by Lora Leigh
Like hell.
Graham could feel his fury burning chaotically. He wouldn’t allow all the vibrant, sensual energy that filled her to be silenced. She was too much a part of his life, too important to him to allow her to be threatened.
He closed the file slowly.
“Contact Angel,” he growled. “I want to know where the hell she’s headed.”
Tracker arched his brow at the demand. “She’ll contact me when Lyrica stops.”
“What role do you intend to play in this, Tracker?” Graham hoped like hell the man didn’t think he was just going to sit back and watch while the rest of them fought to protect her. He’d help, or he’d wish he had.
“Getting involved, Graham?” Tracker asked softly, the question causing Graham to tense. “I didn’t expect that, despite the appearance of interest. She doesn’t appear to be a ‘flavor’ to me.” His gaze flicked to Dawg.
The smile he gave the other man was hard and filled with warning. “And it’s not exactly any of your business,” Graham assured him softly.
Tracker grinned at that. “I don’t know, she’s pretty as a little speckled pup. I might want to take her home with me.”
The comment drew a reaction, despite Graham’s best intentions.
The conversation between him and Sam where Graham had identified Lyrica as a pup popped into his mind. The knowing look on Tracker’s face assured him that was the intent. There was no way in hell the other man had tapped his phone or bugged his house, and that left only one other person he could have compromised.
Sam Bryce.
“I’ll take care of that one, Tracker,” he promised the other man, knowing the mercenary would be well aware that Graham knew how he’d managed to come by the information.
“I’m sure you will,” Tracker answered softly. “But be certain you know the means by which it was acquired before you destroy a friendship, Graham. I’d hate to put you on the dark side of the acquaintance list. Know what I mean?”
“I don’t,” Dawg snapped, obviously tired of the oblique conversation. “Want to clue us the fuck in or shut the hell up?”
Tracker’s grin was one Graham had seen on the Mackays’ lips more than once. Equal amounts of mocking amusement and irritation.
Though, there was a hint of respect there, too, Graham thought.
Rather than making one of his infamous smart remarks, Tracker inclined his head in agreement. “Point taken,” he murmured. “Graham and I perhaps know each other a little too well.”
“And that perhaps bothers me a little too much,” Dawg said as he shot Graham a glare.
Hell, he was getting damned sick of the glares, glowers, and silent promises of retribution being shot his way.
“How do you intend to proceed with this?” he asked the mercenary rather than adding to whatever fuel the Mackays were gathering against him.
“That’s my call,” Dawg inserted, his voice soft, challenging, as Graham met his glare.
“Would you like to enlighten us, maybe?” Graham asked. “Or was my invitation here a mistake?”
“Probably.” Natches spoke before his cousin could, a tight smile pulling at his lips as the icy emerald green of his gaze locked on Graham.
“Natches,” Timothy said, his tone chiding, “let’s not antagonize him. Graham’s a very important part of the plan and you know it.”
Those words sent a chill racing down Graham’s spine as he centered his gaze on the former agent and began to see why the Mackays had become such a force to be reckoned with after they’d aligned with this soft-spoken, often far-too-amused little bastard.
“And what part is that, Timothy? Sacrificial lamb, maybe?” Graham was barely holding his own anger in check now.
Timothy smiled. A deliberately wide smile as his hazel eyes gleamed with hard purpose. “Sacrificial lamb always seemed a waste of a good agent to me, Graham,” he stated. “No, you’ll not be the lamb being led to slaughter, nor will Lyrica.” His voice hardened. “We all have our strengths here, just as Lyrica has her weaknesses. One of those weaknesses being her inability to live with any of her cousins for more than a few days at a time without sparks flying. That will only distract all of us.”
Graham felt his gut tighten at the information.
“Then she won’t be staying with one of them?” Shock and dread began to fill him. “Bullshit. You can’t leave her in that damned apartment alone.” He turned to Dawg, noticing the other man was staring at the file lying in front of him as though he could set it aflame with his gaze alone.
“We have no intention of leaving her there alone,” Timothy assured him, pulling his gaze back.
Still smiling, the former agent slid his hands into the pockets of his slacks and watched Graham too closely, with far too much amusement.
“Then what is your intention?” Graham snarled.
“She’ll be staying with you,” Timothy answered, and shock tore through Graham’s mind. “The rest of us will be watching, maneuvering, and flushing the backer out into the open. Your only job is keeping her alive—”
“Unless it’s too late.” Tracker was suddenly moving. “She’s been hit. The Jeep was plowed into from a side road and she’s in a ravine. Angel can’t get her to answer and hasn’t gotten into the vehicle yet. Location’s being texted to you.”
Graham was moving behind him before the others could process their shock, racing from the side entrance of the abandoned business to the Viper he’d parked next to the black Corvette.
They tore out of their respective parking places almost simultaneously, but it was the Viper that hit the street first.
All Graham could hear as he loaded the location’s coordinates into the computer verbally were the words that Lyrica had been hit and the terror that began shredding his guts at the thought.
She’d been hit.
God help him if she hadn’t survived.
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 b
lood.
“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 overwh
elming 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.