Nauti Nights (24 page)

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“Keep telling yourself that,” she told him instead. “And while you’re at it, ask yourself the same question I had to answer sometime last night when I was still trying to catch my breath. You wouldn’t blackmail

someone you believed was a criminal, Dawg, and we both know it. No more than you would see an

innocent person imprisoned. No matter the cost. So what are you doing in this relationship?”

“Getting the fuck of my life,” he snarled.

Her lips did twitch then. “So you are,” she agreed, pulling her arm from his grip before moving back to

her purse, then turning and glancing at him over her shoulder. “Now, the question is, what do you really intend to do with it? Or me, as the case may be. Because we’re both smart enough to know that the thing

you’re not going to do is turn me over to Homeland Security. Fuck me to death maybe, but you wouldn’t

turn me in.”

“Are you betting your life on it?”

“Yeah.” She nodded slowly. “I’m betting my life on it.”

It was a damned good thing her brother had raised her, Crista thought later as they pulled into the parking lot behind the lumber store marked Employees Only. Because Dawg was snarling and growling and being

a general pain in the butt just for the hell of it. From her experience with Alex, she could tell the male irritability factor was in full swing here.

But he hadn’t called his agent-in-charge, and she was fairly certain there were no agents en route to slap restraints on her. She might get lucky, and the worst she would have to deal with was a snarling Dawg.

Not that answering her own question in the middle of the night had been easy. Because Crista had known

from that first night that Dawg wouldn’t arrest her, and he wouldn’t see her arrested. He knew she wasn’t involved.

So why was she letting him blackmail her?

She had to fight to keep from laying her palm against her abdomen as they drove from the houseboat to

the store. That was why she was letting him blackmail her. Because nothing had been finished when she

had left Somerset eight years before. But everything had been lost.

Her dreams. The man she had loved for what seemed most of her life. And the child she had carried from

that night.

The miscarriage had destroyed something inside her, something she hadn’t been able to recapture after

leaving town. And she had never forgotten Dawg: his touch, his kiss, or the pleasure that had filled every cell of her body.

“You’re making me look bad,” he snapped as he jerked the vehicle into park and turned his head to stare

at her over the top of the dark glasses he wore. “I never open.”

“You never hire one of your lovers to work here, either.” She shrugged.

“For a woman who was supposed to stay locked in the office, you managed to filter through a lot of

gossip.”

“I’m good at that.” She nodded benignly as she opened the truck door and stepped out of the vehicle,

leaving him to snarl and curse behind her as she slammed the door closed.

She was moving around the edge of the building when he finally drew up beside her.

“You’re working on a spanking,” he warned her.

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Unfortunately, the idea of that shouldn’t have been titillating.

“Am I?” she asked sweetly. “I hear you’re particularly good at that little disciplinary act. Before I left Somerset, all the girls were talking about it.”

She had to force those words past her lips. Just as she’d had to force back the jealousy at the time.

He grunted. An irritated sound of male displeasure.

Crista shrugged. “You and your cousins aren’t exactly good at hiding your lights under a barrel, so to

speak,” she told him, casting him a disapproving glare. “Really, Dawg, it’s a little late to worry about gossip.”

She should have known better than to dare him. She really should have.

Before she could do more than gasp, he had pushed her against the chain-link fence and stole her lips in a kiss that had her system rioting with conflicting emotions.

They weren’t on the houseboat, in his bed. They were in full view, and she was very well aware of what

he was doing. Marking her as his. As another woman in the very long line of women who had shared his

bed.

“Stop, Dawg.” She tore her lips from his, panting with the effort it cost her.

His hands were on her back, holding her against him, the length of his erection pressing into her lower

stomach, as his big body seemed to surround her.

“Don’t push me, Crista.” He stared down at her, his light green eyes practically glowing with an anger

held closely in check. “I’ve never given a damn about gossip or others’ opinions of me, and I won’t care about it now. Remember that when you’re twitching that tight little ass around me and trying to convince yourself what a good guy I might really be underneath it all. I’m a son of a bitch, darlin’, and one you really don’t want to cross.”

No, he was one she wanted to soothe, because she could see the pain in his eyes, in the mockery of his

expression. She could see it in the anger he was holding back, despite his words.

“Are you going to hurt me, Dawg?” she asked him then, reaching up to touch his jaw before he jerked

away from her.

“Get your ass in the store, goddamn it,” he cursed, stepping back and gripping her arm to lead her to the front doors where Layla was unlocking the employees’ entrance.

She cast them a curious glance, her dark hazel eyes concerned as Dawg approached.

“Good morning, Mr. Mackay. Crista,” she greeted them with an attempt at brightness, despite Dawg’s

heavy scowl.

“If you can call me Mr. Mackay, then you can call her Miss Jansen,” Dawg told the manager brusquely as

Crista sighed behind him.

“Call him Dawg, Layla. Maybe he’ll stop snarling at us because he had to come in so soon.” Crista tugged at his grip. “And he’s really not dragging me along behind him like a recalcitrant child. I get off on

dominance.”

Layla coughed as she turned her back on them quickly, and Dawg stopped and stared back at her in

surprise.

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She lifted one brow curiously. “What? I wasn’t supposed to tell?”

They both knew she hated being dragged around like a favorite puppy, and she was certain that was

exactly why he made a habit of doing it.

Spanked. He mouthed back at her before turning back to Layla.

Crista smiled serenely back at the other woman as she finished unlocking the door.

“Layla, follow us to the office, I want to know what the hell is going on with the lumberyard. I thought Bedsford had a handle on that?”

