Текст книги "Nauti Seductress"

Автор книги: Lora Leigh

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 18 (всего у книги 19 страниц)

TWENTY

She didn’t know why he was there, and for this moment in time she wouldn’t let herself care. For right now, the need for him, the need to have him touch her, hold her, one more time, was all that mattered.

“God, I missed you, baby,” he breathed out, his voice rough as his head lifted.

His hand slid to her hips again, lifted her, and laid her back along the still-warm hood of the car, his hands going to the snap and zipper of her denim shorts.

“I do have a bed, remember?” She frowned up at him, but her hips lifted, a moan spilling from her as he drew the material down her legs. “This is completely decadent, Doogan.”

His smile was knowing. “No, baby, this is completely tame,” he assured her. “We’ll get to decadent real soon, though.”

Well, at least he was staying around long enough for decadent. She wondered how far from decadent this was in his opinion, though.

“I haven’t forgiven you yet.” There wasn’t a damned thing for her to hold on to. Her fingers curled, reaching above her, finding the rim of the hood and gripping it desperately as he pulled her boots from her feet and dropped them to the cement floor.

“Let’s see if I can convince you to forgive me a little faster.” The dark growl in his voice was the only warning she had before his lips lowered, his tongue swiping through the swollen folds and sending her senses into flames.

Dark, almost black eyes stared up at her as he licked at her, his tongue rolling around her clit, rubbing at it, tormenting the little nub with striking flares of desperate pleasure. And it was so good. So good she could only lift to him, moan and whimper for more. More sensation, more of the whipping, whirling sensations that made her feel him all the way to her ragged soul.

A heated, sucking kiss to her clit had her hips jerking to him. When his head lifted, she was ready to wail in protest.

“Take the fucking shirt off,” he groaned. “Let me see your pretty breasts, Zoey, and those hard, tight little nipples.”

Still watching her, he flicked his tongue over the sensitive nub of her clit, then massaged it with a slow, rolling little move of his tongue.

She all but tore her shirt and bra from her, tossing the material to the floor, uncaring of where it fell. Immediately her fingers gripped her nipples, tightened on them, tugging at them as brutal fingers of overwhelming sensation tore straight to her clit.

“Fuck.” He pulled back, his gaze moving to her clit then to meet her eyes. “Your little clit’s throbbing for me, Zoey. Pushing against my tongue. So eager. It’s so damned eager to cum for me.”

“Then let me cum.” Lifting her hips, her fingers pinching at her nipples, she rode a wave of such intense pleasure she almost lost her breath.

“Not without me, baby.” As he pulled back, one hand gripped the iron-hard length of his cock that he’d already released from his pants.

Thick, heavy veins ran over it, blood pulsing through them in a throbbing rhythm. The plum-shaped head was dark, imposing in its width, and tucking against the weeping center of her body.

“I can’t wait, Zoey.” Hard, callused fingers gripped her thighs. “I can’t wait, baby.”

She licked her lips, fighting to breathe. “Don’t wait, Doogan. Fuck me . . . Oh God, Doogan,” she cried out at the first, hard push inside her gripping depths.

The tissue convulsed, clenched around the intruder, stroking and milking the hard flesh that came to a stop only a bare few inches inside her.

“Fuck. You’re tight,” he snarled, his teeth baring, extreme pleasure tightening his face.

“Take me hard, then,” she demanded, reaching behind her again to hold on to the rim of the hood. “Give me all of you, Doogan. Show me how to fly again. Make me burn . . .”

The groan that tore from his chest came as he drew back, paused, poised at the rippling entrance as his gaze locked with hers.

“Fuck me, Doogan,” she breathed out, her juices spilling from her aching pussy to meet the wide crest of his cock. “Hard . . .”

She needed him, ached for him; she’d been dying without him.

“Hard, baby, just like you want it.”

“Doogan . . .” She tried to scream his name.

