The Nauti Boys Collection

by Lora Leigh

  And why hadn’t she thought of that one before now? she asked herself as Johnny moved into the driver’s seat and started his car.

  “Where were you the other night?” he asked, startling her out of her thoughts. “I was at the store until late, and you still weren’t home.”

  She glanced at him, surprised he had noticed. “I was, uhh, with Dawg.”

  And Dawg was making her paranoid, because suddenly she felt nervous, uncertain. Why would Johnny care where she was? Why would he check to see that she wasn’t home?

  Johnny faced forward as he started the car and brushed back a curl from his cheek.

  “With Dawg, huh?” he asked curiously.

  Technically. For a little while. “Yes,” she answered carefully.

  His lips turned up into a grin as he glanced over her and put the car in gear. Driving from the parking lot, he turned onto the interstate that led back to the main street of Somerset before flicking her another look.

  “Be careful, Crista.” He finally sighed. “You know, we call him Dawg for a reason, right?”

  The gentleness in his voice had her hackles rising. She could feel the judgment in his tone and she didn’t like it. She wasn’t a child anymore, and she had endured enough lectures eight years before. She didn’t need any more.

  “Because he’s stubborn?” she batted at him sweetly. “Come on, Johnny, I’m a big girl here. I can handle Dawg.”

  She heard lightning struck in cases of whopper lies like that one. She looked up at the clear blue sky. Not a cloud in sight, thank God.

  Johnny only chuckled. “So, did he bring along the rest of the team, or was he solo?”

  She nearly gaped back at him. “That’s a rude question, Johnny.” And it made her more nervous, more uncertain, and even more aware of the enmity that existed between Johnny and Dawg. Leaving with Johnny hadn’t been a good idea.

  “And entirely qualified.” Johnny rolled his eyes. “Darling, despite Kelly’s determination to hold out, its more than obvious those three have been working her for years. They saved her for Rowdy, and he will share her eventually. It’s a delicate little seduction technique they use. How delicate the seduction determines how serious they are about the prey.”

  “Oh Lord, you make them sound like wolves.”

  “Very well-bred wolves, I’m certain.” Johnny laughed. “And you didn’t answer my question.”

  “Dawg was traveling alone that night,” she assured him. “Otherwise, I wouldn’t have been with him.” Was that a cloud overhead? A rumble of thunder maybe?

  Okay, no thunder. But there were two Harleys behind them, the smooth rumble of their motors reminding her of Alex.

  “Interesting,” Johnny murmured as he flicked on the turn signal and pulled into the turn lane to head into the smaller road that led into the old center of the city.

  “Just interesting?” She smothered a yawn, wishing he would hurry.

  “Dawg never seemed the possessive sort to me.” Johnny shrugged. “But as I said, it’s usually a seduction technique. He has any number of interesting games he’s played over the years. He does give the family plenty to gossip over.”

  Suddenly, being here just didn’t feel right. It was obvious that despite their familial connection that Johnny liked Dawg even less than he claimed Dawg liked him. Not that she figured the whole family feud thing was any of her business, but right now, it paid to be just a little wary of Dawg.

  “And we’re definitely in trouble,” Johnny suddenly claimed morosely, his lips pursing into a pout as he glanced at the rearview mirror.

  Crista twisted around in the seat, her eyes widened, then she flopped forward again and crossed her arms over her breasts.

  Dawg and Natches were riding behind the car like denim-clad motorized warriors. Their expressions were stony, and the smile Dawg had flashed her was anything but friendly. It reminded her of a shark.

  “Just drop me off in front of the diner, Johnny.” She sighed. “I’ll be okay there.”

  “Are you sure?” A delicate frown formed between his brows. “I feel a little funny just leaving you with him like this. Dawg isn’t always predictable.”

  She snorted. That was an understatement if she ever heard one.

  “I can handle Dawg.” She hoped.

  She waited as Johnny pulled to the curb several minutes later and stopped the car. She didn’t give him time to say anything. She stepped quickly from the car, slammed the door, and then turned her back on all of them and moved for the narrow alley that led to the back lot.

