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Timothy breathed out roughly before rubbing at the side of his nose and grimacing heavily. “That damned deal he made with her,” he snorted as he dropped his hand and shoved it into the pocket of his slacks. “I warned him he was making a mistake.”
Rowdy stared down at the shorter man again, still amazed by the transformation Mercedes Mackay had wrought in him. He was no longer the dark, miserable special agent on a fast track to a stroke. He was actually pleasant most of the time now. And he smiled.
Rowdy still found that really weird, too.
“Stop staring at me, Mackay,” Timothy growled. “It’s unsettling. Now, which of us gets to call Dawg?”
“I should let you,” Rowdy said in disgust. “But no doubt you’d blame it all on Natches.”
Timothy looked up at him, highly offended. “Seems to me it was his fault. If he hadn’t hit so hard then Lyrica wouldn’t be so hurt. Hell, I saw Graham’s face this morning, Rowdy. Natches damned near broke it.”
“He didn’t even knock the bastard off his feet,” Rowdy snapped in disgust. “He’s stronger than he looks.”
“His sister was still crying. She almost didn’t let me in the house until Graham stepped out from the kitchen and sent her upstairs.”
Rowdy stared outside thoughtfully as Timothy moved back to his chair and sat down.
“How’s Graham taking it?” Rowdy asked, turning in time to catch Timothy’s quick grin.
“He’s damned disgusted by Kye’s reaction and the fact that anyone even learned the identity of who hi
t him to begin with.” Timothy chuckled in amusement. “He’s a good man, Rowdy. And as much as I don’t like what Natches walked in on myself, it doesn’t change the fact that I don’t believe Graham would play with her. I think he cares about her.”
Rowdy was prone to believe it as well, but if Graham didn’t start using his head instead of his dick, then he’d break Lyrica’s heart anyway.
“Graham likes his bimbos, Timothy.” He breathed out heavily. “Lyrica’s no man’s toy or his bimbo. He needs to establish that, not just to Lyrica, but to everyone who might believe otherwise before they realize there’s anything between them. Otherwise, Lyrica’s going to be hurt whether he cares for her or not.”
Timothy just stared back at him silently.
“You don’t believe me?” he asked as Timothy sat back in the chair, his arms resting comfortably on the armrests.
“I actually think he deserved to have his face busted if he really was all but fucking her against the window of that lake house,” Timothy stated. “But, gauging by Lyrica’s fury, I’m going to assume Natches might have overreacted to whatever he saw. I know him and I know Lyrica, and I know she’s Natches’s favorite. Just as I know he and Graham have had a disagreement for years over something. Something deep, Rowdy. And that resentment just may end up being what breaks her heart.”
Rowdy frowned in confusion. “Natches doesn’t have anything against Graham.”
“Yeah, he does, Rowdy,” Timothy stated somberly. “He’s kept it to himself and that was a good thing. I had hoped it wouldn’t end up affecting Lyrica, though. I could have been wrong.”
If Natches was pissed at Graham over something, especially something he’d carried alone for a number of years, then the chances of him overreacting rose considerably. Natches wasn’t a man who dealt well with resentment.
The very fact that he’d kept whatever it was hidden concerned Rowdy.
“Get the details we need from the surveillance cameras across from that apartment, and let’s see if we’ve missed anything,” Rowdy told the former special agent. “I want this threat against Lyrica erased immediately. I’ll talk to Natches. Better yet, call everyone together, we’ll just meet at his place.”
If Lyrica ended up hurt because of his cousin’s stupidity, then Dawg just might end up breaking Natches’s face next.
ELEVEN
Natches’s home sat on the banks of Lake Cumberland, a few miles from Dawg’s farm. Whereas Dawg’s two-story farmhouse with its wraparound porch and old-time charm surrounded by flowering bushes and myriad blooms soothed the senses, Natches’s place had a feeling of hidden beauty.
The sprawling single-story home with its dark wood siding was nestled among a variety of evergreen trees and brush—mostly holly and laurel that grew naturally in the area. One would have to look closely if one didn’t know the house sat there.
It wasn’t hidden so much as it was very cleverly disguised, and Natches and his wife, Chaya, preferred it that way.
Lyrica pulled into the driveway beneath a canopy of dense growth and shook her head. She would have smiled, not for the first time, over her cousin’s idiosyncrasies if she wasn’t so upset. Over the years the family had been certain Natches would grow out of his penchant for plants and landscape design that made his home seem to be more a part of the land itself than the building it actually was. He hadn’t grown out of it yet, though.
Stepping from the car and moving along a moss-covered stone path to the backyard, she noticed the blooms that now grew around the wood supports of the back porch.
“Lyrie!” Bliss, Natches and Chaya’s twelve-year-old daughter, bounced out through the kitchen door, her long, ribbon-straight black hair and emerald eyes a perfect match for Natches’s.
