Nauti Enchantress (Nauti Girls)

by Lora Leigh

  “Angel’s hit a dead end as well,” Tracker stated from where he rested at the edge of the bureau on the other side of the room. “The wait-and-see game is on their side.”

  Behind him, Graham could feel Lyrica tense, the slender hand resting on his shoulder slowly fisting. Reaching for her and drawing her to him, he pulled her into his lap, wrapping his arms around her and resting his chin on her shoulder as his gaze moved around the room.

  Elijah, watching the act, reached up and rubbed at the back of his neck, blowing out a hard breath. “I don’t know what to do.”

  “Tracker?” Graham asked quietly.

  “No contact yet.” Arms crossed, his gaze hooded as he glanced to Lyrica, he gave a quick shake of his dark head. “I sent the message night before last that I’d completed the previous mission and was en route to Somerset. There’s been no reply. I have the rest of my team lying low and waiting. As soon as contact’s made, they’ll move.”

  Lyrica was rifling through the pictures again, her graceful fingers trembling as she shuffled through them slowly.

  The sight of those slender digits trembling with fear enraged him.

  Lifting his head from where his chin rested against her, Graham turned to Elijah again. “Has Doogan managed to find anything?” he asked the agent.

  “Doogan went and got himself shot again two nights ago on another op,” Elijah snorted in disgust. “Out of a six-man team, only one escaped unscathed. Two are in critical, one recovering, one limping, and Doogan’s out of commission with a concussion and a bullet hole in his shoulder.”

  Graham winced at the information.

  “If that boy keeps looking to die, fate’s going to hand him his wish on a silver platter,” Tracker grunted. “He’s a fatality waiting to happen.”

  Lyrica stilled against Graham again, tensing further.

  Damn, Tracker, it wasn’t enough that there was somebody out there trying to kill her, he had to mention fatalities, too?

  Shooting the mercenary a scowl, Graham watched as the man gave an apologetic shrug before uncrossing his arms and bracing his hands on the top of the bureau where he rested.

  The look in his eye reminded Graham of the warning he’d given before Lyrica had entered the office earlier.

  He was hiding her. He kept her in the house behind closed doors and carefully darkened windows. There hadn’t been so much as a sighting of her since the night of the wreck.

  Weariness and worry had lined Dawg’s and Natches’s faces as they’d pointed out the same thing that morning while Lyrica slept.

  He was keeping her hidden. Whoever had the contract up for her was waiting to see where she was, evidently in no hurry at all. That meant it was someone close. Someone who wouldn’t seem out of place over a long period of time.

  “We need a plan now,” Tracker growled. “It concerns me that the contract hasn’t been rescinded, yet he hasn’t replied to my message, either. It’s time, Graham.”

  “Like hell …”

  “I know him.”

  “I agree with Tracker,” Elijah said as Lyrica’s soft statement had Graham looking back at her as she turned to him.

  Lifting his hand in a gesture of silence, he glimpsed Lyrica’s pale face and wide emerald green eyes.

  “What did you say?” His gaze went to the picture she was holding, the photograph shuddering from her trembling grip.

  “I know him,” she said again, her voice soft, fear shadowing it. “I didn’t see this picture the other day. Why didn’t I see it then?”

  Tracker and Elijah moved to the desk as Graham took it from her, frowning down at it.

  “Because I wasn’t aware this one was in there,” he muttered.

  Frowning, he flipped the picture over, checking the identification number on the back quickly before he began shuffling through the reports.

  “That was a late arrival from Doogan.” Elijah stared at the picture of the soldier standing with Betts Laren. “Check the back of the file for the report. I don’t recognize him.”

  “I do.” The statement had them stilling, staring back at Lyrica in surprise as her voice sharpened. “I do know him. He’s been at the inn several times. I’ve fixed his breakfast. I even told him about my favorite places to shop when he asked so he could tell his fiancée the best places to go.”

  “Who is he?” Graham had never seen him. He hadn’t been part of Betts’s group in Afghanistan, nor part of Betts’s team.

