The Nauti Boys Collection

by Lora Leigh

  “What notes?” he asked carefully.

  “Yeah, I was afraid she was keeping it to herself, especially after she made it a point to make me swear to investigate it myself. Hell. Damned Mackays. Every one of them is trouble in one way or the other.”

  “What notes, Zeke?” Alex could feel the tension tightening in his body then, the hairs at the back of his neck lifting in warning.

  “There’s been three in the past two months. Words cut out of the newspaper and taped to plain white paper. No prints, nothing unusual, no way to trace it. Always left somewhere she won’t miss them. The first was taped to the door of her apartment. The second shoved under the front door of the restaurant. The third was shoved under her apartment door. All three warning her to get out of town. That a traitor’s slut wasn’t wanted in Somerset.”

  Damn. Alex felt his hands curling around the steering wheel, tightening. Violence raged through his body, and the need to exact vengeance slammed inside him.

  “Natches doesn’t know?”

  “She made me swear I wouldn’t tell a single Mackay.” Zeke smiled at that thought of that. “I haven’t told a single Mackay.”

  No, he was telling Alex. Alex slid him a furious glance. The bastard.

  “So I get to spread all the good news?”

  Zeke shrugged before pulling a plastic envelope from inside his jacket. “I was out looking for you tonight anyway. I was waiting for you to heal up a little bit before we talked. You’re still officially deputized with DHS last I heard, so this is your business.”

  Alex took the envelopes. “Copies?”

  Zeke nodded. “All three of them as well as the report where we dusted for prints. We didn’t find anything. But I don’t like the tone of those letters, Alex,” he admitted. “They worry me.”

  They worried Alex now. And what worried him even more was the fact that Janey wasn’t telling her family about them. They could protect her, help watch out for her. Yet she was taking it on alone.

  “You weren’t able to find out anything?” Alex asked again, even though he knew Zeke would have told him if he had.

  “Nothing. And I’m worried about her. I hear the crap that goes on in this county. And I’ve been in that restaurant to hear some of the comments she gets. She’s like a damned robot in there, and people can be mean. They keep striking until they see blood. Janey doesn’t show blood. It could end up getting her hurt worse.”

  Natches was going to have to know about this. If Zeke thought the youngest Mackay cousin would kill him for fooling with his sister, it was nothing compared to what Natches would do if Janey ended up hurt and he’d had no idea there was a threat against her.

  “Natches is going to be pissed at you, Zeke,” Alex warned him. “He’ll know you held back on him.”

  Zeke shrugged. “It won’t be the first time, will it?” His voice was filled with amusement. “Be careful, though, Alex. Janey’s not the play-around type. She’s been hurt a lot in her young life. There’s no sense in adding to it.”

  No. There wasn’t. But damned if he could stay away from her now.

  “I know that, Zeke.” He knew it clear to the bottom of his soul.

  Zeke nodded and left the truck, leaving Alex to stare up at that damned window as the light went out. She was going to bed. His body clenched at that thought of it. Did she sleep naked? Somehow, he doubted she did. She was young, a virgin; had she learned how sensual the sheets could feel against her naked flesh?

  He would show her. Show her how erotic it could be to sleep naked, curled against his body, his hands petting her through the night.

  He closed his eyes and breathed out roughly. His cock was pounding in his slacks, fully engorged and torturing him with the need for sex. Not just any sex either. Oh hell now, it had to wait thirty-seven years to get picky and decide it was getting hard for only one woman.

  One younger woman.

  He was hooked on her kisses, and he had a feeling he was about to get hooked on much more than those perfect sweet lips.

  He groaned at that thought. Natches would kill him for sure, but after that kiss earlier, Alex decided, it just might be worth it.

  THREE

  Alex pulled into the marina parking lot a little after seven the next morning. It was damned cold on the water in February. Those Mackays were frickin’ insane. All three of them were still on the houseboats, all of them with very pregnant wives.

