EIGHT

Two weeks later

Lyrica stared back at Tim as he read the investigation report her brother-in-law, Brogan Campbell, and her future brother-in-law, Jedediah Booker, had brought into Tim’s office earlier. Dawg, Natches, and Rowdy had helped, he’d stated, and they’d verified everything through the Kentucky State Police as well as the Department of Homeland Security.

The contact list on her phone had been jammed by a high-tech device that affected only the numbers on that list when they were attempting to call Lyrica. The device was new technology, and detection for it hadn’t been perfected yet.

“Fourteen hours after you were shot at, a young woman perfectly matching your description was found two blocks over,” Tim continued, watching her somberly. “She was an informant for the state police on a drug gang moving into the area. Everything points to a case of mistaken identity.”

Were they crazy? Did they really believe something so preposterous?

“Mistaken identity?” Tilting her head, she stared back at him in disbelief, certain she must have misheard him.

“Lyrica, I’ve had this investigated on three different fronts.” Tim leaned forward, his somber expression and fierce hazel eyes piercing. “We’ve covered it ourselves. We’ve followed every lead, every shadow that could be found. The state police have covered it on their end and the Department of Homeland Security sent a team out to look into it as well. We’ve all come to the same conclusion. The assailants thought they’d found the informant they were looking for when you checked into the hotel. You should be safe now.”

She should be safe now? She’d gone through all this because they were searching for someone else? Someone had died, even though Lyrica had been mistaken for her?

And why did she have such a hard time believing this?

“This can’t be real,” she whispered painfully, staring around the room at the men that filled it. “It’s just wrong.”

It didn’t feel right. Nothing had felt right since the night she had stepped out of that elevator and realized someone was in her hotel room.

Her brother grimaced, his pale green eyes filled with regret and concern. “Sometimes the realization that there are no monsters in the shadows is the greatest battle, sweetheart.”

And how very skewed was that one?

“Great.” Rising quickly to her feet, she ran her hands down the sides of her hips, straightened the hem of her cotton shirt, then faced her family with that same sense of unreality. As though she wasn’t fully there, yet wasn’t really dreaming either.

The odd sensation had her off balance, and it refused to allow the fear that had filled her for the past weeks to recede.

“I’m going back to my apartment, then,” she announced, ignoring Dawg’s objection.

It was instinctive, she thought. Two weeks of believing she was in danger, only to be told there was really no danger, left her sick to her stomach with the knowledge that she seemed to be the only one that found this mistaken identity supposition to be so very convenient.

No one should have died. But someone had to throw her family off the fact that she was going to die. Or was she simply so paranoid now that she couldn’t see the truth?

“Lyrica, wait another day or so.” Tim came slowly to his feet, the white shirt he wore folded back at the sleeves, his slacks still appearing freshly ironed.

Sometimes it was very hard to associate the man she had known for the past few years with the man her brother and cousins knew before he met her mother, Mercedes.

“I’m not waiting, Tim. I’ve waited two weeks just to learn that someone else was murdered that night despite the fact that I nearly died as well.” Shaking her head, she ignored the fact that Dawg stood silently, his pale gaze far too intense and knowing. “I want to be alone for a while. I want to be home.”

In the short time she had lived there, her apartment had become home. It had become a haven away from the craziness that her family could sometimes be. That their lives never failed to be.

It wasn’t Dawg’s fault. It was just that he had a past, one that had already threatened her older sister Eve. He was terrified it would affect her and Zoey now. But he didn’t stop there. No, Dawg worried over every phase of their lives, even their nonexistent-because-he-fucked-it-up love lives.

Of course, he knew where Alex and Brogan had found her before he’d been told what had happened. They wouldn’t have hid it from him. And if Brogan and Jed hadn’t told Dawg, then gossip would have reached him quickly. There had been no fewer than twelve police officers with the chief of police when Alex rode with Brogan and Jed to collect her.

