The Nauti Boys Collection

by Lora Leigh

  She checked her rearview mirror and there he was. That wicked black jeep pulling into the back entrance and stopping, the man behind the wheel watching her from behind dark glasses.

  He hadn’t approached her since he had stomped from her hotel room days before. But he had been following her since she left the hotel that morning. He had hung back, stayed distant just as he had the year before. He just watched, and just made her as nervous as hell.

  Parking the sedan, Chaya gathered her purse and the heavy file she’d brought with her before stepping out into the crisp autumn air.

  She could feel his eyes on her back as she moved to the entrance of the diner. Intense, blazing. The feminine core of her had been reawakened by that look over a year ago, and now, after knowing his touch again, it didn’t seem inclined to go back to sleep.

  She pushed her way into the diner and stood for a moment, getting her bearings as all eyes turned to her. Suspicious, curious, amused. She latched onto the amused gaze of Sheriff Ezekiel Mayes before striding across the large room.

  His hawklike eyes followed her progress through the room as he rose slowly to his feet. The dun-colored sheriff’s uniform showed off a body in peak condition for a man of thirty-six years. Dark brown hair was military short and emphasized the strong planes and angles of his masculine face.

  “Agent Dane.” He nodded as she took her seat and laid the heavy file on the table in front of her, then he returned to his seat.

  “Thank you for agreeing to meet with me, Sheriff.” She tried out her best business smile, but at the narrowing of his eyes, she assumed it hadn’t gone off quite as planned. “I know it was short notice.”

  “I wouldn’t expect anything less.” He picked up his coffee and took a drink before setting the cup on the table and motioning to the waitress as she moved by. “Becca, we’ll need more coffee over here.”

  “Gotcha, Zeke.” The waitress gave Chaya a quick, suspicious look before moving away.

  “Have you had lunch yet?” he asked Chaya then.

  “I’m fine. I just have some questions I needed to ask and a few things I’d like to go over with you before we head out to begin these interviews.”

  Why Timothy had arranged for this sheriff to tag along with her she wasn’t certain. Ezekiel Mayes was nobody’s fool. He’d spent five years as a homicide detective in Los Angeles before returning to his hometown and running for sheriff. He was suspicious by nature, perceptive, and when he had learned an operation had been conducted without his knowledge by the DHS last year, he had been in D.C. screaming in the faces of men with enough power to scald Cranston’s ass.

  Mayes had some small amount of pull there, Cranston had learned, and he knew exactly how to wield it. Proof was in the fact that she was working with him now.

  Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive. The quote whispered through Chaya’s mind, and not for the first time. Cranston was playing a very dangerous game here, and Sheriff Mayes was but one of the potential enemies that he could make.

  “Coffee, Zeke.” Becca, the waitress, set the cup down before turning to Chaya. “You need anything else?”

  “No, thank you.” She shook her head, wishing she could find a way to still the nerves in her stomach as she lifted the coffee to her lips.

  Becca nodded and moved off, but the sheriff’s gaze never left Chaya.

  “Cranston’s sunk to a new low.” Mayes leaned back in his chair and regarded her with sharp golden brown eyes.

  “Cranston’s always finding new lows.” Chaya shrugged. “What has he managed to do this time?”

  “He sent a pretty little girl to do a man’s job.” He grunted in disgust. “The Mackays are none too happy with DHS right now, and neither is the local law enforcement around here. You don’t pull an op like you did last year and not inform the locals without stepping on some toes.”

  “We weren’t required to inform anyone of our operation here. We were required to reacquire those missiles, Sheriff, not make nice with the local law enforcement. And my gender has nothing to do with my ability to conduct this end of the investigation.”

  He grunted at that. “Yeah, two years in military intelligence and five with DHS. You have a hell of a record under your belt, don’t you?”

  She did, and it was one she was proud of, sometimes, she assured herself. When she needed something to find a source of pride in, then it worked.