  Certi-fucking-fiable. That was all he could think. One of those very pregnant wives was his sister, Crista, and Alex was still ready to blow Dawg’s head off for not having that house ready yet. If it weren’t for the fact that Crista was the one holding things up, he and Dawg would have already fought.

  He looked around and saw Ray Mackay’s pickup in front of the marina office, though he knew Ray wasn’t there. He’d called the other man that morning and asked him to meet him at Natches’s.

  Shit. This wasn’t going to be easy. Natches had just gotten his sister back, thought she was finally safe and secure, and now this crap. And Janey, Alex knew, hadn’t mentioned a word to her brother.

  He stepped out of the pickup, tense, wary. Dealing with the Mackays all at once wasn’t a fun time to be had, and bringing news like this?

  He couldn’t get those letters out of his head, though. They were brutal, filthy trash. No wonder Janey was so damned wary, almost frightened, last night. She couldn’t know who was doing this to her; she would suspect everyone, and he couldn’t blame her.

  He moved quickly from the parking lot along the docks. As he neared the Nauti Dreams, Natches’s houseboat, the door opened and Natches stepped out. He was still as wild as the wind, Alex thought. Dressed in jeans and a T-shirt and bare feet. His black hair was mussed, his dark green gaze sharp despite the drowsy look on his face.

  “You’re working early, Major,” Natches drawled as Alex stepped onto the boat. “Playing Cranston’s lapdog again?”

  Alex sighed. He’d been working with Cranston for years. His team was one of the agent’s favorites to call out for the hairier assignments. Alex had already been called before a review board twice because of the insanity that was Cranston. But damn if the agent didn’t make life interesting.

  They called him the Rabid Leprechaun, and Cranston was inordinately pleased with that title. So much so that his agents and Alex’s team worried that he took it a little too seriously. The thing about Cranston that the Mackays never understood, though, was that it wasn’t about the manipulations he conspired to do; for Timothy, it was all about the past and everything he had ever lost. It was about retribution. And in ways, it had been for Alex as well. He understood that. For Alex, though, the thoughts of retribution were melting away beneath thoughts of Janey.

  “Not this time, Natches.” He shook his head as he stopped in front of his friend. “We need to talk.”

  Natches’s eyes narrowed dangerously before he inclined his head into the houseboat. “Well, we’re all here as you asked. Keep your voice down, though; Chaya’s still sleeping.”

  Evidently, all the Mackay women were sleeping. Ray, his son, Rowdy, Dawg, and Natches were waiting, but Crista, Kelly, and Chaya were absent.

  He stepped into the wide front room and stared at the men huddled around the table at the side, a pot of coffee between them.

  “Alex, good to see you.” Ray Mackay, Rowdy’s father, with his sharp Mackay green eyes and graying black hair, waved him over. “Get a seat, son. We have a cup for you.” He poured coffee into a cup as Alex stepped over to the table.

  He didn’t sit down. Neither did Natches.

  “Seven in the morning,” Natches commented with a drawl. “Must be trouble.”

  “Trouble follows Alex,” Rowdy grunted. Evidently he didn’t like getting up early anymore either.

  “So does Cranston,” Dawg commented mockingly. Another less-than-polite Mackay. Hell, they were nicer than this before they decided monogamy was the spice of life.

  “No Cranston this time.” Alex pull
ed the letters from inside his jacket, unfolded them, and handed them to Natches. “I got these last night. They’ve come in the past two months, to Janey.”

  Natches took the letters slowly, his gaze locking with Alex’s. He could feel the sense of danger, the ragged, burning fury already building as he stared into the other man’s gray eyes.

  When his eyes moved to the letters, his blood began to boil.

  Traitor’s whore. Slut. You’re not wanted. Get out of town before you’re carried out in a casket.

  Traitor bitches aren’t wanted. You dirtied yourself with daddy and auntie. Did you moan for them? Did you beg like the bitch you are? Take your dirty ass out of town before you’re taken out.

  Fucking daddy and auntie isn’t nice, little bitch. Get the fuck out!

  Natches could feel the fury burning, building.

