring through the windshield all she wanted to do was find another hole to curl up in and sleep.

“We’re almost to the house,” Graham promised.

The back roads he was taking were unfamiliar to her. Hell, she thought she’d traveled all the back roads into and out of Somerset and the Lake Cumberland area in the past six years. Yet Graham was showing her routes she had no idea existed.

“You’ll endanger Kye,” she whispered.

“Kye’s not home. I’ve already ensured her protection.”

Turning her head to look at him, she frowned, remembering a time that Kye had disappeared once before.

“This has happened before, hasn’t it?” she said. “You’ve had to do something where you had to send Kye away.”

“I have safeguards in place,” he stated rather than answering her. “She’s my sister. Just like Dawg has safeguards in place. Unfortunately, a man is only human. None of us foresaw you leaving the county without letting anyone know where or when you were going.”

Should she feel guilty?

She didn’t think so.

“I wanted to go shopping.” A bitter smile crossed her lips as she held the bottle of water in a desperate grip. “Dawg didn’t tell me he had a guard dog watching over me while he was gone.”

But she should have known. She should have thought.

“Not a guard dog, Lyrica.” Graham shook his head as he made another turn onto a more familiar road. “He left others to protect you. But I guess someone just wasn’t watching when you left town, because no one called me to let me know you couldn’t be reached until Kye asked to borrow my phone.”

Lyrica sat up then, turning sideways in the seat, her eyes narrowing on him suspiciously. “Dawg would not have left you to watch out for me while he was out of town, Graham. That’s not the same as some damned party,” she informed him with amused mockery. “You’re not family.”

“No, I’m your last defense.” His expression was hard, cold. “I’m the only person Dawg trusts who still has the contacts and the equipment needed if the unthinkable happened. I’ll get you back to the house, get you out of sight, then I’ll find out why no one contacted me and if anyone has contacted Dawg, why he didn’t call me. And he would have. Give me a few hours and we’ll know where we stand. Then we’ll know where to go from there.”

Know where to go from there?

“Twilight zone,” she whispered, shaking her head. “I’m in the freakin’ twilight zone.”

“Hell, twilight zone beats a casket any day of the week, don’t you think?”

Yeah, it beat a casket, but Lyrica was wondering at the cost. She knew herself and she knew that being alone with Graham wasn’t going to be a good idea.

Weary, her gaze blurry with exhaustion, she watched as he pulled the car around to the back of the house, then into the little-used garage. He stored the Viper there in the winter, but other than that, Kye had mentioned once, the garage wasn’t often used.

“Here we go. Hungry?” Shutting off the motor, he turned to look at her, concern filling the golden, almost amber color of his gaze.

“I need a shower.” She sighed. “I wasn’t exactly sitting in a bed of roses.”

“No, baby, you weren’t.” She didn’t pull back when he reached out and tucked her hair behind her ear. “Come on, let’s get you into a shower and I’ll fix you a bite to eat so you can sleep.”

Graham had to force himself out of the car. Moving quickly around the vehicle, he was there as she pushed the door open. He reached in and helped her easily from the low-slung little sports car, her delicacy amazing him even when it shouldn’t.

He couldn’t help pulling her against him as he watched her stumble just a bit. Dammit, she was exhausted, frightened, and living on sheer nervous energy at the moment.

“I’m fine,” she assured him, though she didn’t move, didn’t attempt to push out of his arms. Instead, she leaned against him, her head pressed against his chest, her weight settling against his naturally.

He was in trouble here, he admitted. But hell, he’d admitted that six months ago when she lay beneath him, giving herself to him so sweetly.

“Come on, little bit.” Swinging her into his arms, he almost grinned at the little sigh she breathed out. Her arms went around his neck, her head settling comfortably against his shoulder.

Damn her.

He was going to break her heart and he knew it. Knew it, and had no idea how to stop it.

What was worse, he’d end up breaking his own heart if he wasn’t damned careful.

—

“What do you mean she got away?” The voice rasped across the line as hard, icy brown eyes looked down from the apartment window to the alley below.

“I mean she wasn’t quite as weak as you led me to believe,” he informed his employer. “She’s cautious, resourceful, and damned fast. We lost her in a back alley.”

Hell, she was a fucking Mackay—did this bastard think it was going to be easy? He’d done his research before he’d taken the job. Enough so that he’d initially declined, only to have to reconsider after additional intel had come through.

“One woman,” his employer mused, “against a well-aimed projectile, should not have been resourceful enough, nor fast enough, to outrun it.”

“Turn the girl sideways and there’s a hell of a margin for error. She’s a skinny little bitch,” he snorted, knowing better. The woman was sweet curves and slender muscle.

“Was her phone used?” The man asked as though he were speaking to a moron.

He let himself grin. He’d make the bastard pay for that one later. In spades.

“She made countless attempts; none went through.”

“Check the report for the program I gave you. Look for encrypted numbers. Timothy Cranston, the bastard her whore mother’s sleeping with, is retired Homeland Security. Make sure he didn’t get through. Start running the tag numbers you should have taken of any vehicle coming into or out of the alleys you were watching. You did that, right?”

His gaze flicked over the bare windows of the deserted building across from him. “Taken care of. Nothing blipped even close to Somerset, or the names you listed.”

Silence filled the line for long seconds.

“Send me the tag numbers and vehicle descriptions, as well as any surveillance you should have taken,” he was ordered. “However she managed to get away, there’s no doubt she’s headed home, possibly back to her mother’s inn and Cranston’s protection. Do you have someone there?”

“There, at the lumber store, the garage, the marina, and the restaurant,” he replied, naming off each business she worked at.

“Well, at least you did something right,” the other man snorted.

His eyes narrowed as he stared at the reflection of his second in command behind him, listening in on the call.

“I tried,” he drawled.

The answering snort was pure insult. “Try harder. Get to Somerset and find that bitch. When I arrive there, I want a pretty new toy to play with, and I won’t be happy if I don’t have it.”

The call disconnected.

“Yeah, I’m real concerned with his pretty new toy,” he growled as his second leaned back against the wall thoughtfully and waited.

“Are we ready to head to Somerset?” Pulling his weapon, he checked the clip, reinserted it, then began packing the meager supplies they’d stocked the tiny, deserted apartment with.

“The van’s packed and your Vette’s ready.”

His brows arched. “New engine doing good?”

“Excellent.” The answer was delivered with cool precision and a light shrug. “Grog says it vrooms.”

He grinned, zipped up the pack, and gave a brief nod. “Let’s go hear it vroom, then.”

“You’re not going to match that Viper.” The comment had a grimace pulling at his lips as he opened the door and stepped out of the apartment.

“How the hell do you know? The fucker won’t tell anyone what he did to the bitch. If Jed did as I asked and put everything in that motor I wanted, then we’ll have a fighting chance,” he argued.

A snort sounded behind him. No comment, no argument. But that sound of disbelief made his ass itch.

Dammit.

He was supposed to be on vacation right now, not fucking around with some damned op in Mackay territory. If they caught him there then he was dead fucking meat. They didn’t like him much; he didn’t like them much. It was a mutual little dislike party and he made damned certain he stayed out of their line of sight, and out of sight of Natches Mackay’s rifle.

They may be getting on in age a little bit, but those men were still some mean fuckers. It didn’t pay to cross them.

He appeared to be doing more than crossing them, though—he had accepted the contract on a Mackay sister’s life.

Yep, he was going to have to be damned careful.