  “I’m not a green agent, Sheriff.” She leaned back in her own chair and stared back at him. “Nor am I out of my element here. You have enough pull that you were able to make certain you were contacted and included in any further investigations. I’m fine with that. But you don’t have the power to give me orders or to direct these interviews. Are we clear?”

  His gaze flared with anger for a moment, then the amusement was back. “Just your little lackey, huh?” he murmured, glancing over his shoulder at the sound of the bell over the door tinkling merrily to announce another customer.

  Chaya sighed. It was Natches. She could feel him now.

  “Shall we get down to business?” She picked up the list of interviewees that she had chosen to visit that afternoon. “Here’s the short list of people I need to see today. I assume we can have this completed before too late tonight.”

  Mayes took the list and studied it with a frown. “This isn’t the full list.”

  “I’m not required to give you the full list,” she told him, feeling Natches moving in closer, hearing him as a chair scraped across the floor just behind her.

  The sheriff’s lips twitched as he continued to study her.

  “You like to live dangerously, don’t you, little girl?”

  She barely contained her flinch. She had heard those words before, and the hell she had lived through afterward still haunted her nightmares.

  “I live as I must.” She shrugged. “Another of those details that I’m not required to discuss with you. Now, as you are the first on my list to be interviewed, shall we get started?”

  There was a snort of a laugh behind her. The sound had her hackles rising and a curl of anger prickling inside.

  Before Mayes could answer, she turned slowly in her chair and looked back at Natches. He was no more than four feet away from her, staring at her from behind those dark glasses.

  “Your presence really isn’t required at this time,” she told him quietly. “Your turn will come.”

  She refused to let him intimidate her. If he managed to throw her off balance now, then she was lost. She would never be able to complete her assignment as needed.

  He didn’t smile; he didn’t speak. He just stared at her until she turned her back on him again and shuffled through the papers in her files for the information she had tagged regarding the sheriff.

  “You’ve been sheriff for how long now?”

  “Almost six years.” Mayes was definitely amused now. “They voted me back in for some reason. Personally, I think folks around here consider me a bit of an easy mark, don’t you think?”

  That was definitely a jibe at the man behind her. Chaya was well aware of the fact that the sheriff and the Mackays had gone head-to-head several times last year over Dawg Mackay’s activities.

  “I wouldn’t know the reasons why.” She smiled tightly. “Johnny Grace was a popular citizen in town though. You had known him for a while?”

  Mayes nodded slowly. “I’d known him all his life, Agent Dane. I only spent eight years away from home, not a lifetime. Johnny and his parents are well-known to most people in Somerset and the surrounding towns.”

  “Yet you had no suspicion he could have been involved in the hijacking of the missiles?”

  “Those missiles were taken in another county, close to an Army base.” His voice was clipped now. “I had my eyes open for them, but there were those who neglected to inform me that they could be in my county.” And that was a jibe at Chaya and DHS.

  He was professional enough that his animosity didn’t show, but she could
feel it.

  “Sheriff, I’m not your enemy, nor was I the head agent in that investigation. You’re snapping at the wrong agent here,” she assured him. “I want to complete this and head home as quickly as you want me out of your county.”

  Mayes tilted his head to the side. “Now, what would make you think I want you out of my county? Unlike most people, Agent Dane, I enjoy a good comedy every now and then. And this situation appears to at least have an element of amusement within it.”

  The bell tinkled at the door again. When Chaya lifted her head to glance at the mirror placed next to the register behind Sheriff Mayes, she felt like cursing.

  The Mackays were amassing. The tall, broad forms of Dawg and Rowdy Mackay were reflected in the glass as they moved across the room. They all but swaggered. Dressed in jeans and light T-shirts, Dawg wore a denim jacket, Rowdy wore a leather jacket. Both were suspicious and more than a little intimidating as they joined Natches at his table.

  When her eyes met Sheriff Mayes’s again, the amusement in them had thickened.