Her body bowed, hips arching, her breath stilling in her throat as he thrust inside her, still not to the hilt, but he wasn’t finished yet.

The next thrust buried him balls deep inside her, pushing past the muscles hugged tight around his shuttling flesh as he groaned her name, the sound of hoarse male pleasure rasping over her senses.

“Have mercy,” he breathed, the hard rasp pushing her higher as he began the rhythmic strokes she knew would send her exploding into rapture.

And it wouldn’t take long. She was climbing, muscles tightening, the spiraling sensations building fast, burning bright as he came over her.

One hand gripped her hip, the other curved around the mound of a breast, his lips covering the hard point of a nipple as he sucked it into his mouth. Firm, deep draws sent fingers of fiery sensation rushing straight to her vagina. The convulsive clench of her inner muscles around each hard thrust inside her dragged a groan from his throat, a cry from hers. His teeth rasped and nibbled at the tight bud; his pelvis scraped across her clit with each thrust as his cock throbbed, the head burying deep. Each stroke inside her, each slamming thrust parted sensitive tissue, caressed it, stoked the sensations burning so bright and hot inside her.

“Doogan, Doogan please,” she cried out as his arms slid beneath her legs, lifting them, pushing her knees back, his hips moving faster, harder.

Completely open to him now, the snug, clenched muscles of her pussy tightened, flexed, and in one blinding second Zoey felt the world explode around her and inside her.

She jerked in his arms, her cries echoing around her, joined by the hard, harsh growl of her name and the feel of his release spilling inside her. Hard, pulsing ejaculations shot his seed to the depths of her pussy, filling her with him and sending her racing into the fiery center of ecstasy.

–

Catching his breath took a while. Long enough that Zoey dozed beneath him, warmed by the lingering heat of the car’s motor against the metal hood and his body. Sprawled beneath him like a sexual sacrifice, all those unruly black curls spilling around her, framing her flushed, sated features.

He wanted to smile at the sight of her, but to allow that one small measure of happiness free too soon could destroy him later, if she decided his baggage was too much, his memories and his mistakes more than she could handle in the coming years. Because once he had his ring on her finger he’d be damned if he’d let her go. And he wasn’t waiting too damned long to put that ring there if she fucked up long enough to agree to it.

Easing back, he grimaced at the excess pleasure raking along the head of his cock as he pulled free of her. Her little protesting whimper assured him that same pleasure had stroked across her senses as well.

“Come on, wildcat,” he whispered, lifting her slight weight in his arms and carrying her up the stairs to the apartment.

She curled against him, her head resting against his shoulder, her arms looped around his neck, and he didn’t miss the fact that she felt as though she’d always belonged there. Right there, against his heart, held in his arms.

Entering her bedroom, he moved to the bed, placing her in the center of it and stretching out beside her. She draped herself across his chest, relaxed, drifting, he knew, in a sensual aftermath he hated to ruin.

Hated to, yet he knew if he didn’t tell her what he needed to, then he never would.

“The night we danced,” he told her softly, pressing her head to his chest when she would have lifted it. “I told you I was married. I married Eli’s sister when she told me she was carrying our child. For six years, I lived like a fucking monk. I took the vows, I kept them. The night I met you nearly broke that resolve, though. I wanted you with a hunger that nearly broke me. And I had no choice but to walk away, because you deserved so much more than a man who would have had no choice but to lie to have you.”

And he’d nearly done just that. If Jack hadn’t been watching him with that disapproving frown, if he hadn’t known Dawg Mackay would kill him and he’d break her heart and forever lose the belief in him he’d seen in her eyes, then he would have taken her.

But his wife was fucking a path through D.C., his daughter was still a baby, and he knew that keeping her if he divorced her mother would probably be impossible. He was a grown man; he’d made his bed, and he wouldn’t have his daughter pay for his need to escape that cold, hard rock he’d made for himself.

