Nauti Nights (29 page)

into mischief. “This friend is city, though. Don’t worry, Natches is riding close to her ass, and he’ll take care of her.”

“Natches?” She wouldn’t trust Natches in a well-lit room filled with saints, let alone on a dark mountain.

“You’re leaving some poor, unsuspecting woman stuck here with Natches? What did she do to make you

angry?”

That canceled out any bad-guy types.

“She’s spying on me.” The flash of his teeth against his sun darkened skin was playful and sexy. “For

some reason, the special agent in charge of the arrests last week has a tail on you, sweetheart. Usually, I wouldn’t care, but I have plans today. Plans that don’t include watching eyes.”

His brows waggled over the top of his dark sunglasses.

Plans that didn’t include watching eyes? Crista felt her heart race further than it was already after he mentioned that she was being followed rather than him.

“Why is she interested in me?” She could feel the fear clogging her throat.

“I don’t know yet.” He shook his head briefly before turning back onto one of the wider country roads and accelerating along the blacktop. “I tried to call her boss, but he’s not taking his calls right now. He’ll let me know eventually.”

“He knows I was there,” she whispered. “Are they going to arrest me?”

“No one is going to arrest you, Crista,” he growled. “I have another call out to Alex. A contact number I doubt you had. He should be calling us soon. Until then, we’re just waiting to see what’s happening and

playing with the fools sent to watch you.”

“Your boss doesn’t trust you anymore then,” she said worriedly. “They could arrest you, too, Dawg.”

“Stop worrying.”

Stop worrying?

“One of us should worry here,” she gritted out. “Dawg, if he’s got someone watching me, then he thinks I was involved.”

“If he had proof, he would have had you arrested at the spa. He wouldn’t have someone watching you.

Not to say that he’s not suspicious. But Cranston doesn’t make a move without proof. He doesn’t have

proof.”

Crista bit her lip, chewing at it worriedly as she watched the road ahead of her.

“You sound certain.” She needed him to be certain.

“I know Cranston. But I am interested in what is going on. Natches should be able to figure that one out; then we’ll figure out where we go from here.”

“The note was in the Rodeo,” she whispered. “I left it there. I know it was in there. I was going to look for it, but you kept dragging me away from it.” And then it had blown up.

“Don’t worry about it.” His voice became more clipped as he turned up another road, a graveled road

rather than dirt.

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Pristine white fences ran along the side of the road. A few dozen cattle meandered in thickly grassed

pastures, their heads lifting curiously as the truck sped down the road.

“I do worry about it. That was the only proof I had.”

Dawg knew that. Just as he knew that proof was safely locked away in his safe.

It was hidden. Just in case. But damn, telling Crista he had it all along was going to piss her clean off.

That wasn’t what he wanted today.

He would tell her tomorrow. He wasn’t letting anything interfere in his appreciation of her slick, honeyed flesh when the time came.

Just a few more hours. Six hours at the most, and the sensitivity of the delicate flesh that had been waxed should be back to normal. The spa, Kelly swore, had the best technicians in the business, and the

emollients they used after the waxing soothed the irritated flesh immediately.

He would tell her about the note tomorrow. The letterhead of the delivery company, the date, and note

would help. Unfortunately, it hadn’t been signed by the delivery person. At least the handwriting on the note definitely wasn’t Crista’s.

That added to the fact that even with Natches’s contacts, computer abilities, and general sneakiness, he couldn’t find so much as a spare penny in Crista’s name in the house she shared with Alex or anywhere

related to her. And he had spent the better part of the past days searching for it.

Crista wasn’t the money girl, the lone female that had taken the buyers’ million dollars, supposedly in the thieves’ interest.

The men in custody hadn’t named her, but Dawg hadn’t been able to interrogate them, either. And he was

damned sure it wasn’t Crista.

Where had that trust come from? That question rolled through him as he passed the cattle guard in the

road that led to the property he had been working on for years now.

The land, over two hundred acres of woodland and pastures, was bordered by an arm of Lake

Cumberland. The sprawling two-story log cabin he had begun building the summer before sat on the rise

overlooking the lake, surrounded on three sides by fir, oak, and maple trees. The ranch yard was

surrounded by the same white fences that stretched along the road. Stables sat a quarter mile to the left, and the barn and tractor sheds to the right. All the buildings were placed so that they were protected on three sides by the dense woods that surrounded the area.

The little coves of cleared land that had been created inside the tree line gave the land a natural, peaceful appearance. It also pleased his need for space and privacy.

This was Dawg’s. Bought by the money he saved while in the Marines and then the ATF, along with part

of the profits from the lumber store in the past four years. It wasn’t bought from his father’s inheritance, and it wasn’t tied to memories of his parents.

It was his. Just his. Just as Crista was.

“Stop worrying.” He glanced at her and saw the frown on her face. “No one knows we’re here. Hell, no

one in Somerset but Natches, Rowdy, and Kelly even knows about this place.”

“Where are we, anyway?”

“Jabez. We’re still in Pulaski County. You can see the lake from the back, but it’s a small distance to it.”

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Dawg stepped from the truck before opening the back side door and dragging out the picnic basket.

“You coming?” He looked over the top of the sunglasses, and that look sizzled. “There’s a nice little

clearing out back where we can picnic. I’ll show you the house first, though.”

Crista stepped from the truck and stared at the house. The dark logs helped it blend into the trees around it, as did the dark brown color of the tin roof. A porch surrounded it, as did a balcony on the top floor.

“I’m having a hot tub installed on the balcony outside the master bedroom on the back.” He swept his

hand toward the house as he met her at the front of the truck. “When the inside is finished, I’ll probably bring the Nauti Dawg out and tie her up to the dock where I managed to buy permission to build on the

shoreline.”

