What that operation was, either no one knew, or no one was telling him.
He rubbed at his lower lip and stared at the hotel entrance she had disappeared into. She hadn’t looked happy to be back—she’d looked worn, tired, as though she had slept about as much as he had in the past year. Which amounted to less than nothing. And she looked damned good enough to eat. Unfortunately, she wasn’t much into being a snack for him.
So why was Miss Dane currently taking up residence in his fair town again? It had to be under orders, because he’d warned her, she wasn’t safe here, least of all from him. If she wanted to keep to that cold, lonely bed of hers then she should have found another town to sleep in.
He was brought out of his contemplation when his cousin Rowdy pulled his pickup in beside the jeep. On the other side, Dawg pulled in, his black dual cab taking up space and rumbling like the powerful machine it was.
He glanced to each side, taking in his cousins as they moved from the vehicles. The wind shifted through Dawg’s black hair, which wasn’t near as long as he used to wear it, but Rowdy’s hair, an identical black, was longer.
Married life was keeping them decent in too damned many ways. Dawg had a decent haircut, and Rowdy let his grow out. Dawg was broader than the other cousin, a few years older. They were both just as damned powerful and irritating as they ever were.
And irritating they could be. Married and shackled and tied so damned tight to their wives that if a man just breathed in those women’s directions, their hackles rose. But they still came when he called, and the thought of that tugged at something inside him. One of those bits of emotion that he fought to keep buried and hidden.
As they came up beside his jeep, Natches opened the door and stepped out slowly, his gaze still centered on the building. He’d called the little girl on duty at the front desk before he arrived to make certain Miss Dane was given the proper room.
One that looked right out on the parking lot. He wanted her to see him, wanted her to know she was being watched.
“What’s brewin’, Natches?” Dawg leaned against Rowdy’s gray pickup, his arms crossing over his broad chest.
Natches lifted a brow as he took in the pressed jeans and white shirt his cousin was wearing. It was a damned far cry from the holey, scruffy appearance his cousin had before he picked back up with Crista Ann Jansen last year.
“Snazzy-looking duds there, cuz.” Natches grinned. “Crista iron those for you herself with her own little hands?”
Dawg scowled back at him, but his light green eyes, nearly a celadon in color, flared with impatient arousal at the mention of his wife.
“Dry cleaners,” Dawg finally growled. “And I don’t think you called us here to discuss my laundry.”
“Watch him, Natches.” Rowdy grinned, his dark green eyes, sea green, crinkling at the corners with mirth. “Dawg’s been a hair upset over the laundry. Crista put her foot down over the wrinkled, hole-ridden T-shirts he likes wearing to the store. She won’t let him play the disinterested owner anymore.”
Dawg grunted as Natches smirked absently and glanced back toward the hotel.
“That call you made earlier sounded kind of important, dumb ass.” Dawg sighed as he addressed Natches again. “What the hell is going on?”
Natches turned back to him, glaring at his cousin for the nickname that was becoming more frequent.
“You keep calling me ‘dumb ass,’ and I’m going to split your head open for you.”
Dawg grunted and it was his turn to smirk. “I think it suits you. You go moving out of your houseboat, for solitude over that damned garage, and start working like a man who’s grown some principles, and I start worrying about you.”
Natches’s nostrils flared as anger began to churn inside him. Damn Dawg. He didn’t need his damned advice or his snide-assed comments, which pretty much described the reason why his cousin was calling him names. Because he refused to listen to either.
“Cranston’s running another op in town,” he told the other two men before he let that anger take hold. The rest of the accusation he ignored completely.
He didn’t need to get pissed right now. He’d spent a lot of years trapping that emotion so deep inside him that it didn’t burn in his gut anymore. Keeping it there was important. Keeping it there kept breathing certain and Natches’s conscience clear.
“What the hell does that fat little f**ker want?” Dawg straightened and glanced toward the hotel with obvious animosity. “Is he in there?”
“No. Not yet. Miss Chaya Greta Dane is there right now, and if my guess is right, she’s watching us right now from room three oh four. Do you think maybe she’s figured out we’re onto her?”
“How did you find out?” Rowdy was watching Natches.
Natches hated it when Rowdy watched him like that. Like he knew something, or saw something Natches didn’t want seen.
“Anonymous tip.” Natches grimaced. “And that ain’t no joke. A call to my cell phone an hour ago—untraceable so far—letting me know she had hit the county line and was here for DHS. If Cranston’s lost more missiles, boys, I might have to kill him.”
He was joking. Kind of.
“We haven’t heard anything.” Dawg rubbed at his clean-shaven jaw as he glanced toward the window of Chaya’s room.
She liked to go by the name Greta, but hell if that name suited her. With her multihued blond hair and exquisite features, she was as exotic as a tropical flower. Chaya suited her. The name rolled off the tongue, and in the darkest nights, as he jacked off to the image of her in his head, the name sounded like a prayer as he spilled his release into his hand.
“I’ve not heard anything from my contacts either,” Rowdy murmured. “Not even a whisper that a DHS agent was coming to town.”
Which meant Cranston was keeping whatever he was up to very close to his chest. And that was a very bad thing. When that rabid little bastard kept his mouth shut, then things were about to get ugly.
The thought of that had him glancing toward the hotel again. Chaya was a hell of an agent, but her heart wasn’t in it. Natches had seen that the year before. She hadn’t wanted to be in Somerset, and she hadn’t wanted to play Cranston’s games.
“She was supposed to have resigned,” he murmured, his eyes narrowing against the bright autumn sunlight overhead. “Turned the papers in just after the op here was what I heard.”