So he waited, kept track of her, watched her, ached for her from afar until Katie turned five and he’d filed for an annulment. His wife had left with her lover, Rigsby, and with Regan Doogan Moore’s help had attempted to take his daughter.

His breath caught when he told her how Katie died. He felt her tears on his chest, her silent sobs in the shudder of her shoulders.

“Less than six months later, Harley had tracked Catalina’s lover, her killer, to Cumberland; we just couldn’t figure out his identity or why he was in Kentucky. I left Harley here to find the bastard, see what he was up to.” His fingers clenched in her hair for a tortured moment. “The next thing I know, Director Bryce is on the phone telling me . . .” He had to stop, swallow past the lump in his throat. “Telling me you were in trouble and for me to get to Sam’s. And God as my witness, I had no idea Rigsby was behind it. I suspected his presence here had something to do with the weapons thefts from Fort Knox, but I had no idea anyone knew what I felt for you. And I never suspected Jack, not with his ties to the Mackays.”

Luther had filled all the blanks in. How Rigsby had known about Zoey, used her to distract Doogan and Harley while he and Jack continued to steal information on high-level military teams currently abroad on assignment. Luther Jennings was unaware how he was being used as a distraction if he was needed. Then Doogan had returned to Cumberland, his interest in Jack’s pack making the two men far too nervous.

He’d known more was going on than a threat to that pact when he’d arrived; he’d believed the threat was to Zoey, though, not the human resources information they’d found access to. He’d been distracted. That mistake had almost been a fatal one. He’d almost lost Zoey.

“I knew I loved you, Zoey,” he whispered. “I knew if I lost you too, I couldn’t live. Losing you would break me.”

“I was right here, Doogan. I was always here, waiting for you,” she whispered, finally able to lift her head to stare down at him.

And in his eyes she saw the pain, the rage, the man who had to face the fact that he could only run for so long, and that the time for it was over.

“Yeah, you are,” he whispered, reaching up to cup her face. “Graham came to see me a few weeks ago,” he said then.

She nearly stopped breathing. God, he’d promised . . .

“He told me if I waited too long to come for you, then he’d make sure when I got over my dumb and came back later, he’d make sure I left just as fast.” His lips quirked. “He’d do it too. I figured I better get my ass back here and claim you while your family was willing to let me.”

Her brow arched. “You need their permission?”

“Not anymore.” He tugged at her hair, pulling her to his kiss, whispering the words over her lips. “I belong to you, witch. Heart and soul. There’s no way in hell I can live without you.”

Her smile lit up his heart. Filled with love, with a promise that met the one in his heart.

“Welcome home, Doogan.” And her lips lowered to his, their kiss one of shared promise, of shared love.

When it was over, he tucked her against his side again. “Damn, I’m tired, honey. You wear a man out.”

“Better get your rest,” she murmured as he let his eyes drift closed. “I figure you have about seven months to recuperate.”

His eyes jerked open, panic flashing through him for about two seconds.

No, he told himself desperately, she didn’t mean . . .

“Zoey . . .”

“Did Graham tell you I was pregnant, Doogan?” she asked, her tone perfectly reasonable. “Because if he did, you walk your ass right back out of here. At least until it snows.”

He blinked up at the ceiling. He tried like hell to swallow.

Slowly, he sat up, telling himself his hands really weren’t shaking. He wasn’t ready to pass out because he couldn’t breathe past the tightness in his chest.

“What did you say?” he wheezed.

That siren’s smile, those witchy eyes. Emerald circling celadon. So damned beautiful she could steal his breath even when he wasn’t in shock.

She caught his hand and dragged it to her still-flat stomach. “I warned you,” she reminded him. “I just didn’t realize the pill I was on was low dose. My doctor figures I’m about six weeks pregnant.”

He stared at his hand where it covered her stomach, realizing what she hadn’t told him.

“You weren’t going to tell me.” He turned his gaze to her, glaring back at her. “Were you?”

