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“I’ll consider your argument. . . . ”
“No, damn you, you won’t consider shit,” Doogan burst out furiously as he stepped closer. “I’m giving you a direct order, you little son of a bitch. If you want to keep your job, you’ll obey it. ”
Brogan’s eyes narrowed, though he was very damn careful to hold back the suspicion he could feel churning in his gut.
“Feel that strongly about it, do you?” he asked softly.
“I feel that strongly about your deliberate, constant insubordination,” Doogan snapped. “Get a handle on it before I take care of it myself. ”
Stepping onto the bow of the fishing boat, Doogan stepped back into the boat and took his seat as he shot Brogan a deliberately superior look.
“Move out, Agent Grant,” he ordered Eli.
Eli did as ordered as Jed rolled his eyes and gave Brogan a quick, short shake of his head.
This was why he preferred working with Jed and Eli instead of the two agents over those in the regional office. He could trust them to cover his back, both in and out of the field. His gut was already telling him Doogan’s reaction was way off base.
He’d come out there specifically to piss Brogan off. All he’d done was make him highly suspicious. The other man was a manipulator. And he was trying to ensure that Brogan did as he wanted him to do, not as he was telling him to do.
Doogan wanted the Mackays in on this operation, and he’d wanted them there from the beginning.
From the first day Brogan had set foot in Pulaski County, Doogan had been pushing him toward Eve.
Walking back to the house as the last of dawn began to slip away, he knew Doogan was only pushing him, or Eve, into informing her brother of Brogan’s mission. And Brogan couldn’t figure out why the other man didn’t say so. Brogan had finally put Doogan’s manipulations together. He was salivating to get the Mackays on this operation.
Doogan was a hell of a manipulator, but usually he was only this bad when he had no other choice. And if he wanted the Mackays so badly, why not just ask them himself? Or he could have gone to Timothy. There were few things Timothy enjoyed more than manipulating Mackays; he would have loved to have pulled Dawg and his cousins into the operation himself.
There were few things Doogan loved more than the chance to do his own manipulating, too, though. Once he saw that pulling the Mackays in would actually take some effort, he would have done exactly as he did: rushed straight to Somerset and set his plans in motion. Plans that would get him killed if they managed to harm even the first silken hair on Eve’s head.
* * *
Eve stood in the large bathroom staring through the window that looked out onto the water and the small beach with its long dock extending out to deeper water.
It was the faint sound of the boat’s trolling motor moving up the waterway that had urged Eve to crawl from the bed and go to the bathroom, where she could see the beach more clearly. And boy, had she gotten an eyeful that she hadn’t expected.
It was easy to recognize the three men Brogan had just been talking to. Jedediah Booker and Elijah Grant, the two building contractors staying at her mother’s inn, along with Chatham Doogan, were meeting with Brogan.
She couldn’t hear what they were saying, but she’d been able to follow their expressions. Brogan had been trying to hide his irritation and suspicion, where both Jedediah and Elijah had looked more amused than anything else.
The one thing that had clearly come across, though, and really pissed her off was the fact that Brogan and Doogan obviously knew each other very, very well.
Liars. She hated them. There was something about deliberate lies and deceit that reminded her far too much of Chandler Mackay.
As Brogan moved toward the house, Eve turned and rushed back to the bed, knowing he would come straight to her. He wouldn’t wait; he wouldn’t find anything else to do.
Crawling back into the huge, obviously custom-made bed, she pulled the sheet to her breasts just as Brogan entered the room. He came to an immediate stop as he saw she was awake and waiting for him.
Instantly wariness seemed to settle around him, though his expression didn’t change. It didn’t flicker in his gaze, and there was no tension in his body. So she had no clue how she knew he was suddenly unsettled by the fact that she was waiting for him.
“You’re awake,” he stated softly, moving toward her as she watched him closely.
“For a while now,” she agreed. “I wondered where you were. ”
“I had some business that couldn’t wait. ” He grimaced as he rubbed at his jaw. “We’ll discuss it later. Are you ready for breakfast yet, or would you like a hot bath first?”
They would discuss it later?
Eve could feel an impending sense of panic settling in her stomach.