  “Kevin Davis,” she said softly. “He’s engaged to one of Mom’s long-term guests, Carmina Lucient. He was there for a few days last month before returning to Iraq for the end of his tour. He’s not supposed to be back until sometime next month.”

  “Here’s the report.” Graham narrowed his eyes on the official information that had accompanied the picture. “Kevin Davis, he was actually assigned to Betts’s team and should have been with her on that last mission. There’s nothing here that states he wasn’t there. He was assumed killed in action when he didn’t return. He hasn’t been seen since.”

  “Bingo,” Elijah growled.

  “Trained in tactical warfare, a Ranger. Laren had him pulled the year before she was killed for the team she put together. He also has ties to the commander, Jimmy Dorne, if I remember that file myself,” Tracker murmured. “A distant blood relation, if I’m not mistaken.”

  “Third cousin.” Graham read the information from the file. “Dorne’s parents raised him, though, after his own were killed.”

  “Do you think Carmina’s involved?” Lyrica whispered then, suddenly terrified. “She’s there with Mom, Graham. They’ve been best friends since Carmina arrived.”

  “I’ll call Timothy and Dawg,” Elijah stated, flipping his phone out and heading for the far corner of the room.

  “I’ll head out, apprise the team, and get back with you tonight. We’ll see what kind of plan we can come up with to draw him out then.” Tracker headed for the door as well.

  Lyrica moved quickly to her feet, turning to Graham. He could see the demand in her eyes.

  “No!” He cut her off before she could speak. “Elijah will contact Timothy and Dawg. They’ll get your mother out of the house and somewhere safe while they watch Ms. Lucient. You’re not going.”

  “He’s waiting for me to show myself,” she retorted, rubbing at her arms as though to warm them. “Get Mom out of the house and I’ll go in. If Carmina is in on it, then you can catch her in the act of calling him.”

  “It’s too damned dangerous.” His guts were clenching, cramping with awareness of the danger she would face.

  “It’s too dangerous not to,” she argued, that militant Mackay gleam of stubbornness brightening her gaze as her hands went to her hips in determination. “We can’t go on like this, Graham. At least I can’t. I want this finished.”

  His teeth snapped together furiously. “Are you in that big of a hurry to leave me, Lyrica?”

  She flinched as though the question were a lash laid to bare skin.

  “Is it a requirement that I leave once this is over, Graham?” Her hands slid from her hips and moved instead to clasp in front of her. “I wasn’t aware there was a deadline.”

  He stilled then.

  Was there a deadline?

  What the fuck was he going to do once it was over?

  He could see the questions raging in her eyes as he stared at her, but he couldn’t make himself answer the question.

  —

  Lyrica swallowed tightly.

  She’d known, she reminded herself. She’d known flavors didn’t last long in Graham’s life. She’d just so hoped he’d become fond of her particular taste, perhaps.

  “I see.” She forced herself to say it softly, her chest clenching painfully as her eyes suddenly felt raw, the pressure behind them actually hurting as she forced herself to hold back the tears that would have filled them. “Well then, at least I know now.”

  “Dammit, Lyrica,” he snarled then, anger tightening his features. “I didn�
��t say any of that.”

  “No, you didn’t,” she agreed. “This has gone on long enough, Graham. I won’t hide any longer. I told you I couldn’t go on like this. Now it’s over. Get Mom out of there and I’m going in. I’m not hiding anymore.”

  “And just what made you come to this harebrained conclusion?” he bit out furiously.

  Oh, that was it.

  “Harebrained?” Keeping her voice soft, well aware that Elijah was still on the other side of the room, still on the phone, she went on. “Well, excuse me for being harebrained, Graham, but it’s my life that’s on the line and on hold here, not yours.”

  And it wasn’t his heart breaking in two at the knowledge that she’d never had a chance at having her love returned.

  No, that was hers.

  Stupid little Lyrica, always looking for rainbows where none existed.