“No, I wasn’t,” she admitted, stubbornness flashing in her eyes. “If you didn’t want me without a baby, then you could do without me. I wouldn’t have kept our baby from you, though.” Regret filled her expression. “I would never punish our baby, Doogan. I would only love it, and you, and always regret what hadn’t been.”

His Zoey. His witch.

“I love you, but I’m spanking your butt for that one,” he promised her.

A little roll of her eyes was followed by a smothered yawn. “Later, I might let you.”

Later.

But he could kiss her. He could let his lips whisper over hers and he could thank God he got over his dumb in time to claim her. And their child.

Their child.

Damn. When he’d felt as though he’d come home the night he’d danced with her, he’d been right.

Zoey was home.

His heart.

His soul.

The mother of his child.

His sweet seductress and his life.

And for the first time in his life, he was complete.

EPILOGUE

Two Weeks Later

“That is so not fair, Dad.” The teenager’s voice could be clearly heard outside the office door as Zoey Mackay pushed into the Mackay Marine Convenience store from the rental and fuel office attached to it.

Whatever her father said was muffled, but there was no mistaking the edge of frustration in the quieter response.

“I’m fifteen, not a baby,” Annette Mackay cried out. “And you don’t let me do anything.”

Zoey winced as she turned to Annette’s mother, Kelly Mackay, to see her propped back on a stool behind the sales counter, sneaker-clad feet resting on the counter, arms folded beneath her breasts, a look of long-suffering patience on her face.

Whatever Annette’s father, Rowdy, said in reply to the accusation had his daughter jerking the door open moments later and stomping into the store, tears turning her summer-green eyes the color of brilliant jewels, though not the first drop fell to her suntanned cheeks.

Shoulder-length, ribbon-straight black hair was pulled into a ponytail, her pretty features set into an expression of stubborn teenage fury, her fists clenched at the sides of the white sundress she wore over her bathing suit.

“Momma, you have to do something with him,” Annette cried out, her heart shattered into a million pieces if her voice was anything to go by. “He’s being completely unreasonable.”

Kelly dropped her feet from the counter, slid from her barstool, and glanced at the open doorway where her husband stood, amusement gleaming in his eyes, before her gaze moved to her daughter.

“Unreasonable? Again? Not your father, Annie. Such an idea shocks me.” And she sounded shocked too, Zoey thought as she ducked her head and moved behind the counter to join Kelly.

“It isn’t funny, Momma.” Annette was obviously within seconds of stomping her delicate little foot if her expression was anything to go by.

“Of course it’s funny.” Her father stepped out of the office, his expression mocking as his daughter turned to him with a look of such teenage disgust he stopped and narrowed his eyes on her. “The very fact that you actually believed I’d give you permission to go is the funniest part. I’m still laughing.”

Zoey smothered a smile as Kelly gave a little sign while throwing her husband a chiding look.

“You are just like Uncle Natches,” Annette cried out furiously, her face flushing in anger. “You would just lock me up until I’m fifty if you could.”

Rowdy seemed to consider the accusation. Bracing his hands on his hips he stared down at his delicate teenage daughter, the look on his face thoughtful.

“Fifty’s going a little far,” he finally retorted. “I’d settle for thirty. Maybe by then I’ll be so senile that the shenanigans you and your cousins get into won’t bother me near so . . .”

He stopped.

Zoey watched curiously as his head jerked up, his eyes meeting his wife’s as she seemed to choke before turning her back on him.

In Kelly’s eyes was such a wealth of laughter that Zoey was suddenly dying to know the private thought they’d obviously shared.

“Aren’t you supposed to be helping your cousins outside?” Rowdy gave his daughter a “daddy” glare, arms going across his chest in a display of pure male command. “Get to it now, before I start checking out those convents your uncle Natches keeps finding.”

“You are ruining my life,” Annette cried, the tone of pure teenage drama causing her mother to choke on her laughter again.