Some boss at DHS had found out about it, called Timothy, and informed him of everything he knew. From there, as she heard it, it had taken less than ten minutes to have a full squad of officers as well as Natches’s brother-in-law and chief of police and his former partner Jed, a DHS agent still working in Somerset on a case no one dared to talk about for some reason, heading her way.

Two days later Dawg was back a week early from the Caribbean and her life had changed so irrevocably that she had no idea how to get it back.

“Lyrie.” Dawg breathed out roughly, his still far-too-handsome face appearing more lined than it had been when he’d left three weeks before. “Take a few days here with Mom. Christa and I will head home tonight . . .”

“You think I want to leave because of you, Dawg?” she asked as she shoved her hands into the pockets of her jeans. “I’m not Eve, Piper, or Zoey. Your interference doesn’t make me want to run from you, remember? I just move in and make you crazy.”

He grinned, as she knew he would. They could look back at the four months she had lived with him just after they’d come to Somerset and laugh now. Then, they’d lived in a state of constant warfare with Christa, who was always either amused with both of them or furious with both of them, caught in the middle.

Finally, out of sheer desperation Dawg had sworn, on his marriage license even, that he would never interfere in her life again. To her knowledge, of all four of his sisters, Lyrica was the only one he kept that vow to.

He’d sworn it on his marriage license and she’d made him do it. Because there was nothing Dawg loved more than his wife and child.

“I’d love to have you move in with me again, Lyrie,” he said with a sigh, using the nickname he’d given her in the first days after he’d found his sisters. “You know I would.”

“We’d kill each other.” She sighed, too.

Dawg shook his head, his gaze still heavy. “No, I don’t think we would now.”

Maybe they wouldn’t, but still, it wouldn’t work.

“I just need some time to think, Dawg.”

“Or some time to give that damned hound dog Graham Brock a chance to get to you?” Natches made the accusation as he rose slowly from his chair across the room.

She’d known it was coming, and she had known it was coming from him. It had been in his eyes as he watched her, silent, thoughtful.

“If it hadn’t been for Graham, she would have died, Natches,” Dawg snapped, surprising more than one of the men in the room. “He did the same thing I would have done if his sister were in danger. Waited and ascertained the level of danger before contacting anyone. The fact that Timothy’s contact in Washington learned of it was a lucky break for all of us.”

Lyrica hid her smile. He was trying so hard to convince himself that Graham wasn’t a threat to whatever virtue she may possess. He did that with her all the time. If he didn’t acknowledge the reasons for something, then he didn’t have to stress about something he was sworn not to interfere in.

“Come on, Dawg, you know better than that,” Natches laughed. “And you know damned good and well if he ends up seducing her then he’s just going to break her heart.”

“Then I can just kill him.” Dawg shrugged as though the thought of killing a man he considered a friend was everyday business, and he stared back at Lyrica with no change of expression. Somber, worried. “Grant knows how it works, Natches. He has a sister himself.”

She almost rolled her eyes. “Sorry, can’t see any of you seducing her,” she stated with amused indulgence.

“Not us,” Natches agreed, his expression easy, his laughter natural as he leaned against the wall and watched her with that damned knowing expression. “But, you know, one day, we might know when some hound dog is out to break her heart rather than cherishing her as he should. We might not step up and beat the shit out of him before Graham can figure out what’s going on.”

Did he really think she didn’t know each one of them so much better than to believe that?

She did laugh now. “Natches, you’re such a liar. You actually like Kye and interfere in her life just as often as you do anyone else’s.”

“True.” He nodded, crossing his arms over his chest. “Just remember one thing, sweetheart: It was Dawg that swore not to mess with the Romeos that come sniffing after you. Not the rest of us.” His gaze encompassed the other men who were watching the byplay with interest.

“Natches, perhaps you should remember,” she answered sweetly with wide-eyed innocence, “mess in my life too far, and Lexington will be seeing me on a regular basis, because I will move. Then you can deal with Dawg.”

“Shut up, Natches,” Dawg growled under his breath. “Just shut up.”

Natches’s eyes narrowed, his lips pursing thoughtfully at the reminder. She’d almost done just that when he’d sucker punched one of the bouncers at a friend’s bar a few years before because Natches had been told the man was kissing her outside before she left one night.