  He stepped closer, his expression tight, the gold in his eyes more subtle, like chips of gold ice. “No.” He repeated the word succinctly, pure arrogance filling every line of his face. “I will not risk you so needlessly. And don’t test me on this, sweetheart, because I can and I will lock your ass in a room somewhere until this is all over.”

  Would he?

  Drawing herself stiffly upright, her hands curling into fists at her sides as she shot him a disgusted look, Lyrica turned and stalked furiously from the room.

  She’d be damned if she would let him order her about. That was the second time he’d threatened to lock her in a room somewhere, and she wouldn’t give him the chance to do so.

  Slipping quickly to the kitchen doorway, she slid the keys to Graham’s pickup from the peg on the wall, praying he was more involved with something other than the surveillance screens on the computer monitors. If she was lucky, he wouldn’t have a clue that she’d stolen them until she was gone.

  She knew the doors and windows were all electronically keyed to alert him if they were opened. But what he didn’t know was that Kye had found a way to bypass the one on her window. For Kye, slipping out of the house had been the same as slipping out from Dawg’s eagle eye had been for Lyrica. Just to see if they could get out and back in, without getting caught.

  Unlike Lyrica, Kye bragged she had never been caught.

  She had described to Lyrica exactly how she’d rigged the window to hold the alarm at bay and how she reconnected it once she returned.

  Lyrica had no intention of returning.

  She’d been aware that he’d made the resolution of the danger the deadline for their affair. And here she’d thought she had a chance—

  No, she’d known better, she thought as she slid into Kye’s room and closed the door quickly behind her.

  Her friend’s room sat directly over the garage, and thankfully, Graham had pulled the pickup from the garage to make room for the vehicles that needed to be hidden whenever Natches and Dawg drove to the house rather than slipping over from Dawg’s farm through the woods.

  Had the pickup been in the garage, the chances of being stopped before she ever started would have been much higher.

  Knowing the truck was outside the garage had determined which keys she’d taken. She should have taken the keys to his precious Viper, she thought furiously as she moved to Kye’s vanity table, stole a bobby pin, and moved quickly to the window.

  Seconds later, the bobby pin, rather than the metal strip attached to the window beneath it, was completing the circuit with the electronic box. Sliding the window up, Lyrica crawled through the opening, slid to the garage roof, and within moments was shimmying down the drainpipe with the same ease she moved down the wood support posts of the inn’s wraparound porch.

  She was in the truck and accelerating from the driveway in no time, racing from Graham’s house, and his life, as tears whispered down her cheeks.

  It wasn’t supposed to be like this, she thought painfully. It wasn’t supposed to end when the danger to her life was over. That was supposed to be the beginning.

  —

  Tracker stepped from behind the garage, his eyes narrowed as the truck pulled around the corner. A heartbeat later it was speeding away from the house toward the main road and, he knew, back to the girl’s mother’s.

  Pulling the phone from his vest pocket and flipping it open, he hit the contact number. He didn’t have to wait long.

  “I’m in place,” Angel said in answer. “I have the nest in my sights but nothing’s moving.”

  That was odd enough.

  “There will be soon,” he promised her. “The bird just flew and I suspect that’s where she’s headed.”

  “Is this a good thing or a bad thing?” she asked curiously.

  Tracker chuckled at the question. “A good thing, I hope. Perhaps seeing the prey will cause the wolf to make a move. Keep an eye on things and keep me apprised.”

  The phone flipped closed as Graham raced from the back door, filled with panic, fear, and a man’s knowledge that something too precious to be lost had just escaped his life.

  Poor dumb fucker, Tracker thought. He should have taken better care of her.

  A second later Tracker was flying backward, to land on his ass with a surprised curse and a thud. Jumping to his feet, he faced Graham’s furious wrath coolly.

  “Bad move, Brock,” he growled. “I don’t take kindly to that shit.”

  “Fuck you!” Graham snarled in his face. “Why the fuck didn’t you stop her?”

  —

  Rage was like a living, burning entity searing his insides as he faced the mercenary, using every ounce of self-control he possessed to keep from killing the bastard.

