Nauti Temptress (10 page)

There was no loosening the muscles at the back of his neck, but Dawg tried. Reaching around to rub at his nape in frustration, he blew out a hard breath.

“Call me if she needs me,” he finally said in irritation before shaking his head helplessly. “Hell, John. How do you survive hurting a sister?”

Because he had hurt her, and he knew it. By making her swear to go against her own instincts and stay away from Brogan, he had a feeling he’d hurt her more than he suspected.

“You let them forgive you and you go on.” John finally smiled back at him in compassion. “That’s all you really can do.”

Clapping him on the shoulder, John turned and went back behind the bar to give the bartenders a hand.

Let her forgive him?

He turned and headed to the exit. He would love to let her forgive him. Unfortunately, he wasn’t so certain he deserved it.

FIVE

John’s wife, Sierra, was striding furiously through
the hall leading to the bar as Eve pushed through it, intent on collecting her purse and leaving. Sierra must have left the bar while she was at the table with the bachelorettes.

Before Sandi had made a fool of her.

Eve didn’t want to cry. She hated crying. But as Sierra stopped several feet ahead of her and stared back at her in disbelief, she could feel her throat tightening with the hated dampness.

“I’m sorry, Sierra,” she whispered, pushing her hands into the pockets of her jeans as she blinked quickly to hold the moisture back. “I’m just getting my purse. I promise not to try to return.”

She knew the rules.

As she had stared into Dawg’s eyes after jumping back from where she’d held Sandi to the floor, shame had surged through her.

She hadn’t thought about the rules on fighting then. Not until she’d seen Sierra and the fury glittering in her brown eyes.

Shame burned like a cinder in her chest.

When there was a fight anywhere on bar property, then both fighters were banned. The rule made sense. She really could have walked away, but once Sandi had dared to not just insult her mother, but to also use that sissy-bitch move and backhand her, it had been over with.

Besides, jealousy had been eating her alive.

Sandi had been able to sit next to Brogan. To laugh with him. To talk to him without censure, while Eve was restrained by a promise she couldn’t break.

“Don’t you dare apologize to me, Eve Mackay,” Sierra demanded furiously.

The tears fell.

Sierra was a friend, and now she wasn’t going to forgive her.

“The fighting rule only applies when I say it does,” Sierra continued, moving to her quickly, surprising—actually shocking—Eve as she wrapped her arms around her. “And that rule does not apply to employees whom little bitches like that decide to torment all night.”

“What?” Eve shook her head as Sierra drew back, her hands still gripping Eve’s shoulders and staring into her face in concern. “I don’t have to leave?”

“As if,” Sierra said gently, shaking her head. “Eve, that rule rarely applies to employees anyway. Once you get a couple of hundred bodies in one place, drinking and deciding they’re more deserving than others, the first person customers take their attitude out on is the waitresses. That’s why we have bouncers, and that’s why we provide the girls with self-defense classes if they ask for them. Besides, I saw that bitch and her boyfriend watching you, obviously plotting each jibe before it was made.”

Eve sniffed, blinking again as she finally forced back the tears.

“I should have ignored her. Or just gone home.”

“Come on; we need a glass of wine,” Sierra decided as she turned and headed back up the hall. “And you need an ice pack for your cheek. The bitch must have been wearing a ring, because you have a hell of a scratch across it.”

Eve lifted the back of her hand to her cheek, then pulled it back to see the smear of blood across it. She couldn’t even feel it.

Following Sierra to the office in the back of the building, she sat down on the comfortable leather couch as Sierra went to the refrigerator and pulled out a bottle of wine.

It took her a moment to pull the cork and pour two glasses. Once she did she handed Eve one before taking a seat in the chair across from her, her expression worried as she stared at Eve’s face.

“Are you sure you don’t want some ice?” she asked, sitting forward in the chair and crossing a leg over the opposite knee to prop her arm on it.

“No.” Eve shook her head before sipping at the cold wine. “I’ll be fine.”