Actually, the bouncer had kissed her cheek and thanked her for helping him with his girlfriend as he walked her to her car.

“I’m heading home.” The weariness that had engulfed her for the past weeks settled over her shoulders once again. “Do what you have to do, but remember, I’m a Mackay, too.” She included each man in her look then. “And trust me, I can be just as damned stubborn as any of you.”

Moving to Dawg, she hugged him tightly for a minute. “Thanks for watching out for me.”

His arms tightened around her briefly before releasing her. Tim was waiting at the door as she reached it and she gave him a hug as well. Behind her, she could feel the eyes watching her, the testosterone-driven assurance that they could guide her life better than she could piercing her back.

“Tell your mother good-bye,” Tim told her softly as he released her. “You girls hurt her feelings when you just leave.”

She knew that. She’d always known that. But sometimes, her mother was just as controlling as her brother and cousins were. They just did it in different ways.

“I will,” she promised, moving back to smile at him chidingly. “It’s not like I won’t be back at some point, Tim.”

“Better be,” he grunted. “We like seeing your smile around here.”

He told all Mercedes Mackay’s girls that. He told Mercedes he couldn’t live without her smile.

Leaving the office, Lyrica went to her old room, hurriedly grabbed the few clothes she’d had Zoey pack for her two weeks before, and headed downstairs.

Placing her luggage next to the door, Lyrica stepped into the television room, where a guest had just risen from one of the easy chairs and was moving to the doorway.

“Lyrica dear.” Her voice charming, lilting, the South American beauty Carmina Lucient spoke with a cheerful smile and warm dark brown eyes.

Long and straight, her dark brown hair fell to the middle of her back and framed a delicate, almost aristocratic face. With her naturally arched brows and thickly lashed eyes, she could have been a model rather than an interior designer and fiancée to a soldier whose return home she was awaiting in the next few weeks.

Dressed in light gray capris and a sleeveless silk blouse, the woman looked classy and cool. A far cry from Lyrica’s own jeans and white T-shirt that proclaimed Despite the Look on My Face You’re Still Talking, along with a pair of ragged leather sneakers.

She was comfortable, she excused herself. Comfort meant everything at the moment.

“Hey, Carmina,” Lyrica returned in greeting. “Have you seen Mom?”

“I believe she stepped into the kitchen,” the other woman informed her, her gaze going to the luggage sitting in the foyer as a light frown flitted across her face. “You are leaving us, then?”

“It’s time to go home,” Lyrica agreed. “I’m sure the smell of bug killer has evaporated by now.”

The story that she was staying with her mother again because of the smell of the insecticide in her new apartment hadn’t roused anyone’s suspicions, she didn’t think.

“We’ll no longer have our evening chats, then.” Carmina pouted gently. “I have greatly enjoyed them.”

“So have I,” Lyrica promised. “I’m going to find Mom and tell her good-bye. Enjoy your stay.”

Her mother was worried. Her dark eyes filled with tears when she saw Lyrica standing next to her luggage a few minutes later.

“Don’t cry, Mom,” Lyrica groaned, feeling the surge of guilt her mother could always give her. “I promise, I’ll still visit.”

Mercedes acted as though her children were moving to another world when they moved out of her house. Because all her children had moved out now, she always seemed heartbroken.

Tim so needed to take her on a cruise or something.

“All my babies think they have to leave me.” Mercedes sighed sadly as she wrapped her arms around Lyrica and held her close. “This isn’t fair. My nest is far too empty.” Leaning back, she smiled back at Lyrica beatifically now. “You should convince Eve to have grandbabies soon.”

“Yikes!” Lyrica jumped back. “Grandbabies? Really, Mom? Let them enjoy the honeymoon first or something.”

Amused disgust pulled at her mother’s expression. “If I cannot have my babies home then I should have grandbabies.”

This was evidently a new idea her mother had come up with.

“Discuss it with Eve.” Lyrica was not going to get into this conversation.