  “It’s not my place to stop her.” Tracker stood still, his stance one of precaution as he watched Graham carefully now. “It’s my job to keep her alive.”

  “And you think—” Snapping his lips closed, he turned and hit the garage remote, bending and moving beneath the door when it was no more than halfway raised to rush to the Viper.

  He’d catch up with her quickly enough.

  Dawg’s place was just up the road and she would head there first. Elijah had just gotten off the phone with him and her brother knew to be waiting for her.

  As the garage door lifted enough for the Viper to clear it, Graham hit the gas, throwing the vehicle into gear and racing from the interior with a scream of the tires. He rounded the curve that led to the front of the house even as he shifted gears, pushing for more speed.

  Seeing his pickup race from its parking space had sent his mind exploding. Everything inside him was screaming about the danger she was facing by leaving the house. Every second she’d been with him, his body had clenched at the thought of her so much as sticking her head out the door and giving anyone a chance even to glimpse her.

  It was imperative that no one see her. To keep her alive, he had to keep her hidden.

  And now, she wasn’t hidden.

  Taking the turn onto the main road, he was racing toward Dawg’s in less than a minute. The Viper ate up the miles, taking the curves with a smooth, easy performance he didn’t even pay attention to.

  All he could think about was the danger Lyrica would face if she reached the inn. All he could consider was life without Lyrica in it, and the knowledge that if he weren’t such a stubborn bastard, she would have never slipped away on him.

  The turn to Dawg’s farm was just ahead, and still he hadn’t caught up with her.

  That fucking pickup wasn’t that fast, he thought, a premonition suddenly racing up his spine.

  No, she wouldn’t have gone to the inn, he tried to tell himself. She wouldn’t have considered something so foolhardy without him or her brother at her side.

  As he reached the turn, the sight of Natches’s modified ruby red Charger coming at him, moving so fast it was nearly on two wheels, had him stomping the brakes as he swung the Viper into a turn the second the car passed; the sight of both Dawg and Natches in the front had that premonition cementing to stark knowledge.

  “Incoming call. Secured. Encry
pted.” The computer announced the call.

  “Accept.” The growl was torn from his throat, fear filling his senses, sharp and acrid on his tongue.

  “What the fuck did you do?” Dawg yelled into the connection. “Lyrica wasn’t on her way here. She’s on her way to the inn. She passed Rowdy less than five minutes ago, tearing the roads up in that fucking truck of yours.”

  He was sweating.

  As he shifted gears quickly, the Viper tore around the Charger, taking the lead as Graham cursed furiously.

  “Graham, I’ll take your head off if she gets hurt.” Natches wasn’t screaming. He was icy cold, calm.

  “You have that friend of yours with you?” Graham bit out, referring to the sniper rifle Natches always kept close at hand.

  “Why?” the other man asked with cool, biting fury.

  “Don’t bother with the house; get in place with it once you arrive,” he ordered, the Charger still in his rearview mirror despite the pure power Graham was pouring into the modified engine beneath the hood of the Viper.

  Dawg was cursing furiously.

  “There’s an angel in the trees,” Natches informed him. “Why me?”

  “Fuck if I know,” Graham snarled. “Just do it.”

  Flicking the disconnect button on the steering wheel, he pushed the Viper harder, hearing the tires scream as he took the curves now. Rather than risk the more heavily traveled route to the inn, Graham took the dirt road ahead instead.

  Turning onto it with a spray of dirt and gravel, he was forced to fight the steering wheel for a precious second before the Viper was racing toward its location once more.

  The direct route to the inn would alert Davis and his fiancée, if she was involved, that he was coming. The back road that ended just behind the tree line behind the house would hide his arrival. Something warned him that slipping into the house might be all that saved Lyrica.

  Some inborn sense of danger, a warning he didn’t dare ignore, tightened in his gut. This was why a move hadn’t been made. Someone had known she would make her own move.

  Davis couldn’t have known her that well. But the fiancée had been at the inn for months. Long enough to have gotten to know Lyrica. Long enough to know how close each girl was to her mother.