The Nauti Boys Collection

by Lora Leigh

  “Cranston, I’m going to murder you.” Natches sighed then. “We had an agreement.”

  Cranston’s gaze was going between Dawg and Crista then.

  “Agreements are for men I can trust, Natches,” he said mockingly. “You two broke trust with me in your attempts to hide Miss Jansen’s presence at that warehouse. Consider this your slap on the wrist.”

  NINETEEN

  Something was breaking apart inside Dawg. He could feel it. He fought it, he tried to force the pieces of his soul back into shape, but they continued to break away, piece by piece, destroying him in the process.

  Cranston was a smart man. Once he glimpsed Dawg’s expression, he excused himself and left. Quickly. It would have been laughable if it weren’t for the fact that everything inside Dawg was silently howling.

  And she hadn’t said a word. Not a word. Even after Natches left, she stared at the carpet and avoided his gaze.

  Dawg wasn’t a man prone to tears. He hadn’t cried since he was five, but at this moment, he wished he hadn’t forgotten how to shed tears.

  Because he wanted to shed tears. For his child, for what had been lost before it had even been born. For the woman who had fled the pain, and the man who hadn’t had a clue the pain he had inflicted in one night of pleasure.

  It had been a son. She had been carrying his son, and for some reason, some quirk of nature, it had been taken from her. Sweet God! Had been taken from them both.

  The file held the facts on more than the miscarriage. It was her life for eight fucking years.

  Every move she had made in the past eight years was there, as well as her living arrangements with the two men in Virginia and their sexual orientation.

  They were homosexual. The two men were lovers, and Crista, from all accounts, rather than being a third to the little love nest, had been treated more as a little sister. A sister that needed protecting, to be cared for.

  Neighbors had been questioned regarding Crista, as had her former boss. Everyone had given her glowing recommendations and stressed how dependable, reliable, and kind she was.

  One elderly lady had told the agent, posing as a prospective employer, that Crista Jansen was a wounded little bird when she first arrived with Mark Lessing and moved into his apartment. Cranston had related that piece of information with curious satisfaction.

  As he read, grief swelled in his chest with each word and the implications of what he had done to her. Agony pierced his heart, his soul, and ripped through his mind.

  Crista had run from him, lost their child, then left town, barely healed from the miscarriage. She had immediately enrolled in business school. She had dated rarely, never seriously, and photos of those men were included in the file. An accountant, a banker, the vice president of a manufacturing firm. All three men were suave, sophisticated, and about as dangerous or sexual as a neutered house cat.

  Crista had worked hard, played rarely. She had volunteered several weekends a month at a local hospital in the pediatrics ward, and everyone loved her.

  And she had been alone. She had left Somerset after losing his baby. After he had taken her with drunken lust and committed the unbearable sin of having forgotten that night. Except in his dreams. Dreams where she had tempted him, tormented him. Loved him.

  No wonder he hadn’t forgotten about her. No wonder he had dreamed of her for eight long years and with her return had focused on her with something bordering obsession.

  And it was no wonder she had refused every advance. No wonder she had avoided him every chance she had. She should have shot him. He was amazed Alex hadn’t done the job for her.

  “Did you want the baby?” His baby. His child. Grief nearly ripped his guts from his body at the thought of that child that had never drawn breath.

  “More than my own life.” Her voice was harsh, thick was unshed tears as his own throat closed against the pain.

  “You could have told me.” He would have claimed her, claimed their baby. He would have held her, protected her, shared her grief.

  “I was too young for you.” Pain haunted her voice and his soul. “I didn’t run because of the miscarriage, or because of the threat of Rowdy and Natches. I could have handled informing you that wasn’t going to happen. But I couldn’t handle what you made me feel that night.”

  Dawg lifted his eyes from the folder, and he wanted to howl at the pain he saw in her eyes.

  “You loved me, even then.” He knew it, knew it in his soul, and that knowledge was killing him. She had loved him, endured this alone, and he hadn’t even remembered the night that had created their child.