  “She didn’t tell me about these.” Natches handed them to Dawg and Rowdy, knowing what was coming once they read them. “She would have told me.”

  Fear was balling in Natches’s gut now. This was what Janey had been keeping from him for months? Was this why she had moved from the marina to that apartment in town, so he wouldn’t find out?

  God, she didn’t even trust him, her brother, to help her? But why should she? He hadn’t been able to help her in all the years Dayle had controlled her. What would make her think he could help her now?

  “She made Zeke swear not to tell you about them. It was the only way she agreed to turn them over. I’m still officially on the investigation from last year. He turned them over to me instead.”

  Natches turned away and reached for his boots. He and Janey were going to have a talk. Now. This wasn’t happening. Damn whoever had written those letters to hell. He wasn’t letting anything else destroy his sister.

  “Where are you going, son?” Ray rose from the table.

  “To get Janey.”

  It was the only solution. Get her back in the middle of the Mackay clan where she could be watched, protected. There was no other choice.

  Alex watched him. He understood Natches’s determination, but he’d also seen Janey’s last night in that apartment. She would fight her brother, draw further away from her family. That wasn’t the answer. He had the answer; he just had to let everyone see it in their own way.

  “And do what? Lock her in a box?” Alex asked him. “Show her she’s still a child with no control over her own life?”

  Natches paused, one boot on, one off, his expression twisting in disbelief. “You think I’m going to let some fucking crackpot threaten her?” His voice rose. “Did you read that trash, Alex? What if it were Crista?”

  Alex ran his hand over his hair. “I thought of that.” He nodded. “I’d go after her. And we’d fight. And she’d push me as far away from her as she could if she thought she could handle it. I talked to Zeke again before I came in this morning. Janey thinks it’s pranks. She’s not going to budge.”

  Natches’s expression twisted in fury.

  “That’s not pranks,” Natches yelled. “Dammit, Alex. You know that. That’s not pranks.”

  “You’re not going to convince her of that,” Alex warned him.

  “Are the three of you going with me?” Natches turned to his cousins, his uncle.

  They were already getting ready to go. Their expressions were hard, murderous. And Alex couldn’t blame them. Janey was still a kid to these men, unprotected, terrorized her entire life, and she was still standing. They wanted her to have peace, not more fear.

  “Thanks for the tip,” Natches snarled. “You can go home now.”

  Alex arched his brow. “Get fucked, Natches. This is my business, too. Or did you forget who you tagged years ago to help keep an eye on her?”

  This was going to get dicey as hell, because he knew damned good and well Janey wasn’t going to let Natches lock her up.

  “Every one of you has lost his mind.”

  They swung around as Chaya moved from the back bedroom, the mound of her stomach barely poking against the T-shirt she wore over her pajama bottoms.

  “How the hell did I know you wouldn’t sleep through this?” Natches grimaced at his wife as she moved into his arms. “Go back to bed.”

  “Not on your life.” She shook her head. “And you better think before you go to Janey screaming your little heart out. She’s just like you, Natches. She’s going to go her own way, no matter what you want.”

  And that was pretty much Alex’s opinion of the entire situation.

  “She’s smaller than me,” Natches informed her. “She’s coming back here. Period.”

  “Bet me.”

  Alex could see the ragged rage and pain in Natches’s face, and he understood it more than the other man knew. Alex had nearly lost his own sister to this bullshit. When Johnny Grace, Nadine Grace’s son, had impersonated Crista and stolen government missiles. Johnny had realized no one believed it was Crista, and his lover had kidnapped her and Johnny had nearly killed her.

  It was Natches who had saved her. He’d killed his own cousin with a sniper rifle as Johnny had tried to kill Crista. Yeah, Alex knew exactly how he felt, but now Natches was going to see what Alex had known even then. Sisters didn’t always do what you wanted them to do. No matter how dangerous their way turned out to be.

  “I have to try, Chaya.” Natches moved away from her, grabbed his leather jacket from the hook on the wall, and turned back to the rest of them. “Ready?”

  “Ready!” Dawg, Ray, and Rowdy already had their coats on and were heading for the door.

