Nautier and Wilder (8 page)

Jed lied once again and told them he was her brother, gave the doctor permission to
treat Piper, then asked her to put the young man who called him on the phone once
again.

“You didn’t give the nurse the planner to call—why?” he asked instantly, suspiciously.

“I don’t know.” Jed could almost see the uncomfortable shrug he imagined the young
man made. “We were the ones who rescued her; I guess we kind of feel responsible for
her until someone else gets here. You know? And that dude that attacked her tried
to shoot us as he ran out of the room. The police around here are nuts, too. They
didn’t even bat an eyelash, so no one’s watching to make sure the guy doesn’t come
after her again.”

“I’ll be there in approximately three hours,” Jed told him. “Can you wait?”

“We’ll be here until you get to her,” Bret promised. “But if you could get here faster,
it would be good. I heard the nurse say someone else already called the hospital and
asked about the lady attacked at the hotel, so whoever attacked her could be planning
to come back.”

“How many are with you?”

“Just me, my best friend, Matt, and his girlfriend, Olivia,” Bret told him. “We’ll
wait on you. No one’s going to bother her while we’re here.”

“Thank you.” Jed wasn’t reassured, but he had to admit he was damned glad to know
she wasn’t alone.

“Well, if it was my sister, I’d want someone to wait on me,” the boy admitted. “Drive
careful. We’ll be here.”

Careful?

Jed hit the interstate and pushed his foot on the gas as he disconnected the call,
then made another.

“Control,” a well-modulated feminine voice answered.

“This is Agent Booker,” he stated before quickly giving his control number. “I’m en
route to agency airfield in Louisville, Kentucky. Advise all law enforcement to allow
disposition and advise agency pilot to have transport ready. Destination New York
City.”

“We have you on satellite, Agent Booker,” Control advised him. “All law enforcement
will be advised and turned away. Proceed with caution to airfield Delta-Bravo-Tahoe,
where a pilot will be advised to be waiting in hangar six-four-zero.”

“Understood,” he responded. “Agent Booker out.”

No doubt Timothy would question him once he was given the report of Jed’s midnight
race to New York City, but that could be days away, possibly weeks, until Timothy
called and requested agent maneuver reports. Though that was something he rarely did.

The landscape sped by; the roads, luckily, weren’t busy in the hours after midnight
until four in the morning or later. It gave him the space needed to travel safely
at the speed needed to reach the airport just outside Louisville and to still the
sudden, unheard-of terror piercing his heart.

What the hell was Piper doing in New York City?

Whoever the hell she’d been sneaking out to meet had obviously abducted her, hadn’t
they? Piper surely wouldn’t leave the state without letting her brother, Dawg, know
she was leaving.

Or would she?

Damn her.

He’d been driving himself insane in his attempt to figure out where she had gone without
resorting to official channels or contacts to learn her secrets. She’d left without
telling him with whom or where she was going. It was obvious she didn’t want to share
the information or the identity of her lover.

She hadn’t wanted to share it then; she would share it now.

She would share it or he would be on the phone to Dawg.

Piper and her sisters didn’t think there was anything worse than having their brother
or male cousins pissed. Piper was about to find out there was something far worse.

There was Jed, and he wasn’t about to let an attack against her go.

This had nothing to do with protectiveness or control. It had nothing to do with an
attempt to dominate her life. What it had to do with was the fact that someone had
dared to hurt her, and he would make certain that someone had the favor returned.

* * *

Piper stared at the nurse in disgust.

“You can’t make me stay here,” she informed the middle-aged, kindly looking nurse
as the woman stared back at her with concerned hazel eyes.

Standing at five feet, four inches if she was lucky, her gray-and-brown hair pulled
back from her face in a tight braid as the small wrinkles at the corners of her eyes
drew in with her frown, the nurse watched her in disapproval.

“You’ve had a concussion, Ms. Mackay, and I doubt you feel much like walking right
now, let alone traveling to the train station. If you’ll just calm down, the doctor
will be in soon; he can check you and let you know what damage has been done.”

“I already know what damage has been done,” she muttered angrily. “Trust me; I can
feel every bruise.”

