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“What the hell do you mean, she’s not here?” Dawg rubbed his hand along the back of his neck in irritation as he faced Mercedes the next morning, barely holding back a glare. He needed to talk to Piper about what had happened the night before. Catching her with Jed Booker had reminded him all over again of what had happened with Eve the summer before. He didn’t want another sister in danger because of her association with one of Timothy’s agents. He also didn’t want her endangered because she was trying to hide it from him. And he definitely didn’t want to piss Mercedes off as he tried to find out where the hell she had gone.
Timothy, the quarrelsome little bastard, got all kinds of out of sorts if he managed to upset Mercedes over her “babies. ” But he’d be damned if those sisters of his weren’t going to drive him to drink.
Their antics were making him seriously consider a nunnery for his daughter.
“Dawg, give her a break,” Mercedes ordered, though her voice was calm as she moved around the kitchen and cleaned up from that morning’s breakfast preparations. “You’ve hounded her, Lyrica, and Zoey for almost a year now. Everywhere they go, everything they do, and everyone they talk to is reported back to you so you can fuss at them over their friends, potential dates, and acquaintances. I warned you last year they were going to get sick of it. Piper just got fed up with it first. ”
Her arms crossed over her breasts as she stared up at him, her expression tight with defensiveness as her determination to stand in his way became more than apparent.
“And you know why I’ve done it,” he reminded her. “Hell, I remember a time when you were all for it. ”
Now that those stubborn, independent young women were crying on “mommy’s” shoulder, she was backtracking from the protective atmosphere just as quickly as she had agreed to it.
“A year ago. ” One hand propped on her rounded hip as she faced him with fiery dark eyes. “When there was a chance she was actually in danger. Even you admit there’s nothing going on now, no one is watching you or the girls, nor is there any apparent backlash from what happened last summer. I believe, Dawg, you can’t let yourself accustom to life without that danger. It’s not fair to make the girls live such a life as well. ”
He was not going to allow her to draw him into this argument, not after having this exact confrontation with Christa after returning home the night before, furious at finding Jed in Piper’s room, and Piper in Jed’s arms. His own wife had been quick to rip a strip of his hide, first for not knocking, and second for daring to butt his nose into his sisters’ sex lives again.
He did not want to know his sisters had sex.
He especially didn’t want to know who they were having sex with.
“Where’s she at, Mercedes?” He wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction of this argument. They’d already been down that road far too many times.
“I’m not telling you. ” Pure stubbornness pulled at her expression.
As much as those girls looked like they could belong to him or his cousins, Rowdy and Natches, he had to admit there were times, like this, when he realized they looked just like their mother.
“Then I’ll have Alex put out an APB on her,” he warned, trepidation beginning to tighten the back of his neck.
Hell, he hadn’t expected levelheaded Piper to be the one to test her safety first.
“No. You will not. Attempt it. Dare to take this from her, Dawg Mackay, and I promise you neither I, my daughters, nor Timothy will ever allow you to forget it. ”
He turned away from her, rubbed at the back of his neck, and grimaced in frustration.
“I don’t feel good about this,” he muttered as he turned back to her. “Mercedes, I don’t feel good about this at all. ”
The anger beginning to brighten her brown eyes dimmed, but he could see the concern in them as well.
“I don’t like it myself,” she admitted quietly. “She didn’t tell me where she was going, Dawg; I found out by accident. All she told me was that she had to get away. She slipped out in the dead of night because she trusted none of us to allow her the freedom she hungers for. Let her have her freedom, before we smother her to death. ”
“A freedom that has the potential to get her killed?” he asked her wearily. “I understand the need, Mercedes, more than you know. But you know what nearly happened to Eve last summer. If someone targets one of the other girls in retaliation, and there’s no one there to protect them, what do we do then?”
“We pray that doesn’t happen,” she whispered as the concern in her gaze threatened to turn to pure fear. “But you also have to understand, Dawg: Piper’s not a liar; nor is she one to make decisions such as this rashly. She was driven to it. ”
He had driven her to it. He could hear the accusation in her tone.
Christa had warned him more than once that the girls were going to rebel against his protection and begin making decisions that would only endanger them. He hadn’t believed they would do so without first confronting him.
His sisters were fighters; they weren’t cowards.
“How can you be certain she’s safe?” he finally asked her worriedly.
“I can’t, Dawg. ” Her smile was gentle, compassionate. “All I can do is pray that if she’s in trouble she’ll call me. That and trust in the man Timothy has watching her. ” She winked at him. “Watching her, Dawg. Allowing her to do what she has to do, what she wants to do, while an impartial third person stands ready to protect her rather than standing between her and what she needs. That’s the difference. ”
He shook his head, worry tearing at him as he stared down at her, wishing, just as he had over the past six years, that he’d been able to protect Mercedes and the sisters he’d grown to love so much from his father’s cruelties before he had died.