  “Natches,” Chaya called out as he opened the door to the houseboat. “Don’t push her too hard. You’ll regret it.”

  He stared back at her, his eyes alive with the anger burning inside him.

  “I’ll do what I have to do to protect her, Chaya.”

  She smiled at that. “You’ll do what you can do, Natches. What she lets you do. Remember that.”

  Alex watched the other man’s jaw tense, a sure sign he was grinding his teeth, and if the situation hadn’t been as serious as it was, Alex would have grinned.

  Instead, he followed the other men out and up the docks to the vehicles. He got in his truck as the others got in theirs, and damned if he didn’t feel sorry for Janey this morning.

  This was too dangerous, though, to let it go. Too dangerous not to let her family know about it. Losing Janey wasn’t an option. And if he didn’t let the Mackays know, and something happened to her, then he would never be able to look his own sister in the eye again.

  They drove, four pickups in a row, into town and then along the town square. Mackay’s was in a converted office building at the end of the block, near the town square. Parking was on the street, a large lot at the side, and in the back. Lately, there hadn’t been enough parking.

  It was closed now, the windows dark. Alex pulled his truck in beside Natches’s on the private side of the building. Rowdy, Ray, and Dawg parked on the street. Alex saw the curtains in the apartment over the restaurant flutter, and felt Janey staring down at the street. Shit was going to hit the fan now, and Alex had a feeling he was right in the line of fire.

  He made sure he was behind the other four as they moved up the stairs. As they reached the landing, Alex wasn’t the least surprised when the door was jerked open and Janey stood there glaring at all five of them.

  “Zeke has a big mouth,” she snapped before turning and stomping back into the apartment.

  “Why the hell didn’t you tell me, Janey?”

  Janey heard the edge of hurt in her brother’s voice and turned to him, raking her fingers through her hair and glaring at him.

  “Because of this.” She waved her hand at the Mackays and Alex. Shooting Alex a look of retribution, she sneered. “Let me guess, you were the little messenger boy?”

  “First a lapdog, now a messenger boy.” His smile was tight. “I’m going to start showing y’all just how well I make decisions on my own.”

  “We’d have to give you a
decision to make first,” Janey snapped, crossing her arms over her breasts and staring back at the men.

  Damn. She had cute cousins, but they didn’t look cute this morning as they frowned at her. And Uncle Ray didn’t look happy at all.

  “You could have told us about the letters, little girl,” Ray berated her gently. “You think we’re going to stand by and let someone hurt you?”

  “Evidently she does.” Natches’s voice was quiet, but rough with anger. “Is this what you think of me, Janey?”

  She shook her head slowly. “No, I never thought that, Natches. I thought exactly what I see. The four of you coming down on me like a ton of bricks just before you demand I come back to the boat and live with you.”

  His eyes narrowed. “It’s the only way to protect you properly.”

  It was the sure way to drive her slowly insane. There was no way she was living with Natches and Chaya again.

  She glanced at Alex. He should be fixing this, not leaning against her damned wall like an amused mannequin.

  His brow arched, the condescension in his expression causing her to grind her teeth.

  “I’m not leaving.” She made the statement firm, flat.

  She cleared her face, pushed back the fear and the pain, especially the fear that she would disappoint or hurt the family she’d never had a chance to love except from afar.

  “You can move in with me and Maria,” Ray offered. “That would be a good alternative.”

  “No, it wouldn’t.” It would steal the independence she had fought so hard for. “I’m not moving in with anyone, Uncle Ray.”

  She forced herself not to show any nervousness. She clasped her hands in front of her and faced five of the strongest, most determined men she had ever known or heard of in her life.

  “This is not acceptable, Janey.” Natches’s voice rose. He didn’t yell or scream, but the anger in his face caused her to flinch.

  “Enough, Natches.” Alex shifted from the wall. “Contain that temper of yours or get the hell away from her.”

  Janey threw him a surprised look before she jumped in front of Natches, her hands on his chest as he moved for Alex.