“He was working out great, Mr…. uhh Dawg,” she stuttered as she relocked the door, then followed

behind them. “He’s been with us ever since he was discharged from the service. I don’t know what

happened.”

Crista glanced behind her at the manager, winking as Dawg continued to drag her behind him as he

mounted the steps to the office.

“When did it start?”

“Last week.” They paused as Dawg dug the key to the office out of his jeans pocket, still holding onto

Crista, and inserted it into lock, turned it, then stopped.

“Dawg?” Crista tried to stare around him. “What’s wrong?”

“You didn’t lock up last night.” His voice was carefully restrained.

“Of course I locked the office before I left.” Crista frowned. “I know I did.”

“I also checked it before I left Mr., umm, Dawg.” Layla cleared her throat again. “I always check the

office doors before I close up at night.”

Dawg stepped back, his keys still hanging in the lock.

“Crista, I want you and Layla to go back out front. Use your cell phone and call Natches. I programmed

his and Rowdy’s numbers in last night.”

“Why?” Crista could feel the dread rising inside her now.

“Layla, does anyone know you check the offices at night?” Dawg asked then.

“I don’t know, Dawg.” There was an edge of fear in her voice. “Jamie and the boys always go through the

store with me at night when they pick me up, just to make sure everything is okay. I check all the office doors then.”

“Get out front and call Natches, Crista.” Dawg turned back to her, his expression closed, dangerous.

“Now.”

“Not without you.” Her hands gripped his arm, tugging at him. “You can call him yourself. He’ll come

faster if you call him.”

Surprise tightened his features. “I know what I’m doing, Crista.”

“I don’t care.” She wasn’t leaving him here alone. Only God knew what was behind that door. “You can

come with us.”

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“Mr. Mackay, we should all go out front. What if whoever was in the store, if anyone was, is waiting

outside?”

That had murderous fury lighting in his eyes. Dawg’s gaze sliced to the tall, wide windows of the front of the store as his expression became cold, dangerous.

“Come on.” Thankfully, he turned, moving them down the metal steps and headed for the entrance as he

pulled his cell phone from his pocket.

Punching in Natches’s number, Dawg stalked away from the women.

“It’s early, Dawg,” Natches mumbled into the line.

“Get to the store. Someone was in the office last night. I’m calling the sheriff to dust for prints, but I need someone to watch Crista while I’m taking care of Mayes’s questions. After last night, this could get ugly.”

“Shit!” He could hear Natches moving. “Bastards moved fast.”

“Makes me wonder if the car going up in flames wasn’t more of a distraction than an attempt. Just hurry.

I’m calling Sheriff Mayes now. And you know Layla, her husband and sons are going to come down here

like a pack of ravening wolves intent on protecting her. I’m going to need help here.”

Natches snickered.

Jamie Matcher and his brood of overgrown sons had come to the store and stayed with Layla every day for

the first damned year she had worked for Dawg. And Jamie, all six feet five inches of him, had towered

over Dawg and warned him what would happen if his little Layla got smeared with gossip because of

games Dawg might want to play in the privacy of his office.

As if he played games in his office. Damnit, he liked a bed for games. The office was work. Paperwork.

Something he didn’t handle well, despite Crista’s certainty.

“Just get your ass down here.” Dawg closed his eyes and rubbed at his forehead, anticipating the headache he knew was well on its way.

As he flipped the phone closed and turned back to the two women, he sighed again. Layla was looking

decidedly nervous. Crista was defiant and suspicious.

“Layla, call Jamie and the boys,” he told her. “I have to call Sheriff Mayes, and once the call goes out on the radio, Jamie will blow a fuse.”

“He worries, Dawg.” But she was pulling the phone from the case she wore on the slim leather belt that

cinched her crisp tan slacks.

“He worries,” Dawg muttered. “I worry.” Then he turned to Crista.

She was leaning against the block wall like she didn’t have a damned care in the world. Concerned but

amused. She was amused at him, and that one was biting his ass. He was blackmailing her, but damned if

he didn’t suddenly feel like she had the upper hand.

“Layla, why don’t you and Crista go to the lounge and get some coffee on. The employees will be

showing up about the same time the sheriff and the state boys do. If they have their coffee, they might not make too much of a mess investigating this.”

He could hope. But he wasn’t betting the houseboat on it. By the time he got off the phone with Sheriff

Mayes, he could feel the headache beginning in his temples.

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Good old Ezekiel Mayes. The son of a bitch. Dawg swore he was going to vote against him each election,

but he always managed to vote for him. Better the devil you knew…

He stood and stared around the store. It was just as huge now as it was each time he found himself doing this. The first year out of the Marines he had nearly gutted the place. His knee had ached like a son of a bitch that year, but he had nearly tripled the size and added to the layout. Not that he cared one way or the other about the business, he reminded himself. He had been bored.

Fuck that. Even Crista knew better. And he was kidding himself. He had been kidding himself for eight

years. The estate his parents had left him was riddled with so much guilt, resentment, and bitterness that sometimes he wished he’d sold it all that first year after their death, while he was in the Marines and

worrying his ass off over it.

The house especially. Where he had never lived. His father had finished it after Dawg had bought the

Nauti Dawg from an inheritance left to him by his mother’s mother. He had never spent a night in that

house until after their deaths.

His father had hated the lumber store, too. But he had kept it anyway. He had always said it was the only thing Dawg was smart enough to actually make a living with. And maybe the old bastard had been right.

He had a knack for it, unlike his knack for warfare. He tended to get his knees blown off there. The ATF

assignment wasn’t a bad one, but the restrictions pissed him off. Answering to other people wasn’t his