And she could. Every single bruise, scratch, and jab that had been plowed into her
undefended body.

“I’m certain you can,” the nurse agreed compassionately. “But that concussion could
be dangerous. Your brother’s due at any time—”

“Excuse me?” Piper knew she’d just lost her breath as trepidation began to race through
her system.

Oh,
God.

No.

Not Dawg. Surely to God no one had actually called Dawg.

“Your brother Jed.” The nurse smiled again. “His name and phone number was in your
day planner, thank goodness.” She moved to the bed and, as Piper stared back at her
in shock, actually managed to wrap the blood pressure cuff around her arm. “Your purse
was stolen. If it hadn’t been for his name and number in your planner, then we’d have
had no idea whom to contact.”

Her brother Jed, not her brother, Dawg? No doubt Jed had called Dawg. Dawg, Rowdy,
and Natches were probably just ahead of his arrival and blowing fire and brimstone.
And once they stepped into the hospital, hell would have no fury like the Mackay men
pissed off.

“God, this isn’t good.” Lying back against the hospital bed, Piper closed her eyes
wearily. “How long ago did you talk to him? Forget it.” She gave a quick shake of
her head. “Doesn’t matter; he could be here in two minutes or in two hours.” Opening
her eyes, she levered herself up on the bed. “Where are my clothes?”

Nurse Dade widened her eyes in surprise. “Ms. Mackay, where your clothes are doesn’t
matter,” she informed Piper. “You need to rest.”

“I’ll find the damned things myself then.” Piper sighed.

She really didn’t feel like finding anything, especially her clothes, but sometimes
a girl just had to do what a girl just had to do, right?

“Ms. Mackay, you’re in no shape to leave the hospital alone.”

“Nurse Dade, you really have no idea the forces of nature getting ready to rip through
this hospital,” she informed the nurse as dread began to fill her. “The Four Horsemen
of the Apocalypse have nothing—and I mean absolutely nothing—on my brothers. Famine,
pestilence, war, and disease are a kiddie playground in comparison, and I have no
intentions of hanging around for the fallout.”

Nurse Dade’s eyes widened. “Sweetie, I talked to him myself.” She gave a small, nervous
little laugh. “He was as nice as he could be. I think you may have hit your head harder
than the doctor thought.”

Struggling from the bed, Piper ignored the nurse’s disapproving glare as she shuffled
to the small cabinet next to the end of the bed.

Aha, clothes.

“Ms. Mackay, this isn’t advisable.” The nurse sighed as Piper struggled past the roommate
who had been listening in amused interest.

“It’s not advisable to be here when Dawg Mackay arrives either.”

“Who is Dawg Mackay?” The nurse was all but laughing at her. “His name is Jed.”

“You really don’t want to know. Trust me.”

“You’re going to hurt my feelings, sis. That just wasn’t nice.”

Piper came to a slow stop no more than a few feet from the bathroom door when Jed
stepped slowly into the room.

His voice was gentle, amused, and patient. The look in his eyes was damned scary,
though.

Scary, that was, if her attacker ever had the misfortune to stare into them.

She could see murder in those eyes. As Jed took in the bruised, swollen condition
of her face, the hesitancy in her stance as she stood before him, then the livid bruises
on her arms, the navy blue of his eyes flickered with a deep, black rage.

Shaking his head slowly, he advanced on her, all lean-hipped, predatory male grace
and dark intent.

“How far behind you is Dawg?” Resignation slumped her shoulders.

If she had been on a leash before where her brother was concerned, no doubt it would
feel like prison even before they left the hospital.

“Oh, I’d say about twelve hours or so,” he drawled, then leaned close, staring into
her wide eyes as he whispered, “He doesn’t know, sweet pea. Want to keep it that way?”

Piper nodded. Oh, God, she really wanted to keep it that way.

“Then you’re going to cooperate, right?” he suggested softly.

Piper nodded again.

To keep Dawg in the dark?

Oh, hell, yes, she would cooperate.

At least to a point.

After all, she’d hate to mar the Mackay reputation for cooperating only when it suited
their own interests.

Right now it suited every single interest she could think of, though.