  “What about known associates of Grace’s?” she asked him then, lowering her voice further. “Did you have any reason to suspect them after the operation completed last year?”

  This was the wrong damned place for these questions. She knew it, and she could see the knowledge of it in Mayes’s eyes. She had tried to warn Timothy, several times, this man was no one’s fool. Timothy had arranged this meeting here specifically to allow Mackay involvement.

  The sheriff leaned closer. Bracing his arms on the table, he stared back at her warningly.

  “Are you sure you want to finish this here, Agent Dane?” he asked her, his voice official, cool.

  “This is as good a place as any, Sheriff. If you could answer the question please.”

  “I’d have reason to suspect half the county then,” he told her. “If you want to discuss specific suspects though, we’re going to do it elsewhere.”

  That was good enough. That was the best answer she would get right here and now—that Mayes did suspect various parts of the Grace and/or Mackay family. She had spent most of her life learning how to read people, and despite the chill in the sheriff’s face, she could read that much in his eyes.

  “At the time of the operation were you aware that Natches and James Mackay were involved in the operation?”

  Sheriff Mayes snorted at that question. “If there’s trouble to be found, then James Dawg Mackay and his two cousins are always bound to be close by.” He flicked a mocking look behind her shoulder. “They’re trouble like that. You’d do well to remember it.”

  “But you didn’t answer the question,” she reminded him softly.

  “I suspected they were in up to their necks in something, I just didn’t know what.” He shrugged easily. “Remember? No one informed me anything was going on.”

  “But you knew enough to begin your own investigation and to contact several members of the FBI as well as a contact you made within DHS and the Department of Justice?”

  She handed him the memos that had made it into Timothy’s hands. The sheriff’s phone records clearly revealed the calls that were made, but not which agents took those calls.

  His lips tipped knowingly. “I’m a suspicious bastard; what can I say?”

  “And who did you speak to at that time?”

  He smiled at that. “Names elude me, Miss Dane. I just asked to speak to an agent, and they plugged me into someone.”

  Chaya stared back at him suspiciously. He wasn’t even bothering to disguise the fact that he was lying to her.

  “And what did they tell you?”

  “They told me to mind my own business in my own little corner of the world,” he continued to lie. “What were they supposed to tell me?”

  Chaya held back her own grin though she inclined her head in acknowledgment. Truth be told, she didn’t want to know his contacts and she didn’t give a damn. Timothy was dying to get his little hooks into them though.

  Behind her, silence reigned.

  “One last question, Sheriff. Can I trust you?” she asked, allowing her own suspicions to enter her voice now. He was a friend of the Mackays; the people of Somerset were his people. She needed to know, to watch his eyes, hear his voice, to determine how far she was going to trust him.

  His eyes narrowed on her again before he leaned forward carefully. “Agent Dane, I’m a duly sworn officer of the law, and this is my home. You can trust me to cover your back. You can trust me to make damned sure any suspicions you have are held in confidence. I might not like what you are or what your team did here last year, but I don’t have to like you to do my job. Are we clear on that?”

  “And should friends of yours question you regarding the interviews we’re about to make? Will your loyalties then be torn? Because I have to ask you to step aside if they will be. I can bring in another agent to provide backup.”

  He frowned, his jaw clenching. He knew the out she was offering him, and it was one Cranston hadn’t approved. There was no reason to drive a wedge between this man and the Mackays. It was his choice. And she would leave it up to him.

  “You’re insulting me,” he bit out. “And pissing me off at the same time. I just told you my loyalty is to the law. Period.”

  “Excellent.” She closed the file and flashed him a cool smile. “Shall we go then? I’d like to start with the first name below yours on that list if you don’t mind.”

  His lips tightened, but he jerked his hat from the side of the table and slammed it on his head before rising to his feet.

  Chaya gathered her file together, looped the strap of her purse over her shoulder then turned to face three sets of Mackay eyes on her.

