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“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.
“Natches. ” Rowdy’s voice was warning. “Don’t walk out that fucking door. ”
Natches shook his head and followed the woman he couldn’t stay away from. He had to follow her. He had to know what the hell she was doing and how much danger it was going to place her in.
“It’s okay, I have you, baby. ”
He held her as she sobbed. Broken, horrific cries that ripped at his guts and flayed his soul as he carried her through hell. The smell of blood and death and broken dreams surrounded them, and all he could do was hold her.
As he left the diner he didn’t feel the late autumn air, he felt the heat of an Iraqi summer, the sun blazing down on Baghdad as fire blazed at their backs. He didn’t hear the traffic around him, or Dawg’s voice behind him. He heard her screams. He heard her pleas as she begged him, pleaded with him to let her die, too.
“Natches, enough of this shit!” Dawg and Rowdy caught him as he neared his jeep, gripping his arm and swinging him around. “Damn it, what the hell is going on with you? You’re starting to worry us, man. ”
They were defensive, ducking instinctively, knowing his habit of swinging first and asking questions later. But Natches didn’t swing.
He knew these two men. Knew them almost as well as he knew himself, and he knew they wouldn’t let it go.
Shaking his head he pulled the glasses from his face and stared back at them. And he knew what they saw. Both men stepped back, staring back at him in surprise. He saw those eyes in the mirror every morning since Chaya’s return last year, and he saw his inability to control the need riding him more every day.
“My fight,” he told them both. “There’s no room for all of us here. I guess I finally grew up, huh?”
It was a reminder that as Dawg and Rowdy had matured, as their hearts became involved with their women, rather than just their cocks, their possessive instincts had kicked in. No one touched what they claimed themselves. They didn’t share their women anymore, not even with each other.
And they didn’t need to be involved in this. He knew Dawg and Rowdy, and he knew that knowing the truth would do nothing but worry them more.
They thought they knew Natches. That was the mistake most people made. They thought they knew him, understood him. They thought they could predict him, and they had found out they were wrong.
He turned away from his cousins, ignoring the worried looks they gave each other, and jumped into the jeep. Chaya’s rental car was still sitting here; that meant they were in Zeke’s official SUV. That wouldn’t be hard to find.
Chaya would never be hard for him to find, no matter where she was or how she tried to hide. He had proven that to her. And now he was paying the price.
He had let her leave a year ago. He wasn’t willing to do that this time around. He’d find out what the hell she was doing here. Then, he’d find Chaya.
He pulled from the parking lot in a squeal of tires and a grinding of gears before shooting out into the alley and heading for the main road. He didn’t know the names on that list she had given Zeke, but he’d find out tonight what was going on there. Until then, he’d shadow her and see if he couldn’t figure out what the hell was going on.
Because he knew she wasn’t supposed to be here. She wasn’t supposed to be with Homeland Security and she wasn’t supposed to be in Kentucky.
So why was Chaya Greta Dane doing exactly what she wasn’t supposed to be doing in a place she wasn’t supposed to be?
And why the hell did he let himself care?
FOUR
Ezekiel Mayes was leaning against his car as Agent Dane pulled from the restaurant parking lot, and he waited. He had just dropped her back at her car, and knew he wouldn’t have to wait long; he was just curious who would show up.
He wasn’t left in suspense, and he had to hide his smile as the black jeep pulled in behind his SUV and Natches stepped out of the vehicle.
Those damnable glasses covered his eyes. The black lenses were a shield between Natches and the world, Zeke often thought. And damned if he could blame the other man. Natches hadn’t exactly skated through life. Some years, Zeke knew, he’d hung on by his fingernails alone as his father tried to destroy him.
Last year, Zeke feared, had been a breaking point for Natches. The day he had taken a bead on his first cousin Johnny Grace and pulled the trigger.
Natches had been one of the finest snipers the Marines had possessed. Often working alone, without the benefit of a spotter, completing his missions, then hanging around to gather intel. Four years in the Marines and he had nearly been a legend by the time an enemy sniper had taken his shoulder out.
If that was what happened. Zeke sometimes wondered. Natches wasn’t a man one could slip up on, even from a distance. He had instincts like the sheriff had never known in another man. Instincts honed in the Kentucky mountains and in his father’s home.