“Good then.” He straightened, his hands settling with airy gentleness just above her
shoulders. “Turn around, march right back to that bed, and we’ll just wait for the
doctor, shall we?”

She moved for the bed.

“That’s a good girl,” he commended her as Nurse Dade smiled with an awestruck girlishness
Piper found nauseating.

Good girl, was she? she thought, sitting back on the bed carefully as she glared up
at the smirking, far too self-satisfied Jedediah Booker.

Oh, she’d just show him what a good girl she wasn’t.

As soon as the doctor released her, that was.

SEVEN

J
ed hadn’t prayed in years, but as he drove from the small airfield outside Louisville
the next evening, he found himself praying for patience.

He’d found a chance to question Bret Jordan and his friends Matthew Grace and Olivia
Camfield. From their report, they’d heard Piper screaming in the suite next door and
had come to investigate. Her door had been opened and a man they described as a “mountain”
had been pounding on Piper as though he intended to beat her to death.

He also had the bastard’s description. The three had been amazingly observant and
were able to provide several valuable details in regard to the assailant’s appearance.
One of his contacts in the city had made a visit to the hotel and questioned the staff
before going to the room and doing the job it seemed the police hadn’t, collecting
what evidence of the attack had been left.

And there was the reason for the prayers. Patience wasn’t his strong suit. The second
he had Piper safely at home he’d launch his own investigation. God help the bastard
who had dared to touch her.

Once the assailant was found, Jed prayed he could keep from attempting to kill him
with his bare hands. From showing the “mountain” what it meant to really hurt.

“Why didn’t you tell Dawg where I was?” Piper finally deigned to speak to him, something
she hadn’t done since they’d left the hospital unless he’d simply left her no other
choice.

“I promised to keep your secrets, Piper; I meant it.” Glancing at her, he drove the
truck he’d parked at the airfield the morning before toward Somerset. “I won’t tell
Dawg anything I know you’d want me to keep to myself.”

The flight back had been short, but Jed hadn’t wanted to arrive back in Kentucky until
well after midnight. He’d spent the day getting her ready to leave and ensuring someone
was investigating her reason for being there and why she had been attacked.

He hoped—hell, no, he was praying—that Dawg wouldn’t be anywhere near the inn when
they arrived.

She shifted against the leather seats, no doubt trying to find a comfortable position.

His fingers tightened on the steering wheel as he fought back the anger he was determined
she wouldn’t see.

“And that’s why you didn’t call Dawg?” She obviously didn’t want to believe him.

“That’s why.”

Dawg would have charged into New York City with Rowdy, Natches, and no doubt Chaya,
Natches’s wife; the chief of Somerset’s police force, Alex Jansen, and Pulaski County
sheriff Zeke Mayes; as well as Special Agent Timothy Cranston and Piper’s mother,
Mercedes Mackay, ready to kill.

Dawg wouldn’t have left the city until Timothy had buried her attacker. If that attacker
hadn’t been found, then Piper would have returned under such heavy guard she would
have been smothered before ever reaching Kentucky again.

Silence descended between them, one that stretched until they had nearly reached the
exit to Somerset.

“There’s no way to hide the bruises,” Piper stated, her voice low. “Dawg’s going to
see them.”

Yeah, he would; there was no way to hide the damage to her face, though thankfully,
her left eye was no longer swollen shut.

“What are you going to tell him?” Taking the exit to Somerset off the interstate,
he knew Piper’s time was definitely running out.

Dawg had all but haunted Mercedes and Timothy, demanding to know whether Piper had
called her mother yet. Elijah, Jed’s partner, had called earlier in the afternoon
to report Dawg had contacted several agents at the surrounding airports and had her
name run for flights out.

He’d told her earlier about the conversation he’d overheard between Mercedes and Dawg,
as well as the fact that Dawg was questioning everyone he could think to question
about her whereabouts.

“You can’t hide this from him, Piper,” he warned her when she didn’t answer him.

“I know I can’t,” she answered wearily.

The tiredness in her tone coincided with that unfamiliar tightness in his chest—something
he experienced only with Piper.

“He’s been beside himself with worry,” he told her. “Christa’s accused him of running
headlong into a stroke as he attempts to protect all of you.”