Tossing her thick black hair Miss Annette Theadora Mackay lifted her determined little chin and stalked out the door, pausing outside only long enough to slip her feet into colorful sandals before stalking along the side of the building.

“God.” Rowdy plowed his fingers through his hair in disgust. “I’m starting to repeat the same crap Dad used to yell when he was arguing with me, Dawg, and Natches.”

Kelly turned to him with a laugh. “Better lock the windows tonight. She was more determined to attend this party than the last few she’s demanded to go to.”

Rowdy’s look was filled with disgust. “She thinks she wants to go dance with that little brat that’s been hanging around the marina the last few weeks.” He turned his head to glare at the door before stepping closer and peeking out to check to be sure the brat in question wasn’t there. “He’s going to keep it up I’m going to call Natches.”

Zoey’s eyes widened at the threat.

“Rowdy Mackay, you will not,” Kelly exclaimed. “He’s a kid. Natches would traumatize him.”

Rowdy snorted. “So? He traumatizes me and Dawg on a daily basis; let him spread it around a little.”

“Not to mention his wife and daughter,” Zoey pointed out. “And me and Doogan.”

Rowdy turned back to her, his expression curious. “What did Doogan do?”

Zoey rolled her eyes as she turned to Kelly. “Notice he doesn’t ask what his cousin has done, it’s what has Doogan done. That is just wrong.”

Kelly laughed at the comment, her brown eyes warm and filled with laughter.

A high-pitched scream cut the laughter off.

Before Zoey could think she and Kelly were racing behind Rowdy as he all but tore the door off the front of the store to get to the parking lot.

The scene that met Zoey’s eyes was horrifying.

Terror dragged a weak cry, filled with complete blood-freezing horror, from her as she watched the overly large male trying to drag Natches’s daughter, Bliss, into a van as her cousins, Laken, Annette, and Erin screamed and attacked the heavily muscled assailant. Annette was holding on to Bliss’s arm for dear life, screaming for her dad, her voice filled with such overwhelming fury Zoey knew she’d never forget the sound of it.

At the sight of Rowdy bearing down on him, the dark-clothed, masked assailant pushed Bliss into her cousin and jumped into the van as it tore away, tires screaming.

Annette wrapped her arms around her cousin as the other girls surrounded her just as Rowdy, Kelly, and Zoey reach them.

“There were no plates, Dad, but he smelled like fish and smoke.” Annette was flushed, her green eyes darker, the anger in them a sight to see.

“Get inside.” Rowdy didn’t pause to get details.

Pushing the girls from the marina, he was on his cell phone.

“Get to the dock,” he yelled into the phone, and Rowdy never yelled. “Now, goddamn it. Get here now.”

He’d called either Dawg or Natches, who would call the other. Soon, the marina would be swarming with reinforcements. Grabbing the cell phone from her back pocket, Zoey hit the first number programmed in.

“Babe?” Doogan answered immediately.

“Get to the marina.”

The line disconnected. Doogan didn’t waste time with words; he was a man of action. He’d be there within minutes.

Pushing the girls into the store wasn’t enough. Rowdy didn’t stop until they were safely behind the reinforced steel-and-wood barrier of the walls that surrounded it, his wife and Zoey dragged in behind them.

Kelly rushed to the girls, her hands catching Bliss’s shoulders as her gaze went over the girl. “Are you okay, baby?”

Her voice was trembling, adrenaline and fear crashing through her as Zoey watched Rowdy move to the safe.

The guns were there.

Zoey rushed to him, catching his arm as his gaze snapped to her.

“No,” she whispered. “Not while they’re here.”

She glanced at the girls, especially his daughter as she watched him.

“Let him get his gun, Zoey.” Fury still raged in Annette’s voice. “Uncle Natches will have his. Bet me.”

Zoey felt like knocking her and her father’s heads together.

“Stop being so bloodthirsty Annette,” she ordered the girl. It was an order she heard often. “Your father isn’t getting a gun. . . .”

