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“You’re pissed. ” Dawg sprawled back in his chair as he stared at Rowdy through narrowed, green eyes.
Rowdy took his own chair and stared back at the two men. They had run wild through town and the Marines together, though Dawg and Natches had gone reserves after their first tour rather than staying in longer. Dawg managed the lumberyard his father left him, while Natches had opted to permanently distance himself from his parents’ thriving restaurants and owned a garage of all things. His dad stayed elbows deep in flour and Natches was a grease monkey. The family fights over that one had been interesting.
“I’m pissed. ” Rowdy shrugged, knowing there wasn’t a damned thing he could do about it.
Uncapping another beer from the cooler beside him, he stared at his cousins soberly, wondering if he would have made the same choices.
They were the bad boys of the county. The three of them had been the terror of Somerset, Kentucky, when they were young. Fathers locked their daughters up at night in fear of the three of them. They hadn’t exactly gained a good reputation where women were concerned.
“Damn, Rowdy, I’m glad you’re back. ” Dawg shook his shaggy head, his raven black hair reflecting the lights of the marina. “Even pissed, it’s a hell of a sight better than dealing with this without you. ”
Natches sipped at his beer, his own black hair not nearly as shaggy as Dawg’s but longer. It was pulled back in a ponytail at his nape, giving his features a harder, more savage appearance.
They knew why they were there.
Rowdy turned back to Dawg.
“You could have told me when you picked me up,” he informed his cousin, his lips flat, anger tightening his skull.
Dawg shook his head, lowering it briefly before sighing.
“Some things you just don’t know how to tell a man. ” Dawg grimaced. “I figured you’d get a hint soon enough. It’s not like she’s the same girl she was last year. ”
Rowdy bit back the angry response burning on his lips, but hell, this was Dawg. When Rowdy hadn’t been around to watch out for Kelly’s skinned knees and the bullies who liked to pick on her, then Dawg had been there.
“We’ve pulled all the info on this that we can find, Rowdy. ” Natches straightened in his chair and reach for the pizza. “We’ve been working on it since it happened, trying to figure out who the bastard was. ”
“And?” If anyone could figure it out, it was Dawg and Natches.
“Not much,” Natches admitted. “We’ve had four other rapes in surrounding counties over the last two years. All anal rapes, beatings, cuts, much more severe than Kelly’s. She got lucky. Her neighbor’s boyfriend heard the single scream she was able to get out. The boyfriend was a tough guy, broke in and tried to apprehend the bastard, but once he caught sight of Kell he let the guy go to help her. ”
“All this shit going on at home and neither one of you were good enough to tell me what the fuck was happening?” Rowdy snapped.
He had talked to both of them over the past year and never realized that the distance he had felt had been something they were hiding rather than his own impatience to finish his tour.
“What could you have done, man?” Dawg tilted his head to the side and stared back at him questioningly. “We didn’t want the trouble of hiding an AWOL Marine the rest of our natural lives and didn’t figure Kelly needed that on top of everything else. We took care of her until you could get home. ”
“Were there any rapes after Kelly?” He asked.
“Nothing with the same M. O. ” Dawg shook his head. “It’s like the son of a bitch just disappeared. I’m hoping he did. ”
“Ray keeps us up-to-date on Kelly though,” Natches sighed. “And we take turns being here at the marina when she’s working. She’s retreated so far into herself that sometimes I’ve wondered if we could find the girl she used to be. The closest I’ve seen was when you had her backed into the counter this afternoon. ” Natches’s lips twitched at the memory. “She looked real comfortable there, Rowdy. ”
“Asshole,” Rowdy grunted.
Rowdy stared at the other two men as he wiped his hand over his face and considered the situation for long moments.
“He’s not gone,” he finally sighed. “I want to believe he is, I really do. But I can feel it. He’s waiting. ”
“Are you two free?” He looked at them and knew they would be, whatever it took. “We’re free. We made sure of it. ” Natches nodded firmly. “How do you want to play it?”
“I need one of you watching our back whenever we’re away from the house. I can feel that bastard watching her. I felt it today when she was on the boat, like a damned itch just under my skin. ”
Dawg frowned at that. “There’s been no sign of him, Rowdy. We’ve been watching her every second that we’ve been able to. No phone calls, no strange accidents. Nothing. ”
Rowdy clenched his jaw at Dawg’s argument.
“Rowdy’s right,” Natches muttered over the music. “I’ve felt it all evening, especially since we came up here. That’s a feeling you never forget, Dawg. I’ve had a bead on me in the service enough times to know the feeling. ”