Her mother shook her head before her expression tightened once more into worry. Pulling Lyrica back into her embrace, she held her tightly for several long moments.

“Be careful, my soulful heart,” she whispered at Lyrica’s ear. The words reminded her of her childhood and the personal farewells she and her sisters had gotten each morning before they went to school.

“I will, Momma,” Lyrica answered, kissing her mother’s cheek as emotion welled in her throat. “I’ll call soon. I promise.”

She had to escape before her mother had her crying.

Grabbing her bags, she rushed from the house, refusing to look back in case her mother was crying. Because if she was, there would be no choice but to return right back to the house and stay another night, or week, or the rest of her life so her momma wouldn’t shed tears over her again.

Her mother had shed far too many tears over the years, Lyrica had always thought.

Stowing her luggage in the Jeep, she was in the vehicle and driving back to town within minutes. Thankfully, the inn wasn’t far from the apartment she’d rented just off Somerset’s main thoroughfare.

It wasn’t as busy and rushed or as loud as Main Street. She had a postage-stamp-size plot of grass in front of her patio doors with a privacy fence on each side and two parking spots right in front of it. The apartments, owned by Mackay Enterprises, the company her brother and cousins had created to combine all their business interests and oversee their children’s futures, were safe, roomy, and quiet.

The best part about living there was the fact that she knew they were secure. A Somerset detective, Samantha Bryce, lived on one side of her, while the girlfriend of an officer lived on the other. That put two law enforcement personnel on the premises for the better part of any given day.

Pulling into her parking spot, Lyrica breathed her first true sigh of relief since she’d stepped from the elevator and nearly died. Pulling her luggage from the Jeep, she lugged it to her patio door and was preparing to unlock it when Samantha stepped outside.

“It’s about time you got home.” Samantha grinned from beneath the bill of her low-profile baseball cap.

Dressed in men’s shorts and a T-shirt, the woman should have seemed oddly dressed, or far too male, yet neither was the case. Lyrica had decided that Samantha was so comfortable in her own skin that the confidence that came from it simply didn’t allow her to appear as anything but self-assured.

Her long, curling waves of multihued brown hair were gathered at the back of her head in a ponytail and pulled through the cap. The trailing waves and curls were then confined with several more elastic bands to keep them under control.

Dark sunglasses were perched over the cap on her head and white leather sneakers covered her sockless feet.

“Yeah, Dawg gets kind of territorial when someone shoots at his sisters.” Lyrica sighed theatrically, well aware that Samantha had been working the investigation for the Somerset Police Department at Lyrica’s cousin-in-law’s request. Alex Jansen had assigned the case to Samantha before he’d even arrived with Brogan and Jed to pick her up at Graham’s.

Samantha grinned at the comment. “I went through your apartment when Dawg called and said you were coming home. Everything’s fine, no unwanted visitors.” Her hazel eyes gleamed at the last comment.

“I’ll be sure to thank Dawg.” Lyrica rolled her eyes. “Like I said, territorial.”

“Door’s still unlocked for you,” Samantha laughed as Lyrica moved to push the keys into the lock.

“Sam, I’m hating you today.” Lyrica sighed.

“Most people have those days,” Sam retorted as she stood next to the building and waited.

Waited for her to enter the apartment?

Lyrica wasn’t certain what she was waiting on.

Opening the door, she picked up her luggage and stepped inside. Only to come to a stop once again.

“Are you totally mad at me, too?” Kye jumped up from her couch, her fingers lacing together as she watched Lyrica with painful intensity.

Placing her luggage to the side of the room, Lyrica shook her head uncertainly. “No. I thought you would be mad at me, though.”

Turning, she pulled the patio door closed before turning back to Graham’s sister.

Kye grimaced, her gray eyes darker than normal, her expression filled with mutiny. “Look, I knew when you first accepted my invitations to the afternoon pool parties and girls’ days out that you were hoping to see Graham.” She propped one hand on her denim-covered hip and brushed her long bangs back with the other. “But I thought we had things in common other than him. We’re good friends, aren’t we, Lyrica?”

