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She had lost her parents in her teens. Not to violence or to death, but to sheer disinterest. Her socialite mother and career-intensive father had no idea what to do with the little girl that always needed a hug or a kiss.
Her sister—she had thought she’d managed to maintain that relationship, before she found out Craig had been sleeping with her. The woman she would have trusted above anyone, the one she trusted her child with, had been sleeping with her husband.
Not that there had been a relationship between her and Craig for years. After Beth’s birth, Craig had drifted away, and Chaya had slowly realized she didn’t even miss him. When she had been called out on that last assignment in Iraq, she had already informed her superiors that she wouldn’t be remaining after the assignment finished. She was resigning to stay home with her daughter. Beth was only three, and she needed her mother.
She forced back a muted sob at the thought of her little girl, her laughing eyes, her rounded, pretty face. Beth had been her life. And within a few short hours after her rescue, Natches had become her heart.
That betrayal was the one she had fought to forgive herself for. While her daughter was in danger, Chaya had been flirting with another man. Natches had sat in her hospital room, teased her with kisses, brought her flowers. He had slipped candy to her and he had made her laugh. And during that two weeks when she had been unable to contact her sister, Beth had been in Iraq with Craig.
She had been falling in love, and Beth had been in danger.
She hated herself for it. She had screamed out so many times in the darkness of the night, sobbing, begging for a forgiveness she couldn’t give herself.
And now what was she doing? She laid her hand against her stomach and tried to fight the panic building inside her. Was she risking the life of another child?
She shook her head. She couldn’t do this. First thing this evening she was stopping at a drugstore and picking up the condoms herself. It was her choice, Natches had warned her. If she wanted them, then she would have to remember them. She would have to remember them because she didn’t know if she could face the consequences.
But a child. She had always wanted to be a mother. To make a secure, happy home filled with laughter and love, the very things she had never seemed to find until she had found Natches. Or he had found her.
And he wanted a child with her. The playboy of Somerset, the wildest, the most wicked of the Nauti Boys, and he wanted to keep her. He wanted to laugh with her, and he wanted to raise babies with her.
It was inconceivable.
Shaking her head, she started the car, then looked up in surprise as the sheriff’s cruiser, followed by Natches’s jeep, blocked her in.
Frowning, she opened the door and started out of the car.
“Get your case. ” Natches jumped from the jeep and in two short strides was pulling her away from the car before reaching in and grabbing her briefcase. The door slammed behind her as Sheriff Mayes went to the ground, rolled onto his back and wedged himself beneath it.
“Move. ” Natches was dragging her away from the sedan.
“What the hell is going on here?” Jerking her arm out of his grip she looked from him to where Sheriff Mayes’s long legs stuck out beneath her vehicle.
Her gaze jerked up once again as three other vehicles pulled in. Dawg, Rowdy, and Ray Mackay jumped from their pickups and moved quickly to the car.
“Have you checked under the hood yet, Zeke?” Dawg called out.
“Get your asses out of here. I have an explosives squad on the way. Don’t you touch that car. ”
Male voices were filling the area as hotel employees and a few guests began to move from the building.
The sheriff rolled out and jumped to his feet. “It’s here,” he snarled. “Get the hell away from the car. Now!”
Chaya started in shock as Natches all but lifted her off her feet and pushed her into the jeep, forcing her to crawl over the console as he moved in behind her. With a jerk and a squeal of tires, the jeep raced a safe distance from the car, then with a hard twist of his wrist, Natches turned it in a quick half spin to face the vehicle as Chaya stared at him in complete disbelief.
“What the hell is going on here?”
Natches turned to her, dangerous. Here was danger. Forest green eyes were the color of moss, savage planes and angles marked his expression, and rage flickered in his gaze.
“You lost an agent this morning,” he bit out, his voice dangerously soft.
Chaya stared back at him in mute shock.
“What are you talking about? They were all at the meeting just an hour ago. I left them there. ”
“Kyle Denton made it about three miles out of town before his car exploded. It took out a nice chunk of the interstate and the back end of the eighteen-wheeler he was driving behind. There’s nothing left of him but fucking pieces. The minute Mayes learned it was Denton, he called me and we rushed here. Now tell me Chaya, who the fuck is Cranston after here?”
Chaya felt her face go numb with grief and shock. She had just spoken to Kyle. He had told her about his engagement, to his third wife. He was barely forty. He had laughed about her showing up late and the news that she was moving into the boat with Natches. Accusing her of going above and beyond the call of duty.