  Dawg was right behind her, and so was Natches. Opening her purse, she pulled her keys free, refusing to glance around. He had no right to intimidate her. And if she let him keep doing it, then it would never stop.

  As she reached her car and unlocked it, she turned back then, lifting her brows at the two men watching her with equally fierce expressions from the motorcycles that pulled in behind her little red Rodeo.

  Déjà vu. She wondered if she would end up leaving with her car this time.

  The engines were cut, leaving the parking lot strangely silent, as though even the breeze itself were wondering what they would do now.

  “I see you’ve been out having fun.” She flicked a glance to the motorcycles.

  “Get on.” Dawg jerked his head to the side, indicating the back of the motorcycle.

  “I don’t think so,” she said brightly. “I’m going to go home, pack the rest of my stuff, and I’ll meet you back at the boat later. Why don’t you and Natches there go take the edge off your tempers somewhere? I’m not in the mood to deal with it.”

  He swung his leg over the seat of the motorcycle as he rose, clad in faded jeans and a white, short-sleeved, buttoned shirt, he looked like the ultimate bad boy. A ravisher, a modern-day warrior.

  The sight of his black hair blowing in the breeze and his light green eyes glittering in his dark face had a rush of damp warmth spilling from her vagina.

  As though she hadn’t been wet enough to begin with.

  “Dawg.” She sighed. “Don’t start trying to intimidate me, okay? We both know damned good and well no one but you and whoever left that notice knew I was there last night. You’re trying to control me, and a good blackmailer sticks to the main object; he doesn’t blackmail for the air a person breathes. Okay?”

  His eyes narrowed. “You have it all worked out, don’t you, fancy-face?”

  “Stop calling me that.” She hated the nickname he had given her as a teenager. It had caused her no end of teasing for years. “Now, you can follow me to the house and help me finish packing, or you can go back where you came from. Your choice.”

  She lifted herself into the driver’s seat, closed the door, and shoved the key into the ignition. She gave it a quick turn, and nothing happened. The starter clicked hollowly, but the motor didn’t turn over. Frowning, she released it, then moved to turn it again.

  Before she could complete the motion, the door jerked open, and she barely had time to gasp before Dawg was pulling her free of the vehicle, his expression fierce as he all but lifted her off her feet and rushed away from the vehicle.

  “What the hell are you doing?” She tugged at the arm latched around her waist and stared back at her Rodeo. It was sitting there, door open, deserted, as Dawg pushed her to the motorcycle and turned back to the vehicle.

  “Dawg. I’m tired. I’m dusty. And I need the rest of my clothes. If you don’t have a really, really good reason—”

  A loud, wrenching pop jerked her gaze back to the Rodeo. A Rodeo whose little red hood was tossed into the air like a Frisbee. The front of the vehicle suddenly shot up in flames.

  Lots of flames. So fast and so hot that within a second the interior was a red, furious blaze as she stood in shock, trying to comprehend exactly what had happened.

  The hood landed on the other side of the parking lot, the crash of metal to asphalt barely registering as she watched Dawg and Natches tearing toward the vehicle, the fire extinguish
ers they carried in the saddle packs of their motorcycles gripped in their hands.

  Diners came running from the back door. The cook lugged out a larger extinguisher, and someone yelled that the fire department was on their way. And all Crista could do was stare at the driver’s seat, engulfed in flames, and feel the ice moving through her body.

  It appeared that Dawg had been right after all.

  ELEVEN

  “I hope the three of you have some damned good explanations, because I’m not really happy with you right now.”

  Sheriff Ezekiel Mayes, Zeke to his friends, didn’t bother glancing at Crista or Kelly Salyers, who had arrived at the diner with her fiancé within half an hour of the initial explosion. He trained his light brown eyes on the three cousins instead, a hard frown pulling at his forehead.

  “Don’t look at me, Zeke.” Rowdy shook his head, his short black hair gleaming beneath the bright overhead lights. “I just came by to make sure they were still alive.” He nodded toward his cousins, a friendly smile on his lips, though his gaze was cool and warning.