Tires were screaming outside, and the rev of an engine accelerating from the marina entrance and more rubber howling in protest as the vehicle was forced to a stop had them all pausing.

“Bliss!” Natches’s voice thundered through the store.

“Dad. Dad.” Tears choked the teenager’s voice as she tore away from Kelly and met her father at the doorway of the office. Instantly, she was pulled into his arms, lifted from her feet as Natches sheltered her against his chest, one hand at the back of her head as he held her with his other arm, his eyes closing as Bliss wrapped her arms tightly around his neck, the fear finally hitting her.

She was sobbing against her father’s shoulder as such agony creased Natches’s face that it clenched Zoey’s chest.

“Where’s Chaya, Natches?” Rowdy questioned him, his tone icy as Natches opened his emerald-green eyes, and focused on his cousin.

“Dawg . . .” He cleared his throat as his hold tightened on his daughter.

Moving to the chair next to him Natches sat down as though afraid his legs wouldn’t hold him much longer. He cradled his daughter in his arms, her head still buried in his shoulder, her arms locked around his neck. “She was with Dawg and Christa.”

At the same time the sound of tires screaming again just outside the marina had Zoey jumping in fear and moving quickly to look outside the large glass window where Dawg’s truck nearly touched the glass.

Moving aside as Chaya raced inside, tears streaming down her face, Christa and Dawg moving behind her.

“Bliss. Bliss.” Chaya nearly fell as she tried to get to the door, caught herself, then went to her knees in front of her husband and daughter.

“Mom. I’m okay, Mom.” But she was still crying.

Bliss’s looks were nearly identical to Zoey’s but for the emerald eyes and Zoey’s celadon green ones. They were often mistaken as twins to those who didn’t know them.

Behind Dawg, Doogan pushed into the office, his features hard, his brown eyes ice until they found hers. Warmth blazed in them, then relief and love filling them as he moved to her, his arm sliding around her to pull her to his chest.

Still holding her hand over her lips Zoey realized Bliss wasn’t the only one crying. Tears dampened her own cheeks, and as Christa ran to her daughter, the other woman was crying as well.

“Someone tried to abduct Bliss,” she whispered, lifting her gaze to him, the horror of it still resounding through her. “They almost took her, Doogan. Someone nearly took her.”

“And now they’ll die.” He shrugged, that ice lingering in his gaze, his voice. “Soon.”

–

Angel packed slowly, not that she had much to pack. The saddlebags that secured to the back of the motorcycle didn’t hold a lot. The rest of their gear, supplies, and various weapons had shipped out that morning with Tracker’s ’vette and the black Range Rover that traveled from job to job with them.

She wasn’t ready to leave Somerset yet. She wasn’t ready to turn her back on the last dream that had survived her childhood. The dream already slowly dying in her soul.

After securing the pack and setting it next to the door, her gaze was caught by her reflection in the full-length mirror there. Shattered sapphire eyes. Once, when she was a child, her eyes had been a soft gray, her hair dark blonde rather than the sunlit color she kept on it.

She’d resembled her father then, but once she’d hit her teens, Tracker, the man who had saved her, said she began looking like her mother. She could see her mother in her features now. The shape of her eyes, the curve of her brow. The set of her chin.

She was shorter than her mother though, her frame more delicate than the former Homeland Security agent’s. She had her mother’s smile, Tracker would tell her sometimes, when she allowed herself to smile.

Pulling back from the mirror and blinking, not to hold back tears—Angel never cried—but to fight back the hurt, the pain that leaving brought.

Tracker was right; they had no reason to stay. They’d been away when Zoey had needed them, arriving back in town only days after Jack Clay had been killed. Two months was too long to stay in one place without a job. The Mackays were going to start asking questions, and Angel didn’t want questions. She had wanted recognition. A recognition that hadn’t come. All she saw was suspicion, and Tracker was right, it was killing her.

