He made a mental note to call the contractors later that morning, deciding he didn’t want to spend another winter on the water. Summer and fall would work if they decided the house didn’t suit them to live in year-round.
“I’ll be fine, Dawg.”
He grunted at that as he moved to the refrigerator. “You ready for breakfast yet?”
She was silent; he turned back to her, and he swore she was more pale than she had been moments before.
“I think I need to go lie back down.” She headed for the stairs.
“I think you need to see the doctor.” Something snapped inside him then. Fear. Dawg had rarely known fear, but he had never seen Crista sick either. “Call him this morning, Crista.”
“I’ll be fine.” She shook her head as she headed up the stairs, her voice strained.
“Like hell,” he muttered, moving behind her and catching up with her as she was pulling the blankets over herself.
Sitting next to her, he touched her forehead. She felt clammy, but she wasn’t running a fever. She was pale though, and that worried him.
“It’s just a bug.” She sighed. “Everyone’s sick at the store, Dawg. Just because you can’t catch a virus doesn’t mean the rest of us can’t.”
She sounded jealous, and he had to grin. “We’ll get you nice and healthy before no time,” he promised her. “Just living with me will rub all those good healthy genes off on you.”
She snorted at that. “Go away and let me sleep. And you need to check the deliveries this afternoon. Don’t forget that.”
He frowned. “I’ll have Layla’s husband check them. I’m staying here with you.”
“Hmm.” She looked up at him, her gaze sharpening for a moment. “Why are you so upset over that woman staying the night with Natches?”
She didn’t sound jealous; she sounded concerned. The question had him rubbing at the back of his neck in irritation.
“She’s up to something. That’s Timothy Cranston’s little pet, Agent Greta Dane. I don’t like it.”
“Is that all?”
“She’s too damned plain,” he muttered, knowing she wouldn’t understand any more than Rowdy did.
Her lips quirked in amusement. “You’re not the one sleeping with her; so why should you care?”
He glared at the dark carpeting on the floor before lifting his gaze back to her. “I don’t know. It bothers me.”
“She’s actually a very pretty girl,” Crista told him. “It’s not her looks that bother you.”
A frown snapped between his brows. “I know a pretty woman when I see one.”
And she smiled at that. A smile he didn’t quite understand. It was patient and amused and made him grit his teeth.
“You know, it’s mothers who are supposed to protest the girl’s looks, not fatherly cousins.”
Her comment had him staring at her in disbelief.
“You’re crazy.”
And she shook her head. “You have to let them go sometime, Dawg. Natches is all grown-up now. Let him try his wings a little bit. It might not be as bad as you think.” She was on the verge of laughing at him.
“You obviously have a very strange virus,” he grunted, put out that she was laughing at him, that she just didn’t understand what he didn’t understand himself. “Go to sleep.”
She didn’t protest. She just yawned a little and pulled the blankets closer to her chin. “It’s cold in here.”
Yeah, maybe it was time to move to the house. He was definitely calling those contractors. Then he was going to make another call and find out just what the hell Agent Dane was doing back in town.
Chaya made sure she spent no more time in her hotel room than she had to. She was betting Natches was a very early riser. She showered, dressed, dried her hair, and pulled it back into a ponytail, and within an hour she was out of there. And not a moment too soon. When she pulled her rented sedan onto the interstate, she swore that she saw Natches’s jeep headed toward the hotel.
She glanced at her watch and breathed out roughly. She had an hour to kill before meeting the sheriff at the diner. That was going to be a long hour, considering the fact she had to make certain to avoid running into Natches.
And who the hell was she kidding? An hour later, she pulled into the diner and stared at the wicked black jeep sitting beside the sheriff’s cruiser, and clenched the steering wheel of her car.
He was in there, waiting on her. She had run out on him this morning, terrified of what had happened the night before, leaving only a note. At least she had left a note this time, she assured herself. She had told him she would call him this evening, hadn’t she?
She jerked her case from the seat beside her and pulled herself out of the car. She forced her chin up, stared around the parking lot, and glimpsed both Rowdy’s and Dawg’s vehicles as well. Didn’t any of those damned Mackay men work? Surely they had something better to do than to harass her this morning?
Evidently they didn’t.
As she entered the diner, she flicked a look at the table beside the one Sheriff Mayes was sitting at, and restrained the urge to grimace. Three Mackay men sipping coffee. Rowdy looked amused, Dawg looked pissed, and oh boy, Natches looked ready to hit the damned roof.
Sheriff Mayes, that bastard, didn’t even bother to hide his laugh as she walked in.
She moved through the diner, thankful there were very few customers, and stopped in front of Natches. “Are you following me today as well?”
He tipped the glasses he wore lower on his nose and glanced up at her from over the dark lenses. She almost flinched at the anger burning in the forest green depths. He was livid.
“I’m going with you,” he stated. “As soon as you tell Mayes over there that’s the deal.”
Shit. That wasn’t the deal. That was expressly—with an unqualified no—forbidden.
“I can’t do that, Natches.” She forced herself not to show her own nervousness, or a reaction. She couldn’t, not here. He would take any weakness and run with it.
“You don’t want to do it like this, Chaya,” he warned her then, and she could feel her stomach tightening in dread.
“I don’t have a choice.” She refused to glance at the other two men for their reactions. “This is my job, Natches, and you’re no longer a part of that team.”