  Light green, emerald green, and behind dark glasses she knew were the deepest, darkest forest green eyes she had ever seen. They mesmerized, sank into the soul and left their impression forever after.

  “It was good to see you boys again.” She smiled tightly. “Maybe next time we’ll have a chance to chat for a while.”

  Dawg and Rowdy ducked their heads, but Natches’s expression never shifted, his eyes never left hers.

  “Greta, you don’t want to be here,” Dawg finally muttered as his head lifted, his expression concerned. “Let this go. Make Cranston send someone else to do his dirty work.”

  “But, Dawg, you know how convincing he can be,” she reminded him mockingly. “I think you and I both know I’m rather stuck here. And I do have a job to do. Good day.”

  She nodded to them, then moved past the sheriff, who had stood back, watching the confrontation. Natches’s eyes still followed her, silent, aware.

  Did the memories bring him awake at night in a cold sweat? she wondered. Did he even let himself remember?

  She tried not to remember, but she did. Too often … Remembering was a weakness, because each time she allowed herself to remember hell, then she was also reminded of ecstasy. And she wondered if hell wasn’t safer.

  “You want to tell us what’s doin’, bro?” Dawg stared across the table at Natches as he sipped at the coffee he’d finally ordered.

  “Nothin’s doin’,” he replied, flicking his cousin a mocking look.

  “Take the glasses off, Natches,” Rowdy finally bit out.

  And he didn’t dare. He’d been out of the game too long. His eyes showed what he knew his face didn’t, and when it came to Chaya, they showed even more.

  There were secrets he kept, secrets he was determined to keep. And Chaya was one of them.

  “I have you, Chay. Hold on, baby. Just hold on. I have you.”

  He almost flinched at the memory. The smell of gunfire, of violence and blood, filled his head, and the sounds of her screams. Screams so horrifying, so filled with rage and pain that he hadn’t known how to live with them in his head.

  “I need to roll.” He pushed the coffee cup back and dug into his jeans for a few dollars to pay the bill.

  He didn’t have time to fuck around here. Chaya and Zeke were on t
he move, and Natches was very curious as to the names on that list she had shown the sheriff.

  He was very damned curious as to why she was here to begin with. He had the official line. He had the rumors and he had the suppositions his contacts had come up with. None of those satisfied him. None of those reasons kept his hackles from rising every time he thought about it, or every time he saw Chaya.

  He tossed the money on the table and started to rise.

  “I don’t want to make a mess of this diner, cuz,” Dawg said then. “And if we fight, you know there’s gonna be a mess. Sit your ass down here and tell us what the hell is going on. Let us help you, Natches.”

  He stared back at Dawg, then Rowdy. He could see the concern in their eyes, the worry that he was riding that line again. He had ridden that line a lot in the past. The one that separated common sense from pure, bloody violence.

  What the hell was wrong with him? He couldn’t make sense of it. He hadn’t made sense of it in seven years and it still didn’t make sense. When Chaya was anywhere near, he didn’t know himself. He didn’t know who he was and he didn’t understand the needs that tore through him, nor did he understand the extreme possessiveness.

  In one hot afternoon in the Iraqi desert while he waited for the calvary to ride in and listened to the enemy get closer, he had found something he hadn’t expected to find.

  There, buried in a hole, he had held a woman, and somehow that woman had slipped inside his soul.

  How did that happen? In such a short time, how did one woman change everything a man knew about himself?

  “I’m married.” She had whispered the words, and they had been filled with pain, with a knowledge he couldn’t have guessed at, at the time.

  And what had shocked him clear to the bottom of his soul was that it hadn’t mattered. As he held her, he’d known that marriage wasn’t going to stand in his way. She was his, and that feeling had seared his soul.

  And he had found a core of possessiveness that he hadn’t imagined lived inside him. That possessiveness had shocked him clear to the center of his being, and still had the power to throw him off balance.