Picking up the pack and opening the door she stepped into the small living room of the cabin they’d taken after returning, her gaze narrowing on the three men standing tensely by the door.

“Eli?” Her gaze flicked to Tracker and their partner, Grog. Both men were tall, imposing, not so much handsome as roughened.

And she knew both of them. Something was wrong.

“Angel.” Eli nodded his dark blond head before turning back to Tracker. “I have to go. I just thought I’d stop on my way.”

He was in a hurry. Moving quickly from the cabin he left Angel with the two men who had rescued her when they were little more than boys themselves. They’d sheltered her, protected her, trained her to fight with them.

“Tracker?” She could feel the tension growing in the room, the knowledge that neither man was explaining Eli’s visit.

“Gear up.” He sighed heavily. “I’m sure you’ll want to stop at the marina before we ride out of town.”

“The marina?” she asked carefully. “What’s happened?”

“Someone tried to kidnap one of the Mackay girls just minutes ago . . .”

She didn’t wait to hear the rest.

She didn’t have to gear up. Her weapons and thigh holsters were in the customized, hidden carriers built into the chest rest of her motorcycle, extra ammo stored with them. She raced outside, Tracker and Grog close on her heels.

Jerking the leather jacket and protective helmet on she was racing from the gravel drive in seconds, fear racing through her system with a shock of adrenaline pouring into her bloodstream.

This couldn’t be happening. It couldn’t be . . .

“Angel, get control of yourself,” Tracker advised smoothly into the radio link built into the helmets. “Let’s see what’s going on before we do anything.”

See what was going on? They knew what was going on. She should have expected this. She should have known it would happen.

“I’m cool, Track,” she promised, her voice even, without the panic she could feel rushing through her. “I have to be sure, though. I can’t leave without being sure they’re okay. You know that.”

“We’re just making sure everything’s okay then,” Tracker repeated. “Friends checking on friends, Angel. Remember that.”

Her heart was in her throat, fear pulsing through her and threatening to steal the small shred of control she possessed.

“Friends checking on friends,” she promised. “That’s all. Nothing more.”

–

The chief of police, Alex Jansen, and his wife, Natches’s sister Janey, were rushing inside to their daughter Erin. Behind them more than a dozen police cars were pulling in, their sirens thankfully silent.

“Zoey.” Mercedes Mackay, Zoey’s mother, followed minutes later with her lover, Timothy Cranston, and Rowdy’s father, Ray, with Christa’s mother, Maria.

The office was packed and still more cars were arriving. Her three sisters and their husbands, hard-eyed, dangerous Homeland Security agents moved in behind their mother. As Zoey’s sisters rushed to check on Bliss, their husbands moved with predatory danger to the doorway, their gazes meeting Rowdy’s before they turned and walked outside.

Rowdy, Dawg, and Natches, along with Alex and Janey were still holding on to their teenage daughters, their embraces tight, protective.

“What happened?” Dawg was the first to ask that question as he tucked his daughter close between his and his wife’s sides.

“We saw the van coming and tried to hurry and get across the parking lot,” Annette assured her father. “Just like you taught us, Dad. As soon as it turned toward us we were moving. The guy jumped out and grabbed Bliss, though, and I think we just went kind of crazy.” She shook her head before giving her father a fierce look. “We weren’t letting anyone take Bliss.”

Bliss mumbled something at her father’s shoulder.

“What, baby?” Natches’s voice was thick, a hoarse growl as Bliss lifted her face from her mother’s shoulder.

“I lost my knife, Dad.” She pouted. “I did what you taught me to do, but he moved too fast and pulled it from my hand.” She lifted her hand. “And he got his nasty blood on me.”

She had her fingers fisted as though to hold the blood in her palm, and it wasn’t just a smear.

“God love your little Mackay hearts.” Tim sounded like the evil leprechaun her brother and cousins called him, Zoey thought. “Alex, get me an evidence kit.”