  “I loved you,” she whispered. “I’ve always loved you, Dawg. But what happened between us…” Her hand lifted, then dropped helplessly. “What you made me feel. I couldn’t handle it. I craved it. I cried for you for months after I left, but I couldn’t come back.”

  “Why?” His voice was stark, chilling.

  “I told myself it was because of Rowdy and Natches. I told myself I couldn’t handle having my heart broken when you refused to give up that lifestyle, but when I returned last year and saw you the first time, I knew better. I couldn’t come back because I knew you would end up owning my soul. And if that happened, I wouldn’t be able to just walk away. I’d hate it. I’d end up destroying myself over it, but if you had pressed, I knew I couldn’t have refused anything you wanted.”

  Facing that fact had been the hardest part of the last few days, and Crista knew it. Knowing that in her heart she had wasted eight years of her own life running from herself hadn’t been easy.

  “Were you relieved you had the miscarriage, Crista?” he asked, his voice bleak, shattered.

  She hadn’t expected that question from him. She had expected recriminations, a suspicion that she had deliberately gotten pregnant, but she hadn’t expected this.

  “I nearly died, Dawg,” she cried hoarsely. “I wanted to die.”

  His head lifted from the file, his expression so stark, so furiously intent, that she felt her chest tighten with pain.

  “Why did you want that baby so bad, Crista?” he asked her then.

  Suspicion. She heard it in his voice, but all she saw in his face was the same expression she had seen the night she found him drunk, his truck in a ditch and his drunken bitterness pouring from his voice as he cursed his parents.

  “Because it was our baby,” she answered simply, tearfully. “A part of you and a part of everything I felt for you. And it was innocent, Dawg. No matter how frightened I was, or what you wanted, it wasn’t our baby’s fault.”

  Sweet God, his eyes were wet, so dark now, haunted and rife with agony as he stared back at her.

  “Would you have told me about our baby?”

  How to answer that one? She felt like a criminal on trial now, and Dawg was her judge and jury. The way he watched her terrified her.

  “No.” She wasn’t going to lie to him, not now. “But Alex would have. He was already set to tell you when I miscarried. I was—” She bit her lip as she glanced away for long seconds. “I was too scared, Dawg. I don’t know if I could have survived your denial of our child. You didn’t even remember the night we spent together. I knew you didn’t. You would have never believed I was carrying your baby.”

  He stared down at the file, closing it slowly and pushing it away. The heaviness in his expression broke her heart. His brows were lowered, his features tight with the grief she had felt the minute she realized she was losing his child.

  “I would have believed you,” he finally said, his voice rough, harsh, as he lifted his head and stared back at her, his green eyes dark with sorrow. “Don’t you know, Crista? I would have used any excuse to claim you.”

  She had to turn away from him. Her hand pressed to her lips as pain tore through her chest. She couldn’t breathe, she couldn’t stop the tears that flooded her eyes. She had to hide from what she saw in his eyes then. The shutters were removed, the distance he always forced on himself was stripped away, and the
loneliness and the pain glittered in the light green orbs.

  And she couldn’t face it. She couldn’t face the fact that she had added to it.

  A second later his arms were wrapping around her, pulling her against his chest, surrounding her with a warmth that she had only known when she was in his arms.

  “I would have destroyed us both,” she whispered tearfully, her hands gripping his hard forearms as her head lowered. “I would have made us miserable.”

  “Shh. Don’t, Crista,” he whispered against her ear. “Don’t blame yourself. We both grew up, baby. But the thought of you going through that alone. Carrying my child, losing it.” One hand lifted to her face as he turned her, his opposite arm wrapping around her and holding her to him as he wiped the tears from beneath one eye. “It tears me apart.”

  Crista tried to shake her head.

  “Don’t.” He stopped her, sighing heavily as his forehead rested against hers. “You’ve been scared to even tell me, Crista. You’ve held back, you’ve let yourself hurt and not even considered telling me, haven’t you?”