“You surprised me.” Sierra grinned. “When I saw how they were taunting you I told Kota to send you back here before I left the bar. I didn’t think you’d do anything about it, and I didn’t want you having to deal with that viperous bitch while you were helping me and John out of a hard spot. She attacked before Kota could tell you. I cheered when I saw you go after her on the security monitor.”

“I should have just escaped back here.” Eve sighed. “I promised Momma when we moved here that I would stop fighting. All of us did. We were wild as hell before moving here. At least one of us managed to get into a fistfight just about every day.”

Life hadn’t been easy before Dawg had taken them in.

“There’s only so much you can take.” Sierra shrugged. “Besides, she was too jealous to let it go. You’ve managed to snag a man just about every woman in four counties has been after for years. Congratulations, by the way.”

“I haven’t captured anyone,” Eve denied.

Only in her dreams, in her deepest fantasies.

“The hell you haven’t,” Sierra said in disbelief. “Eve, that man can’t take his eyes off you. Surely you can see that?”

“I didn’t say I didn’t want him.” Eve set her glass on the table before covering her face with her hands for long moments.

Her cheek throbbed. She could feel her busted lip now, the bruise where the inner flesh had been knocked into her teeth.

Her heart was still racing, the adrenaline that had pumped into her system still searching for release.

“God, this situation is going to give me a migraine.” She sighed, lowering her hands and staring back at Sierra miserably. “It’s impossible, Sierra. For whatever reason, Brogan is the one man Dawg can’t abide, and I understand why he feels the way he feels. I just can’t believe Brogan would betray anyone, though, let alone his country.”

Sierra frowned back at her. “Brogan? A traitor?” She shook her head slowly. “I’ve heard the rumors, of course, but that’s just not Brogan.”

“Exactly.” Eve flipped her hand out, palm up, before using both hands to rub at her face in frustration. Lowering them again, she picked up the glass of wine, then set it back down. She had to drive home, and the wine would go straight to her head.

“So how do you intend to fight the fact that both of you want each other like crazy?” Sierra asked. “He watches you like a starving man watches dinner.”

“I promised Dawg I would stay away from him,” she told Sierra miserably, her throat tightening with emotion again. “He’s never asked me for anything, Sierra, until now. And he asked me to stay away from Brogan.”

“I’m sorry, Eve,” she whispered sympathetically. “But really, Dawg had no right to ask that of you.”

Eve shook her head. “He told us when we first came here that all he asked was that we never betray ourselves or our family. As far as he’s concerned, Brogan has betrayed his country, and to believe in him, to be with him, means I’m tarred with the same brush. To Dawg, that’s betraying not just myself, but my family, my friends, and the nation. And to Dawg, that’s the worst thing I could do.”

It had all been said lovingly, of course. And Dawg had hated saying it to her; she had seen that. But that was how he felt.

“But you don’t believe he betrayed his country,” Sierra stated.

Eve shook her head. “No, I don’t. I can’t believe he would do anything so vile, Sierra. He’s arrogant, proud as hell, and so damned stubborn he probably makes people want to shoot him. But I can’t see him betraying his country.”

“And you’re in love with him,” Sierra said softly. “Aren’t you?”

Eve sighed wearily. “I don’t know. I know I can’t stand the thought of denying myself something I want this badly. But I also know that if that’s the problem, then he’ll break my heart. There’s no doubt in my mind he will. And in turn, I’ll break my brother’s heart.”

Brogan might not mean to. He may hate it, but it wouldn’t stop it from happening.

“Do you think you can keep that promise, then?” Sierra asked her.

Eve gave a bitter laugh. “Dawg saved us, Sierra. And I hate myself. I hate myself until I’m sick to my stomach with the fact that the one thing he asked of me seems to be the very thing I can’t give him. And he deserves so much more.”

* * *

Dawg hadn’t meant to eavesdrop.

He’d been in the parking lot when Timothy had come around the side of the bar and called him back, bringing him through the side entrance to meet with him and John. What the hell Timothy was doing there, he hadn’t yet figured out.

He’d heard Eve’s voice as they passed the partially closed door, and stopped just to make sure she was okay.

