Page 25 of Nauti Siren (Nauti 7)

What were the chances. For a man that didn’t believe in coincidence, he was suddenly being given supposed proof that they existed.

“The chances are pretty much fucking nil,” he growled. “After we get back, find out why she’s here, and start tying up loose ends. I want to know every fucking move she’s made, everyone she’s talked to, and every breath she’s taken since she made the decision to come to the city alone. Dawg Mackay is too fucking paranoid to let one of his sister’s travel here without a baby-sitter. And Timothy Cranston would die and go to hell before he’d let one of them travel anywhere alone without a shadow. ” He turned and glared at Nate. “I haven’t found her shadow yet. That means, she doesn’t have one. ”

Nate’s expression hardened. “Someone playing with us again?”

“That’s what my gut’s telling me. ” Andre made the realization in a flash. “Someone’s definitely playing with us, and I want to know why. ”

* * *

The planner Jed had scrawled his number in lay on the table next to the door, where Piper had thrown it after having to force herself not to call him. Again.

She wanted to call him.

She wanted to rail about the decision to travel to New York alone, and she wanted to curse Eldon Vessante to the pits of hell, and she needed someone to listen to her. Unfortunately, she couldn’t think of anyone she could call whom she could trust to keep the details to themselves.

Even Amy, the friend whose sister had given her a ride to the train station, couldn’t be totally trusted. If Amy even suspected Piper might be harmed, or had been, then she would call Dawg in a New York minute.

Amy might not know Dawg. She may not have a very high opinion of him after some of the stories Piper had told her about his protectiveness, but Amy had become a good friend over the past few years. She returned to Somerset each summer just to see Piper’s new designs, and over the course of those visits, they had become close.

Besides, Amy also trusted her sister, Gypsy, and Gypsy was a female version of the Mackay men. Pure military, tough, and suspicious. She would convince Amy to call the Mackays, if she didn’t just call Natches herself.

The only bright spot in the night was that she had been able to get a ticket on a train departing in two hours. It would put her in Louisville five hours later, and from there the price for a rental car home wouldn’t give away the fact that she had been in New York City.

Dawg would have pups if he ever found out sh

e had traveled there alone. He was so damned protective and controlling of his sisters’ lives that he had even fully vetted their roommates at college. She and her sisters had become so disgusted over the choices he had given them that they had opted to just share an apartment together.

Piper hated it.

She hated having to look over her shoulder at every party she went to and every event she attended. Even worse was how often her dates and potential lovers looked over their shoulders.

The few men Piper had actually considered sleeping with had run so damned fast once they’d realized who she was related to that there hadn’t been a chance of finding out whether they were as compatible as she had thought they might be.

The men who hadn’t run had been far too much like the male Mackays for her to even consider, once she realized the traits they shared with her family members. She was terrified of ending up with a man just like Dawg, or worse yet, a man who reported to him.

That would be so humiliating.

She couldn’t imagine anything worse than being in a relationship where she couldn’t trust her lover to have more loyalty to her than he had fear of her brother.

Would Jed really fear Dawg, though?

She couldn’t imagine that happening, but she could imagine him reporting to Dawg simply because he believed her brother would have the right to know what she was doing, when, and where.

She glanced to the planner again as she finished packing her duffel bag with the items she’d bought before leaving for the meeting with the bastard who had tricked her into coming to New York. She’d literally upended her purse to get all the little packages of stones and colored glass into the duffel, and stuffed all the fabric and notions in after them.

It would serve Eldon right if she did tell Dawg exactly what he had done. Dawg and her cousins would be in New York City so fast no one would dare realize they were gone. And they would beat the skinny, rat-faced little pervert to a pulp.

The thought of it was immensely satisfying, but she knew she could never do it.

Shaking her head at the pleasurable image and heading across the room to collect her planner, she was brought up short by a knock on the door.

The bellhop was quick. She had called the front desk and asked them to give her an hour before sending him up, but she didn’t mind leaving a little earlier than she had planned. It would give her a few extra minutes to settle onto the train and feel a little sorrier for herself.

Mockery curled her lips. If there was one thing she didn’t do well, it was feel sorry for herself.

Dawg wasn’t really a prison warden, though in the past year, she admitted, there were often times she accused him of being one.

Checking the peephole quickly, she saw a large form dressed in the familiar hotel jacket and quickly opened the door.

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