There was a shadow of uncertainty in her gaze.

“We are good friends, Kye,” Lyrica agreed as she stepped to the other girl and gave her a quick, firm hug. “Despite the fact that you’re Graham’s sister. But Kye, if I have to hear about one more VS bra from those other dimwits you run around with, then I’m going to scream.”

“You and me both,” Kye agreed.

Well, at least she hadn’t lost her friend. And she hadn’t lost Graham, she reminded herself. He had never been hers to begin with.

For the next hour, the conversation centered on the investigation and resulting death of the other young woman. Lyrica was still torn, uncertain, and though she didn’t admit it to Kye, she was still scared.

When Kye rose to leave, Lyrica stepped outside to her patio, noticing her friend’s sudden nervousness as she glanced to the spare parking spot, where Graham’s tan pickup had just pulled in.

Nothing else existed as Lyrica’s eyes met his across the short distance.

Adrenaline.

There it was.

It was racing through her system, pounding through her heart and flushing her entire system with heated hunger. Her nipples hardened; her clitoris swelled and reminded her of the sweet release it now craved like a drug addict craved the next fix.

—

Graham felt trapped by the memories. The feel of her saturated intimate flesh parting at the touch of his tongue. The slick essence of her sweet juices spilling to his lips as he sat beneath her and feasted on her need for him.

It had been two lousy, miserable weeks since she’d been taken from him. Since he’d felt a sweet fire he’d never experienced with any other woman.

Why was that?

Why hadn’t he ever felt the hunger and need for another as he did for Lyrica? She wasn’t experienced. She was far too innocent, far too delicate. His women were usually more statuesque, better able to meet and participate in the sexual games he preferred.

Games that would no doubt shock the hell out of her. He’d already shocked her. He’d sent her running from him. She could use whatever excuse she needed to, but it was fear that had her pulling back from him.

It had to be.

Love couldn’t exist for him. Lyrica was letting herself be fooled by it. Sexual intensity, uncertainty, and fear combined, creating a response she was inventing excuses to avoid until she could handle it.

So what was his excuse?

He couldn’t stop thinking about her. He couldn’t stop hungering for her. The hunger was like an addiction, one he couldn’t get a fix for without Lyrica.

The door opened and Kye climbed into the truck, closing the door behind her slowly.

Graham had to force himself to slide the truck into reverse. He didn’t tear his gaze from Lyrica until he had no other choice, until he couldn’t do anything but check to ensure he wasn’t hitting anything.

Or anyone.

Mistaken identity.

He couldn’t get the results of the investigation out of his mind. The details of the file were burned into his brain. He couldn’t forget it, not a detail of it.

That was not a case of mistaken identity. Professionals that well prepared with the advanced electronics they used did not make those kinds of mistakes. And no doubt the Mackays were well aware of it, because Lyrica had a shadow watching her.

The mistaken identity conclusion could be made plausible. If Graham had been any other man, he might have suspected it could be true. But he wasn’t any other man. He was damned suspicious. He didn’t believe in coincidences. And he sure as hell didn’t believe in fairy tales.

That fucking “mistaken identity” claptrap was a fairy tale and nothing more.

“She’s scared,” Kye said softly as he turned the corner and headed to the end of the street.

Of course she was scared. Lyrica wasn’t a moron, and neither was Dawg or his cousins. But in the absence of an answer, or even a solid shadow of a threat, after two weeks, they couldn’t keep her hidden any longer.

“I know she is,” he answered.

He’d seen it in her eyes, in her face. In the way she couldn’t break his gaze and held on to him until he’d forced himself to look away.

She hadn’t been that scared at the house while she had been in his care. Her expression hadn’t been drawn, her eyes hadn’t been shadowed with that same fear.

“Graham, what are you going to do?” Turning in her seat, Kye faced him demandingly now. “You can’t just leave her there.”

He shot her an amazed glance before focusing on the road once again.

“She has a brother, two cousins, a brother-in-law, a future brother-in-law, and myriad friends and other relatives, Kye. They showed me the fucking door and politely asked me to keep my nose the fuck out of it.”