“If he would just wait until we need protecting.” Frustration immediately tightened
her body as she pushed both hands through her shoulder-length black hair before clenching
them in the deep waves.

God, he would kill to feel all that lush, warm silk against his body. Against his
thighs as her lips parted and his dick pierced the heated dampness beyond. That particular
portion of his body throbbed in painful hunger as the need for her began to grow impossibly.

Impossibly, because he hadn’t believed he could hunger for her more than he already
did.

Impossibly, because she was hurt, bruised, and no doubt the last thing on her mind
was sex. She was definitely exhausted. She’d slept the whole of the flight, waking
only as the plane taxied to the private hangar DHS leased.

“Why won’t he wait until we need him, Jed?” she questioned with hurt anger. “Why can’t
he just let us live a little bit?”

“Because he’s seen the monsters.” Jed knew exactly why. “He knows what’s out there,
Piper, and the nightmares haunt him now—the fear of not protecting the four of you,
of being off guard and missing a threat, gives him nightmares. That’s why he’s driving
himself to a stroke. That’s why he has trouble letting you live your life. Because
he knows that in that one moment that you relax your guard, that’s when the monsters
strike and attempt to steal everything you love in life.”

“Did they steal something you love?” she asked.

How had she guessed there was more to his life than he’d allowed her to see so far?

“Not quite.” Glancing at her, he saw the need in her eyes—not a sexual need or a physical
hunger.

She needed to see more of him than he’d allowed so far.

Intimacy. That connection that had the ability to bind two people together or tear
them apart.

“No one knows I have a sister.” He had to force himself to share with her something
that even Timothy Cranston was unaware of.

“You hide your family.” She nodded as though it made sense.

“Well, my mother hid me from them first,” he admitted with a flicker of amused remembrance.
“She didn’t want my father to know about me, didn’t want me to be threatened by his
career in covert intelligence or his enemies. Father knew about me, though. When I
was old enough, he found me, and drew me in like he does so many others and gave me
one task: Protect my sister.”

He could laugh about it now; at the time, it hadn’t been nearly so funny.

“You say that as though it were an impossible task,” she observed curiously.

“You would have to know Mary Elizabeth to be amused,” he said with a grunt. “She taught
me a long time ago that you can’t surround those you love in bubble wrap and expect
it to work. First they burst the bubbles; then they find an escape route. Once they
escape, they don’t tell you where they’re going or why.”

Piper watched as that crooked little smile she loved touched his hard lips and gleamed
in his dark blue eyes.

“You tried to surround her in bubble wrap then?” she asked. “Guess you learned the
hard way, huh? I wish you could teach Dawg and my cousins the fact that it simply
isn’t possible to lock us away until it’s time to bury us.”

“That’s your job, sweetheart.” He sighed as she watched him, her gaze meeting his
for the second he glanced at her, yet feeling the effects of the amused heat in his
eyes for that tiny moment in time.

“How is that my job?” She couldn’t imagine teaching Dawg anything. The man gave stubborn
a bad name.

“Most sisters start when they’re babies,” he admitted. “But you’re on the right track.
Live, laugh, have fun, and go head-to-head with him whenever you have to. But don’t
disappear on him again, Piper. Do it again, and next time I promise I’ll help him
find you.”

“And what makes you think you can find me if Dawg can’t?”

“Because Dawg doesn’t want to admit you would actually leave the state without telling
him,” he pointed out as guilt flayed her once again. “I don’t have that problem. I
saw you leave the inn when you snuck out. I heard the car stopping just down the road.
I knew why you were doing it, though. I didn’t follow; I didn’t run a check on the
car. I went back into my room and stared up at the ceiling the rest of the night,
wondering who was the man you left with.”

The man?

Piper almost smiled. She could hear the probing question he was doing nothing to hide.

“It wasn’t a man,” she admitted. “It was the sister of a friend giving me a ride to
the Louisville train station. I tried to cover my tracks so Dawg wouldn’t follow me.”

He nodded once.

“It didn’t work out so well.” She sighed, completing the thought.

“No, but I’m going to assume the circumstances were unusual,” he stated.