  “I was going to tell you when we got back here.” She swallowed tightly. “I couldn’t hold back any longer, Dawg. Loving you terrified me, until I awoke in your arms and realized I’ve always loved you. And I’ve been dying inside without you all these years. Never knowing, always wondering what if. The wondering was killing me. Being without you was breaking my heart more every year.”

  She stared into his eyes, and they broke her heart. His expression was twisted into lines of grief, his brows heavy with the internal pain she could glimpse in his eyes.

  “I won’t let you go, Crista,” he whispered then. “Not now, not ever. We’re going to get through this investigation, find out what the hell Johnny is pulling, and then we’re going to figure this relationship out. Just you and me.”

  “I should have told you.” She reached up, cupped his cheek, and ached at the pain in his face. “I shouldn’t have run from you, Dawg.”

  She admitted that now, though it was something she had known, even then. Running away from him hadn’t been the answer. Running away from herself had, in ways, been even worse.

  “No more running,” he told her softly, gently, his lips lowering to hers, taking them in a kiss that had her breath hitching in her chest.

  The sheer gentleness rocked her mind. The way his head tilted, the lingering emotion and banked passion seemed to sink into her soul and leave her fighting for breath in a way that the raw lust never had.

  When he pulled back, grief creased his expression and sheened his eyes as well as lust. Lust and hunger and need so powerful now it stole her breath.

  “If I start now, we won’t stop. Let’s see about our lunch, sweetheart, figure some of this out, and later…” His eyes were heartbreaking. Filled with pain and need. “Later, we’ll pick this up.”

  Crista inhaled roughly and tried to pull her thoughts back into some semblance of order. She tried to give him the time he needed, and she knew he needed time. She could see it in his face, in his bleak gaze.

  “I can’t believe Johnny is involved in this.” She shook her head, wondering how many more times Dawg could handle the betrayals from the family that should have stood by him.

  He had Rowdy and Natches and Rowdy’s father, Ray, but Crista had seen how alone he was other than those three. He had few friends; he trusted no one but the cousins he had grown up with and the one uncle who had stood by him.

  And no one held him.

  “Oh, I could believe just about anything out of Johnny,” Dawg bit out, slowly drawing away from her and heading back to the table where the picnic basket still sat. “He’s definitely his mother’s son.”

  Dawg’s heart was breaking for the things they had both lost because of his ignorance—for his child, for the woman he loved before he knew what love was. He wasn’t that same immature man any longer. He had been too damned rock dumb to go after what he wanted, even though he had sensed what Crista would mean to his future. He wasn’t dumb anymore.

  “Why would he do this, though?” Crista set the basket on the far end of the bar before moving into the kitchen and pulling ice from the freezer for the tea that had been packed with the food. “He’s your cousin. When I left Somerset, Johnny followed after the three of you like a shadow.”

  Dawg shook his head. “Johnny followed us like a shadow to see how much trouble he could brew up. We knew he was gay even then, and he was terrified we’d tell on him. Not that we cared either way; it was his damned troublemaking we couldn’t stand. His and his mother’s.”

  Crista frowned heavily as she filled the glasses with ice.

  “I always remember how nice Jcohnny was.” She bit her lip as she lifted her gaze to him, and Dawg wondered if he had ever seen that look in anyone else’s eyes. It wasn’t pity; it was compassion and anger for him. She was angry on his behalf, because she loved him. Even now, after everything he had done to her.

  His chest clenched at the thought. She had even said the words, and this time, it wasn’t just a hazy memory. She loved him, and he’d be damned if he was going to spend precious time distrusting her.

  No, she wasn’t part of the Trinity, but she was a gift from God himself. The days he had spent with her, despite the problems that had arisen, had been freer, happier than any he might have known in his life.

  “Johnny’s a deceptive little bastard. He likes to draw you in, and every second that he’s playing the concerned buddy and dear friend, he’s looking for ways to slash your throat. He learned the art at his mother’s knee, and after the death of his father, she had free rein to reinforce the lessons.”

