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Jed didn’t hang around to hear her argument or her reasons for her beliefs; they would just piss him the fuck off.
He knew the past year had been hell on her and her younger sisters. Eve, the eldest, had pranced from the suite she’d lived in for the past five years and moved in with the government agent she was now engaged to, perfectly content to fight her battles of independence and keep her opinions private within the secured houseboat they were currently living in at the lake.
Eve had left her younger sisters to face the fallout with her brother and cousins. Her sisters, though, had never been given a full explanation of why that overprotectiveness had suddenly increased, or when it would end. Though he knew Piper had her suspicions.
Jed couldn’t explain what had happened either, not yet, not until he knew Piper understood his intentions where she was concerned.
But hell, in order to make her understand them, he was going to have to figure them out himself.
One thing was certain: He intended to have her in his bed. And he sure as hell didn’t intend to let her go anytime soon once he had her there.
Hell, why couldn’t he imagine ever letting her go, period?
ONE
ONE MONTH LATER
She was going to cave.
Piper could feel it coming. She could feel that bond of pleasure Jed had created four weeks before tightening between them, pulling them together.
She’d taken Eve’s suite on the first floor of Mackay’s Bed-and-Breakfast Inn after her sister had moved in with her lover, Brogan Campbell.
Brogan had been staying in the suite next to Eve’s for the two years he had been there doing whatever it was he was doing. She had a feeling he was a hell of a lot more than a building contractor or supervisor or whatever the hell he claimed to be. She was all but certain he was a covert agent and working directly with her mother’s lover, Timothy Cranston.
And she highly suspected both Jedediah Booker and the other contractor staying at the inn, Elijah Grant, were Brogan’s partners.
There had been strange things going on in Somerset—hell, in Pulaski County, period—for the past few years: thefts that didn’t make sense, strangers who knew far too much about the people and the mountains where Piper now made her home. And far too many “disappearances” of several of the criminal elements in the county.
It was damned freaky.
And she knew Jed was involved in it.
She watched them, she listened to the gossip and rumors that moved through the county, and she had a hell of an ability to tie together things that at first might not appear connected.
It was a talent she’d often heard Dawg had as well.
It didn’t matter what kind of talent she had. She could be as fully trained as any agent who had ever worked with her brother and he’d still treat her like a five-year-old.
And so would Jed.
Pulling the older-model Jeep into the driveway of the post office, she set the parking brake before turning off the ignition and moving from the vehicle.
Sliding the small orange notification card from her purse, she looped the bag’s strap over her shoulder and pushed open the glass door leading into the building.
“Hey there, Piper.”
“Piper, how’s it goin’ . . .”
“Hello, Piper, missed you last weekend. . . .”
“Hey, Piper, Dawg going to let you come out and play this weekend?”
She heard it every time she ran into the usual crowd of summer weekend partiers. Because Piper, normally the life of the party, had been absent or joined by her brother or cousins every time she tried to slip out to one of the lake parties. A Mackay always arrived within minutes of her showing up, and what was the point of staying if she was being guarded? She returned the greetings, answered where she had to, and waited patiently in line to sign for the certified letter she’d been notified was waiting for her.
The New York City address hadn’t really meant anything to her; neither had the name of the sender: S. Chaniss.
Accepting the envelope from the young clerk behind the counter, Piper thanked her quietly before making her way back to the Jeep.