Now, as he heard the pain in her voice, aching regret filled his chest, he felt like a traitor himself. Hell, he hadn’t meant to hurt her, or to make her feel as though she had disappointed him.

He rubbed at the back of his neck again as he turned and followed Timothy up the hall to John Walker’s office. Once Timothy closed the door behind him, Dawg leaned against it, crossed his arms over his chest, and glared at the former—he was doubting the resignation story now—Homeland Security special agent and the supposedly unassuming bar manager.

There was too much going on here, he thought.

Suddenly Timothy was lurking in the back offices of Walker’s Run, no doubt because that was one of the only two rooms in the lower levels where the security cameras could be viewed.

When Timothy had texted earlier to meet him there, Dawg had assumed they were meeting in the actual bar, not hiding in the back. And that made sense only if Timothy was conducting an operation.

“What are you up to, you little fucker?” Dawg growled.

Timothy grinned at the insult as though it were a compliment.

Little bastard.

At least he didn’t look like a reject from the CIA anymore. His clothes were actually pressed, his hair combed. And he did smile more now than he had before Mercedes and the girls came into his life. Though Dawg admitted that the thought of Timothy Cranston with then svelte, model-beautiful Mercedes Mackay was just freaky.

“Why do I always have to be up to something?” Timothy asked.

“The last time I asked you that question you called me a suspicious little bastard who needed to go home and get fucked so I wouldn’t be so paranoid,” Dawg pointed out thoughtfully.

Timothy grimaced good-naturedly.

“Do I have to ask again, or send you home to your girlfriend minus some very important equipment?”

Timothy chuckled at that. “You are too paranoid, Dawg. Even your cousins tell you that.”

They did.

“That doesn’t mean you’re not up to something,” he pointed out. “Now, tell me what Brogan Campbell has to do with whatever the hell you’re up to, and how do I keep him away from my sister?”

Timothy sighed, then leaned forward, clasping his hands on the desk in front of him.

“Dawg, do you really think it’s possible for your sister to be interested in a traitor? Doesn’t that go against the Mackay DNA or something?”

“Are you saying he’s not a traitor?”

Timothy’s eyes widened innocently.

“Innocent” and “Timothy” in the same sentence was damned terrifying.

“How the hell would I know,” Timothy protested. “I just thought that, knowing Eve’s intuition about people is pretty damned good, it seems funny she could be fooled by a man betraying his country, that’s all.”

“That’s all, huh?”

Timothy nodded with apparent honesty. “That’s all.” He held his hands out in a gesture of sincerity.

Sincerity and Timothy?

Had he just entered the fucking Twilight Zone?

“You’re pulling an op again and you’re allowing Eve to be dragged straight into the middle of it. Now tell me what the fuck is going on,” Dawg demanded.

“You’re asking the same questions I am, Dawg,” Timothy admitted. “Who Brogan Campbell really is, and what the hell is going on. What I am fairly certain of, based on the fact that he’s lived in the same house I do for the past two and a half years, is that he’s no traitor. And I’m fairly certain he’s not going to wait much longer before Eve’s little heart is torn in two between you and the only man I’ve seen her interested in since she came here.”

Dawg straightened from his position against the door, stalked to the desk, and flattened his hands on the top of it as he leaned forward. “He will get her killed, Timothy. How do you think your lover, her mother, will feel when she finds out you let her walk smack into the middle of this and didn’t tell me what the hell is going on?”

Timothy shrugged. “If I knew what was going on, I would of course tell her first. That’s her daughter, and Mercedes has an amazing capacity to not just love her children, but also to accept the choices they make.”

“Even if one of those choices gets them killed?” Dawg growled.

“That’s what we’re for.” Timothy sighed then. “To keep that from happening.” His smile was tinged with acceptance and resignation. “Isn’t that what loving them is all about, Dawg? Letting them find out who they are, and doing all we can to protect them as they do?”

“Fuck me.” Dawg growled in resignation as he moved back and let himself fall into the chair behind him. “Just let me kill Campbell myself. That would be so much easier.”

“Can your conscience handle it, then?” Timothy asked.

“Natches’s can,” Dawg suggested. And he was certain it could.