  “His father, Ralph, was one of my dad’s few friends.” Crista’s lips tilted sadly. “Mom hated Nadine, though. She hated to even see her come into the store.”

  Dawg nodded in response. “Everyone liked Ralph. If he had lived, he would have divorced Nadine eventually, but maybe Johnny would have had a chance.”

  “How do you think he got mixed up in this thing with the missiles?” She frowned then. “And don’t think you’re not going to pay for lying to me about drugs.”

  “I never said it was drugs, Crista Ann; you assumed.” He sighed.

  “You could have corrected my assumption.”

  His grin was still tinted with the grief that lingered in his gaze, but at least a measure of amusement tipped it now, Crista thought.

  “Johnny makes a habit of making friends with military types,” he told her. “They feel sorry for him at first, until they realize it’s lust and not hero worship he’s displaying. Somehow, he finally hooked up with someone dumb enough to get pulled into one of his schemes or let out the information, and he used it. Either way, as soon as Natches and Cranston have the information together and a warrant, he’ll no longer be a threat.”

  She paused, staring back at him as disbelief slammed inside her head.

  “What are you talking about? Aren’t they arresting him now?”

  “Not without enough proof. We don’t have enough yet.” Dawg set plates on the table as she continued to stare at him in horror.

  “But it was him. We all recognized him, Dawg.”

  He shook his head, his expression weary, bitter. “Doesn’t matter, Crista. Any decent defense lawyer would have him out of jail within an hour and a lawsuit against the arresting agents not long afterward. We need proof, not the testimony of two cousins who have every reason in the world to want to crucify him.”

  The bitterness in his voice wasn’t one of hatred but one of disillusionment.

  “I’m sorry.” She fought to rein back her anger. “Family should stick together, not try to destroy each other.”

  She couldn’t have survived childhood without Alex. Her brother had been her rock, her anchor, and later, her best friend. She couldn’t imagine having him hate her enough to try to destroy her or anyone she loved.

  “Yeah well, that’s in a perfect world, sweetheart.” He shook his head as though shaking
away his own regrets, then flashed her a smile that was at once teasing and filled with hunger. “Let’s eat our lunch. We’re hanging around the marina for the rest of the day, until Natches gets back to us. Once we’ve decided what to do to, things will move fast enough. Let’s enjoy the quiet time we have for a while.”

  As he said that, a knock sounded at the door.

  Crista’s lips twitched as she glimpsed three shadows, two taller, the other petite and delicate.

  “Hell!” Dawg pushed his fingers through his hair and stalked to the door.

  Ray Mackay, Rowdy, and Kelly were waiting on the other side. Kelly was concerned, but Ray and Rowdy were pissed off.

  “God bless Ralph Grace’s soul.” Ray shook his head as Dawg closed the door behind him. “He’s turning over in his grave.”

  “Easy, Uncle Ray. We’ll get things worked out.”

  Crista heard the tone Dawg used and wondered at it. He was comforting his uncle rather than accepting any comfort.

  “I’ll work it out,” Ray snapped. “With the business end of my rifle. You think you’re the only Mackay who knows how to shoot a gun?”

  “Dad.” Rowdy glanced at Dawg, and Crista saw the worry in his eyes. “Let’s see what we can do to help rather than shed blood here.”

  “Seems like shedding blood would be the best help.” Ray grimaced, though he moved to his nephew, slapped his shoulder in that gesture of male camaraderie, and shook his head in disgust. “Dawg, son, one of these days, you’re going to have to learn: give those damned people an inch, and they take a mile. I can’t even convince Natches of that, not all the way down. You thought they’d back off when you let that land go. I told you Johnny would never stop.”

  Bitterness pierced Ray Mackay’s voice as well, and Crista began to glimpse the family dynamics that were rife with pain and anger.

  “I’ll get the land back when they arrest Johnny, Uncle Ray. My lawyer will make certain of it.”

  Crista watched, confused, as Kelly walked over to her and leaned against the bar beside her.