“Are you trying to become domesticated, Dawg?” she asked as he opened the wood gate and ushered her

into the ranch yard.

He could still hear the nerves in her voice, her fear. The knowledge that Cranston now suspected her had thrown her. But there was no guilt in her eyes or her expression. Confusion, fear, yes. But it wasn’t

blazing; it was subdued. Whether Crista wanted to admit it or not, she trusted him.

“Come on into the house.” He unlocked the front door, pushed it open slowly, and checked out the open,

airy rooms before leading the way inside.

The walls were unpainted. The floors were unfinished. The stairwell wasn’t banistered, and the upstairs

wasn’t much better. It was, as he liked to tell Rowdy and Natches, a work in progress.

Kind of like Crista. He looked at her as she stared around the entryway nervously and smiled. That same

smile that seemed to worry Natches so much. Possessing her heart might not be easy, but he was damned

determined to do just that.

SEVENTEEN

Dawg’s house was incredible. The large entryway held a curving staircase to the second floor and an open hall that looked out over the unfinished balustrades. There were no doors on the five entrances on the

second floor, but sunlight spilled from the windows on the front section and bathed the hall as well as the foyer in myriad sunbeams from the tall windows that looked out on the graveled road.

To her right, a large, open entrance led into what she assumed would be a living room with another

entrance to the far end into another room. On her left, farther along the foyer, was another wide entrance into a dining room. Crista moved forward hesitantly, staring into the room and seeing the two sets of

French doors that led onto the wide porch wrapping around the house. At the end of that room was

another entrance that led into what was clearly a kitchen.

“Come on, I’ll show you around.” Dawg led the way into the dining room, then into the kitchen. “The

foyer opens up to a back hall.” He pointed out another door as they entered a large kitchen. “There’s a

pantry, a washroom, and a small spare bedroom along the hall as well as an office that opens into the

living room.”

Nothing was finished. By the look of the drywall and the dust along the floors, it hadn’t been long since it had been installed.

“I’m surprised,” she said as he gave her a quick tour of the house, upstairs and downstairs. “You’ve

managed this without a hint of gossip.”

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the land about three years ago through a third party, and I’ve had the work done in stages, through the

same people. Once it’s complete, we’ll file the proper deeds, etc., through the county. But it’s mine,

regardless.”

“So why hide it?” she asked as they moved back into the kitchen.

Dawg moved to the roughly framed center island where the picnic basket sat on the strip of plywood

covering the top frame. He braced his hip against the side of it and looked around silently for long

moments.

“Pure spite, probably.” He sighed, shaking his head ruefully. “The relatives seem to delight in knowing

every damned move I make, so it’s become a game to do things they don’t know about and rub their noses

in it.”

“What about the house your parents left you?” Crista had seen the outside of that property several times.

The front of the house was all that showed at the bottom of the mountain it had been built into. Dawg’s

father had been said to be one of the premier architects in the country for such buildings.

“The place makes me damned claustrophobic.” He grimaced. “I’ll probably sell it eventually.”

“Once you’ve milked your relatives of all the satisfaction you can squeeze from them?” She smiled in

turn.

A wry smile curled his lips as he stared back at her.

“We’re not exactly a close family,” he admitted. “Nadine Grace and Dayle Mackay are thorns in my side,

not to mention Natches’s and Rowdy’s. If they could destroy Uncle Ray, they’d do it in a heartbeat.

Unfortunately for them, Ray figured out how to protect himself early from them. They were snake mean

even as kids, from what I understand.”

“Except Ray.” Crista had heard that herself. Of all the older Mackays, Ray was the only one spoken of

kindly.

“Except Uncle Ray.” Dawg nodded, his expression flickering with affection. “Ray raised Rowdy right,

and Rowdy helped raise Natches and me until Ray could get his hooks into us. Neither one of them gave

up on us. Rowdy held us together.”

“Even to the point of drawing you into the sharing?” she asked.

A bark of laughter left his throat then. “Come on, we’ll talk while we walk.”

Dawg held his hand out to her, waiting, watching as she gazed at it a second before lifting her smaller, more delicate hand to his. Dawg twined his fingers with hers, watching as her paler, softer hand meshed

with his.

It looked right. It felt damned right. Damn her. She had his guts and his heart twisted in so many knots he knew he would never be free of her.

As he led her from the house and into the tree-shaded backyard, Dawg found himself feeling emotions he

hadn’t expected. Aside from the protectiveness he felt, there was a well of heated hunger, fierce

possessiveness, and a gentleness he had never felt toward another woman.

“You and Alex are pretty close,” he said as he let her spread the tablecloth on the thick, well-cut grass at the edge of the small clearing that looked out onto a private natural cove the land created for the lake.

“We had to be,” she said as she tucked a thick strand of hair behind her ear and smoothed out the

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tablecloth.

Dawg set the basket in the center before lowering himself on the cloth and leaning back. Crista seemed

more hesitant, sitting rather than stretching out, but at least she sat close enough to him to assure him that she wasn’t running from him.

“Your parents were pretty distant around people,” he said as she set out the small covered platter of

still-warm chicken and began unpacking the side dishes.

“They were like that with Alex and me as well.” A little frown pulled at her forehead as she spoke. “They planned Alex’s birth, but I was kind of a surprise.” The curve of her lips was tipped with an expression of subtle bitterness. “They didn’t want me. They gave me to Alex to raise pretty much. Mom was only

concerned with pleasing Dad, and he was only concerned with her and his moneymaking schemes.”