As they entered the clearing to see their youngest cousin, Rafer, rocking Jaymi in his arms, his tears falling into her hair, Logan knew that night could well end up being the last night of their freedom. If not of their lives.
Logan watched solemnly as Rafer leaned his head further against Jaymi’s and continued to rock her.
Tall, broad, Rafer dwarfed the much smaller woman. She looked far too petite, too delicate, in his arms. And much too still.
Too still because the cousins had failed to protect her.
Rafer had sworn to his best friend, Jaymi’s deceased husband, that if anything ever happened, then he would protect Jaymi with his own life. That he would watch out for her. That he would care for her.
Yet the cousins hadn’t been able to save her from a madman.
Logan stared at Rafer’s blood-soaked clothes and hands and turned his gaze to the flames of the fire that seemed to build. Laughter began to echo, and as Logan jumped to save Rafer from the knife that suddenly sank into his side he felt the cold bite of steel as it penetrated his own back.
* * *
Logan jerked awake with a suddenness he had become used to over the years.
As he lay there, though, his senses on high alert, a sound so out of place with the night as to cause him to stiffen penetrated the silence of the room.
Irritation strained his patience as he clenched his teeth against the need to curse. Son of a bitch, was sleep a frickin’ sin in this damned county?
For the fourth night in a row he’d awakened to the knowledge that something or someone was prowling the night outside his home.
Usually, it was the sound of the little squatter Saul Rafferty had dumped in his backyard. The one he still hadn’t been able to find yet another home for.
Tonight there was more, though. Something larger, something quieter, no, someone, moving with deliberate stealthiness.
Logan was a cranky bastard when someone messed with his sleep. He could feel his fingers tingling, the need for the fight he could sense brewing around him beginning to irritate his knuckles, to make them ache for the hard, powerful force that only came with a good fistfight.
It was a mood that had followed him since the night he’d forced himself to send his delectable little neighbor back to her empty bed.
Hell, since he’d returned to his own empty bed, only to find the couch more bearable.
Hell, it was more bearable, but he heard every f**king sound outside. He was too well trained not to.
Each night he awoke to the knowledge, not so much a sound, that someone was sneaking outside his house, that they were moving around it as though probing at Logan’s security.
Between his late-night awareness that someone was outside and the pup whining and scratching pitifully at the patio door, aware he was only feet away, Logan hadn’t managed much at all in the way of sleep.
Day or night.
Tilting his head to catch the sound again, he found himself hearing only the pup’s whines. Logan finally gave up all thoughts of lying there undisturbed to stare at the ceiling another night.
Hell, if that awareness of something invading his space hadn’t awakened him then his nightmare would have.
That was no good.
He was damned if he wanted to relive that night again.
Instead, he listened to the sound of the puppy whining as she scratched against the door again. A second later, it wasn’t so much a sound he heard. His senses were just so well-honed that the knowledge of the familiar sounds of the night to the side of his house weren’t there. The owl wasn’t whooing, crickets weren’t calling. Something or someone was disturbing them.
There was a sense of danger, a sense of intrusion. The trespasser hadn’t yet caused harm, but Logan could feel the intent that was there.
Fuck. The little scrap that refused to be owned by anyone else was too small, too delicate, for where she was currently camped, especially with the enemies the Callahans had. And now, with something or someone stalking the night, there would only be increased danger.
She was still far better off there, though. With the impression of being ignored, than with the certainty that there was something Logan Callahan cared about, it would only save the pup’s life in the long run. His reputation for having no friends, no lovers, no ties, was so well known that so far no one had suffered for having being associated with him.
The sound of the pup’s questioning little whimper had him staring at the ceiling in irritation.
Did people on this street forget the rumor that the Callahans were lazy, shiftless bastards? That they needed their damned sleep?
No doubt it had to be a neighbor looking to find a way to irritate him. To find a weakness. To add to the tension that everyone hoped would run him from his home and cause him to default on the trust.
Fuck. They could give him a break. His intruder could give a single night a break and the nightmares could surely evaporate for one night and allow him to enjoy the fantasies of the luscious little neighbor whose kiss still burned through his body.
Moving his hand silently from where it rested against his abdomen, he slid it to where he had tucked the handgun at his side earlier that night. Logan forced himself from the comfortable position he’d fought to find over the past hours, blowing out a silent breath as he did so.
He should shoot the trespasser just for irritating him. Or maybe just beat the shit out of him.
If he could catch him this time. So far, he’d just been shit out of luck. Whoever it was had been slick enough to run before Logan could get to him.
Holding the weapon securely, Logan sat up before sliding his feet, still shod in leather sneakers, to the smooth hardwood floor of the dining room.
His cousins Rafer and Crowe had laughed when Logan had begun sleeping on the old couch. He didn’t explain why, and he wasn’t about to. His eldest cousin, Crowe, was already concerned about the neighbor.
As though he knew Logan well enough to know exactly where his fantasies lay.
There were no fewer than four large bedrooms with attached bathrooms upstairs, all with large beds, Crowe had commented. When he had, his expression had stilled and a single memory seemed to haunt all three of them.
At one time, three Callahan couples had lived in this house, along with their children. Three boys, Crowe, Logan, and Rafer, and one infant daughter. The first daughter born to the Callahans since before they’d immigrated from Ireland.
They had come together for the sake of their children’s safety. For their own safety as they planned to set in motion their final vengeance against the three powerful men trying to destroy them.