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“What if someone has taken an interest in her . . .” he tried.
Lyrica glared at him and he swore he felt his balls shrink at the promise of retribution in her gaze.
“Unless he’s a suspected criminal element, let it go. If he is, then talk to Zoey first,” Lyrica advised him, her tone warning. “Of all of us, Zoey will be the one to hate you for tattling on her, and you know it. She doesn’t keep friends she can’t trust.”
And Zoey already didn’t have many friends, especially those she felt she could trust.
It always amazed him how the sisters never, ever seemed the least bit interested in knowing what the others were doing. They loved each other and were incredibly loyal. But they never seemed to
question anything the other was doing.
As Elijah glanced at Graham, his lips thinned as the other man gave a small shake of his head. Keep his mouth shut? Fine, he could keep his damned mouth shut, and when she ended up hurt then he’d remind them all that he’d tried.
“Fine. Whatever. I have work to do.” Turning, he jerked the door open and left the kitchen. Stepping onto the back deck, he let a curse slip past his lips. “Don’t blame me when it all fucking backfires,” he muttered, though there was no one to hear him.
Dammit. Doogan was trouble by himself. Having him and Zoey in the same place was like throwing a match on gasoline. It was guaranteed to start a fire. Or in this situation, a fucking catastrophe.
He couldn’t just remain silent. He had to find a way to tell her cousins or Graham what Zoey was facing. Before she ended up dead.
—
“So who’s interested in Zoey?” Graham watched his wife, his fascination with her as strong now as it ever had been—no, stronger.
Lyrica laughed at his question. “I really have no idea. She hasn’t told me yet.”
But she would, Graham knew. He, Brogan, and Jed were aware of what Lyrica and her sisters’ brother hadn’t seemed to guess yet. The sisters kept very few secrets from each other. Actually they probably kept no secrets from each other.
“And if she tells you?” he asked curiously, watching her expression closely. “Would you tell me?”
She was at least considering the option, he could tell, as her emerald eyes stared back at him thoughtfully.
Taking a seat at the kitchen table, she cradled their son close to her breast and pursed her lips for a moment before speaking.
“Give me the name of one man you know who is not a criminal, but one you’d kill if he became interested in Kyleene. Unmarried, but completely unsuitable.”
“Doogan,” he growled, remembering the other man’s apparent interest in her other sister, Eve, and Brogan Campbell’s reaction to it during the first days of his relationship with Eve.
Lyrica grimaced at the name. “Fine, as much as I dislike him myself. Doogan. If I told you Zoey was seeing Doogan, would you find a way to tell Dawg or someone who would tell him?”
Graham had to admit she had a point. “Probably,” he sighed. “I know Doogan. He’d break Zoey. Hell, he’d break any woman with a heart.”
“And I wouldn’t want you in a position where you felt you had to look out for her emotional safety,” she sighed. “Besides. Eve, Piper, Zoey, and I swore to each other, unless it was life or death, we’d never tell anyone, even Momma, certain things. So if Zoey is seeing someone, no matter who it is, I can’t tell you. She’s my sister, Graham, and I swore. She kept my interest in you a secret even when Dawg all but interrogated her. If she hadn’t, Dawg would have tried to stand in my way every time Kyleene invited me here to the house.”
And if he had, Graham knew, then Dawg might have kept them apart far longer than Graham’s own ignorance had.
“They just wanted your safety,” he sighed. “Each of you has been at risk for one reason or another. It would kill them if anything happened to any of you.”
The mocking smile she shot him had his brows lifting curiously.
“Rowdy once said if we wanted to have a relationship without interference, then choose a nice, safe man to have a relationship with,” she revealed. “When I told Zoey that last year, she tried them on it. Stanley Kelly, the accountant in town? Remember him?”
Graham grimaced. Stanley was a boring little man but definitely a safe one.
Lyrica laughed at his expression. “Stanley left town for nearly a month when Rowdy informed him he wasn’t good enough for Zoey. When she protested, he laughed and told her to find a man he couldn’t frighten away. Then told her Stanley peed himself that day. Zoey felt horrible. She and Stanley were actually friends. He won’t even speak to her now.” Humor filled her eyes. “Kyleene thinks Dawg and the cousins do all this crap to ensure that the men we’re with love us and will protect us. But Zoey, of all of us, will not tolerate it, Graham. Better yet, she’ll make damned sure they don’t find out until she’s been married a year and ready to have that first child.” Lyrica laughed, then sobered. “That or she’ll just leave us and go far enough away that they can’t interfere, period. And that would break all our hearts.”
He didn’t know about what Zoey would do, but he did know that the Mackays, Timothy Cranston, and several of their friends were definitely involved in manipulating the sisters into the arms of the men they’d chosen for them. And he knew the candidate they had in mind for Zoey didn’t have a hope of keeping up with her.
“Do you think Zoey would actually keep a relationship hidden that long?” She’d be smart to do just that, he thought, amused.
