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“Inside,” she suddenly snapped, then turned and ran as though she didn’t have stitches in that damned thigh.
He followed her, though. Across the yard and into the back door of the house.
“Bliss! Chaya!” She screamed their names, fear, an edge of panic echoing in her voice as she slid around the kitchen table and raced into the hall. “Chaya . . . ! Oh God . . .” She threw open Bliss’s bedroom door.
“Angel, what did you feel out there?” He grabbed her, twisted her around. “What?”
“Angel.” Chaya stepped from the bedroom, Bliss behind her, her weapon held close to her thigh as she stood protectively in front of her younger child. “What’s wrong?”
“Angel?” Natches was armed as well as he rushed into the house through the garage entrance. “What’s going on?”
“Declan and Harley—where are they?” she demanded. “They always sight me when I go outside the border. They didn’t do it when I was just out and there’s a boot print with unfamiliar tread in a perfect sighting position for both men. Someone was drawing their attention, and now I can’t feel them out there.”
“Bliss, safe room.” Chaya hit the digital pad and pushed her daughter into the secured room.
They didn’t question her reaction or the sense of danger suddenly pushing at her mind.
“Go with her.” Angel grabbed her mother’s shoulders, suddenly terrified for her. “We’ll check it out. You stay with her.”
“Bliss, close that door,” Chaya snapped, though her gaze stayed locked with Angel’s.
A second later the steel door hissed closed.
“Do you think I’d trade my safety for yours?” Chaya demanded caustically. “Or knowingly allow you to face danger alone? Not this time, girl. Not ever again if I can help it.”
Damn her. Now wasn’t the time for this argument.
“I won’t forgive you if you die before I have a chance to tell you exactly how mad I am at you,” Angel snarled in her mother’s face as something settled into place inside her.
What it was she’d have to define later, not now. But she knew the time was coming to settle the years between them, and she wasn’t lying. She wouldn’t forgive Chaya if anything happened to her before they did that.
Chaya narrowed her eyes on her. “You think you’re the only one that’s mad? Don’t think I don’t have a few things to say to you as well, so you damned well better make certain you’re in shape to hear them.”
“Help will be here in minutes,” Natches informed them, the ice in his voice, in his eyes, pure death. “Duke, you and Angel go after Harley, we’ll go for Declan. Use your suite entrance. Chaya and I will go through the office.”
“If someone took out Harley and Declan, they’ll know you’ll go for your son, Natches,” Duke pointed out. “They’ll be waiting for you.”
Natches froze, his gaze swinging to Angel, and in his eyes Angel saw a confidence, a flash of certainty in whatever he saw in her that she hadn’t expected. “No doubt both of them will be a trap,” Natches assured him. “Go in with your eyes open. When Dawg and Rowdy arrive with the others, they’ll split up and come in hard, so be watching for them.”
If Declan and Harley had been taken out, then the men coming for Bliss were better than Angel had believed possible.
“You be careful, girl.” Chaya pointed her finger at Angel imperatively, her brown eyes fierce. “Don’t you dare let anything happen to you either.”
“Girl?” she scoffed. She was getting rather tired of the “girl” title. “Same to ya, Mrs. Mackay,” she muttered, turning back to Duke. “Let’s go.”
The weapon
s they needed were waiting in the bedroom. It took only seconds to clip the holster to her good thigh and shove a clip in the military-grade rifle she’d just cleaned and checked before she followed Duke out the French doors at the side of the suite that morning. Using the natural cover Natches had planted in the yard, she and Duke hurried to the hidden break Natches had shown her the day before that led to Harley’s position above the house.
The path to the sniper’s position held natural evergreens, fallen trees, and dips and creases in the upward slant of the property that provided the perfect cover to move to the heavily branched pine Harley was supposed to be positioned in. As they headed in, the sound of sirens could be heard coming closer, racing to the house.
Using hand signals Duke directed her to a route that would take them above and behind Harley’s tree. Moving quick and silent, the soft-soled boots she wore made no sound, her lighter weight making it easier for her to move silently as they hurried to the young man’s location.
She’d been through here several times, familiarizing herself with the mountain, and she’d returned often—unless she felt those sights tracking her. She hadn’t seen the sheltered paths then, hadn’t connected the very intricate puzzle Natches had created within the forested rise of the mountain behind the house.
They didn’t speak, but used hand signals when communication was needed. Sound carried far better than the unwary realized and caused a chain reaction that anyone experienced in reading those signs could use.
Signs such as the birds usually twittering in the trees were quiet as they neared Harley’s position. It was as though the wildlife had paused, waiting to see what the humans were going to do.