“And you started listening to morons when?” she demanded loudly, her expression belligerent. “That’s my best friend, Graham. You have to do something.”

“Like what, Kye?” he demanded as the truck came to a hard stop at the light.

Turning his head he glared back at her, furious with her as well as himself, the Mackays, and Lyrica.

“What do you want me to do, Kyleene?” he asked her again, the hard rasp of his voice causing her shoulders to tighten in reaction as she stared away from him.

“I don’t have the answers either, dammit. So stop yelling at me.”

The light turned green. Graham accelerated through the intersection.

Kye remained quiet, her very silence a warning that she was thinking too damned hard. All he could do was wait. With Kye, there was no rushing her.

They were nearly at the edge of town before she shifted around once again to stare at him. And he didn’t like the look. His one brief glance at it assured him that his sister really was thinking too damned hard.

“I have an idea,” she stated serenely.

“Kye, look, let the Mackays handle this for now. If I think she needs my help then I’ll step in and take care of it. Agreed?”

“No, that isn’t agreed.”

Fuck.

He glanced at her again.

One knee was bent and resting on the seat as she turned toward him. She’d propped her elbow against the seat back while pushing her fingers through the side of her hair.

Classic devil child pose, he thought fondly even as he braced himself for what was coming.

“Hurry and get it the hell over with,” he growled. “I can see the wheels turning, Kye, but I don’t know how the hell you can come up with an answer that I haven’t.”

“But you have, Graham,” she said softly.

He frowned, not just at the tone of her voice but at the statement she’d made.

“Did I?” His hands tightened on the steering wheel. “And when did I do that?”

“Last winter when bimbo number eight nearly caught you making out with Lyrica in the living room during the blizzard. Take Lyrica as a lover and she’ll be with you safe and sound until you and Elijah can figure out what’s going on.”

He blinked.

Damn, was that sweat he could feel popping out on his brow?

And why didn’t it completely offend him that his sister had suggested he do such a thing just to protect her best friend?

“Uh, Kye?” And how the hell had she known what had nearly happened on that couch?

“I actually made it into the room without either of you realizing I was there. Except I turned around and left as soon as I realized it was you and Lyrica.” Her expression was far too serious now, far too intent. “Don’t tell me you don’t want her. And I know she wants you. She always has.”

“And if I hurt her when it’s over, Kye?” he asked. “She’s your friend. Her brother and cousins are well able to protect her. If I step in, when it’s all over with, her heart will be broken and you know it.”

“If her heart gets broken and she’s still alive, then I’ll forgive you, Graham,” she promised. “Even if it breaks our friendship, I’ll forgive you. I wouldn’t have forgiven you for just playing with her. But I’ll forgive you for saving her. And if the Mackays are so damned capable, what the hell is she doing back at her apartment alone?”

Graham swallowed tightly.

“She’s already kindly turned down the offer of my protection,” he admitted softly, giving her another short look.

“Of course she did,” Kye laughed, amusement filling her face as she watched him. “She’s not stupid. She knows what a tomcat you are, brother dear. And your bimbos aren’t exactly complimented by your friends. But Lyrica’s different. No one will think badly of her. And she’s scared, Graham. If you approach her the right way . . .”

“Enough.” A hard shake of his head and he bit the word out with a hard rasp.

He couldn’t handle this. He was not going to discuss seducing her best friend with her.

It wasn’t going to happen.

Kye just smiled serenely. “Very well.” She shrugged, turning to face forward once again. “But if you change your mind, I’m here. Lyrica’s not every other woman you’ve taken to your bed. She won’t be easy. But she would be safe.”

“What the hell do you know about the women I’ve taken to bed?”

Her lips parted as though to actually answer him.

“Forget it.” He jerked his hand from the wheel to hold it up in a gesture of silence. “I don’t want to know. Just forget I asked.”

Another of those little shrugs. “If you change your mind,” she offered again. “Like I said . . .”

“You’re here,” he snapped. “I know, Kye. I know. You’re here.”