  The three cousins sat at the large, round table in the back of the dining room. Kelly was placed between Rowdy and Natches, and Crista between Dawg and Natches. The scene couldn’t have been more incriminating, considering the Mackay cousins’ reputations.

  “Zeke, you keep forgetting they’ve grown up.” Kelly leaned forward, propping her chin on her hand as she braced her elbow on the table and grinned back at the sheriff with a winning smile.

  “And you used to be such a sweet, honest little thing.” The sheriff clucked in disapproval. “Lying for these boys only gets everyone in trouble, Kelly. Remember?”

  Kelly grimaced. “They caught him.”

  She was obviously talking about the stalker who had nearly killed her and the three cousins last summer.

  “I could have caught him faster if these three yahoos had told me what the hell they were doing,” he grunted, eying the yahoos in question. “Am I going to get any better answers this time?” His gaze finally moved to Crista. “Alex asked me to watch after you before he left, Crista. Are you going to help me out?”

  She tried to smile, but her face felt frozen. “Zeke, if I knew anything, I promise I’d tell you. I don’t know myself what happened.”

  Zeke grunted at that. “You have a homemade detonation device set in your vehicle that created enough heat to burn your flesh off your bones, and you don’t know why?”

  Crista’s stomach rolled threateningly.

  “Hell, Zeke, go a little easier on her,” Dawg bit out. “She doesn’t know what the hell is going on, and neither do we. I heard the ignition click and jerked her out of the vehicle in time. It was that simple. I do have a bit of experience with these things, you know.”

  Zeke’s gaze lingered a little too long on Dawg before he turned back to Crista. “I’m going to have to start warning the women around here about getting mixed up with these boys. Bad things seem to follow them nowadays.” He took the remaining chair, straddling it with an easy motion and leaning his darkly tanned forearms on the table as he stared back at Crista. “Why does someone want to kill you, Crista Ann?”

  She felt the color leech from her face as Dawg’s arm suddenly came around her shoulders, his chair moving in closer to hers.

  “For God’s sake, Zeke,” he snarled. “Have a little compassion here.”

  Zeke didn’t take his eyes off her. “Crista, you’re a smart girl,” he said softly. “Alex raised you to think on your feet. Let me help you.”

  She shook her head. She had already ignored Dawg once by leaving the store and coming out on her own. She had almost died because of it. She was too stunned now, too frightened, to consider ignoring him again.

  “I don’t know why.” Her lips felt numb, her body cold.

  “Any strange goin’ ons?” Zeke’s gaze sharpened as Dawg’s hand tightened warningly on her shoulder.

  She could feel his heat surrounding her, but it wasn’t touching the core of ice that seemed to solidify inside her chest.

  She shook her head. Lying. She was lying through her teeth to friends now, covering up something that Zeke should know about.

  “If nothing’s going on, then why did Alex call me last week and ask me to keep an extra eye on you?” he asked her then. “He said you had mentioned some strange things then, Crista.” His voice was gentle but firm. He knew she was lying.

  “I’m not used to living alone,” she whispered. “I was a little freaked out when I talked to him. The house sounds funny sometimes.”

  And it did. Sometimes, she could have sworn someone was moving around the house at night, though she had never been able to find any proof of it. That wasn’t a lie, but it felt like one, because she wasn’t telling Zeke the whole truth.

  He sighed then. “Anyone from Virginia that you think might want to hurt you? What about that guy Alex said you were living with? Mark?”

  “Mark Lessing.” The tension around the table was suddenly thick enough to cut with a knife. Dawg tightened subtly, his body seeming to shift with dangerous force.

  She looked at him in confusion, seeing the glitter of an inner flame in his eyes that had the blood suddenly rushing through her body with dizzying force. She swallowed tightly before forcing her gaze back to Zeke.

  “Mark wouldn’t hurt me. He has no reason to want to hurt me.”

  “So your relationship with him ended amicably?” Zeke asked curiously. “That’s a little unusual. Relationships don’t just end with no anger on either side.”