“How the hell do I know?” She still didn’t understand why, who, or what. “One minute
I’m waiting on a bellhop and a ride to the train station, and the next second I’m
being pounded on, then waking in a hospital with a concussion and so many bruises
that breathing hurts.”

There was the faintest memory of a demand. A demand for what, she wasn’t certain.
It wasn’t even a memory, not really. It was a confusing collage of something, amid
a blast of pain, fear, and her own screams.

“Did you remember the people next door who rushed in to help you?”

She didn’t remember the rescue at all.

“I remember meeting them at the hospital after I woke up.” She answered him, wishing
she could hold on to whatever it was her attacker had said in those chaotic moments.
She had a feeling if she could just remember . . .

“They were good boys,” he told her gently. “A lot of young men would have waited,
or been too wary of poking their noses in where they weren’t wanted.”

“Oh, they were wanted.” She breathed out roughly.

God, what would she have done if they hadn’t poked their noses in?

Watching the landscape roll by, Piper realized they were only miles from the inn now.

“Do you think Dawg will be there?”

He was going to be so hurt, and she knew it. He wouldn’t understand her need to breathe,
to have done this alone, even though it hadn’t been the chance she had believed it
was.

“Why were you in New York, Piper?”

She’d wondered how long it would take him to get to the one question she knew he wanted
to ask.

Forcing back tears of disappointment and humiliation, she let a bitter smile pull
at her lips. “I thought I was going to get an offer for a showing of some of my designs,”
she finally admitted.

“Thought you were?”

“It didn’t work out.” Staring down at her hands, she wondered whether he would consider
it no more than she had deserved for the childishness she had displayed in the deceptive
way she left.

“What happened, baby?”

The gentleness in his voice and the fact that he hadn’t told Dawg when the hospital
had called him had her raising her eyes as she shifted in her seat to look at him.

Thank God it was dark. The last thing she wanted was for him to see the tears she
had to blink back.

“There’s this famous designer sponsor,” she told him, clearing her throat to hide
the hoarseness of the hurt she fought to hide. “He showcases several designers a year,
helps them put on a show, and he’s never had one who didn’t become successful. I received
a letter from him last week that he wanted to meet with me after seeing some of my
designs that I sent in.”

He nodded, showing he was listening as they moved ever closer to the inn.

“I could have had the show and sponsorship if I’d agreed to be his little sex toy
until he got tired of me.”

As though revealing that much opened a floodgate, Piper told him about Eldon Vessante,
and the fact that his pants and his opinion of himself were overstuffed.

His expression never changed; the tension in his body didn’t visibly increase. None
of the signs of vengeful anger that Dawg and her cousins were known to display were
present.

“Two attacks in one day then.” He breathed out heavily, the concern in his voice easing
something inside her she hadn’t known had been knotted with tension.

Piper nodded. “Fortunately, his butler or whoever he was, was there. Some guy named
Broken or something. A hell of a name for a person. He kept Eldon from actually hitting
me and helped me get away.”

“Do you think this Vessante guy was behind the attack at the hotel?”

Piper shook her head. “I don’t remember what was said, but he wanted something.” She
wished she could remember, wished the harshly grated demand would come into focus
within her memories. “I can’t remember what he said, Jed, or what he wanted, but it
didn’t have anything to do with Eldon Vessante.”

Broecun.

Fuck
.

The security field was a close-knit one, especially for those agents of John Broecun’s
caliber. Jed knew Piper had taken the sound of the name literally, but Jed knew the
other man, as well as the spelling of his name. And he knew if Broecun was with this
Eldon Vessante, either the man was important to some very influential government types,
or he was under investigation by them.

At least he had a place to start, and a face to shove his fist into. Eldon Vessante
may not have been behind Piper’s beating, but the only reason he hadn’t been was because
Broecun would have stopped him.

Broecun wouldn’t stop Jed from teaching the other man how to treat a woman. And blackmailing
Piper with her dream of a big-time fashion show and an exclusive sponsorship was something
Jed would exact a little atonement for.

“Well, you’re home now.” He pulled into the Mackay Inn’s lot, parked the truck, then
shut it off. “Let’s see if I can sneak you into the house and get you settled before
Dawg gets his first report that you’re home.”