  “Nothing ended.” She shrugged. “I came home. Mark agreed it was time. End of story.”

  Zeke glanced at Dawg. “You believe that?”

  “What kind of game are you playing, Zeke?” Dawg asked then.

  Zeke blinked with a look of studied male mockery. “Just trying to figure out the rules of the game you’re playing, Dawg. Leave me in the dark, and that’s what I tend to do.”

  “He’s not playing any games.” Crista clenched her fists in her lap as she fought to control the shaking of her limbs. “Nothing has been going on. Mark wouldn’t hurt me, and neither would anyone else I know. I don’t know what happened out there or why anyone would want to hurt me.”

  And she was a lousy liar.

  Zeke breathed out wearily as he leaned back in his chair and regarded them all cynically. “When you think you can tell me the truth, Crista, you know how to get hold of me,” he finally said, then stared back at Dawg. “You know what Alex will do if she gets hurt, right? He’ll come down on the three of you like a wrecking ball. It won’t be pretty.”

  “Come on, Zeke, threats don’t work.” Dawg rose from his seat before gripping Crista’s arm and drawing her up with him. “If you have any more questions, she’ll be on the boat with me or working in my office.”

  Zeke’s gaze flicked to the hold Dawg had on her before his eyes lifted back to hers.

  “If she’s not in trouble, then why isn’t she staying at her place?”

  “Because she moved in with me yesterday,” Dawg answered coolly. “We were heading to her house to pack her stuff when this happened.”

  Crista was suddenly aware of the other diners packed into the restaurant, their curious gazes following them, even though the table had been moved far enough away to give the sheriff the privacy he needed to question them.

  And those curious diners couldn’t have helped but overhear Dawg’s little announcement.

  “Well, I know where to find her then, that’s all that matters.” Zeke moved smoothly to his feet, his leanly muscled body flexing in frustration as he glanced around the table again. “Natches, Rowdy, next time I have proof you’re pulling ops behind my back, I’m going to arrest every damned one of you. I’m giving you fair warning now.”

  Ops. Operations. Crista knew that word, she had heard Alex use it often enough.

  “Save it, Zeke.” Natches followed Rowdy and Kelly as they rose from their seats as well. “We’re not running ops
on you. And if we were, we would know how to cover our asses.”

  Zeke breathed out in exasperation. “Unfortunately, that’s too true.” He stood as well, his gaze coming back to Crista. “Have you talked to Alex yet?”

  She shook her head. “He’s out of the country.”

  Zeke nodded. “I put out a call to his CO, and he told me the same thing. Any idea when he’ll be back?”

  “When he gets back.”

  Zeke’s questions were beginning to grate on her nerves, especially when it was more than obvious that he knew the answers before he did the asking.

  Zeke nodded again, his gaze going over the five of them before it landed on Kelly once more. “You’re letting them get you in trouble again, Kel. Not a good idea?”

  At that, Kelly’s laughter whispered around the table. “Zeke, they are trouble, remember? But in this case, I promise you, I’m innocent as a babe.”

  His lips twitched at that, and an edge of amusement filled his gaze. “Course you are, Kel.” He chuckled. “And it’s more than obvious that fiancé of yours is a damned bad influence. Not that I expected anything less. You, my girl, are a little too easily taken in by that rogue’s smile of his.”

  “Ease up, Zeke.” Though his voice was amused, there was an edge of steel in Rowdy’s voice. “We need to get Crista back to the marina and let Dawg get her settled. Her nerves are raw, and so are ours. Like you said, you know where to find her if you have any more questions.”

  Crista let Dawg lead her from the diner then, aware that the sheriff watched them leave, suspicion shadowing his gaze. Not that he didn’t have a damned good reason to be suspicious. She knew Zeke, and knew, from the conversations she had with her brother in the past, how seriously he took his job and the protection of the county. And suspicion meant a challenge to Zeke. He wasn’t going to just let this go.

  “Just hang on.” Dawg’s voice was a whisper of sound as he led her from the diner. “We’re almost clear.” He turned to Rowdy. “Did you bring the pickup?”