“Doogan, this is a family party,” Rowdy stated calmly. “You weren’t invited.”

“And you’re sure as hell not family,” Timothy, the man she often wished had been her father, stated with that razor edge of innate arrogance he always carried whenever he felt his family was being threatened in some way.

“Thank God,” Doogan drawled then, the amusement in his tone causing her to shake. He was at his most dangerous now, his most cunning. “Why not tell them why I’m here, Zoey? Or are you going to force me to do it?”

“No.” Pushing away from Dawg she forced herself out from behind him, trying to move in front of him, trying to stop the tide of destruction before it began. “Stop this,” she demanded, anger raging through her now, shaking so hard now she wondered how she was still standing. “Don’t do this, Doogan. Don’t turn this into a war.”

“Natches.” Dawg’s tone was the warning. Unfortunately, she wasn’t fast enough.

Natches pulled her to him, against his side, holding her firmly as she struggled against him, staring back at Doogan, begging him silently, knowing it wouldn’t do her a damned bit of good.

“Go to the house with Natches, Zoey,” Dawg ordered firmly, never taking his eyes off Doogan “We’ll discuss this there.”

“Where you can surround me with Mackay males, and the agents you so carefully pulled away from me?” Doogan chuckled as though amused by them all. “That was an excellent move by the way, arranging to have my agents fall head over heels for the women they believed they couldn’t have. What better bait than to make a man think he can’t have a woman he desires? Ah Dawg, you’re good. You, Rowdy, and Natches are really good . . .”

“Better than you know,” Natches assured him as Zoey stopped struggling, shocked by her cousin’s declaration. “Good enough to have already figured out exactly what you’re doing here and why Zoey was terrified to come to us when she realized she was in trouble.”

“Really?” Doogan drawled. “And why is that?”

Zoey shook her head slowly, holding his gaze, bitter, hollow rage destroying her from the inside out.

He was destroying her and he knew it. He would destroy her and her family and there was nothing she could do to stop it.

“Get the hell out of Somerset, Doogan,” Tim demanded then. “Don’t turn this into a fight. It’s one you won’t win and you know it. Not against me.”

Chatham smiled. “Perhaps, perhaps not.” His gaze never left hers.

“You know this is wrong.” Helpless, desperate, she knew begging wouldn’t help. Doogan would only see weakness in a plea. “We had a deal . . .”

“But you reneged on your side, sweetheart.” He stepped forward slowly, his gaze pinning her, forcing her to remember, forcing her to make a choice.

“I didn’t renege,” she all but screamed back at him, hating him, hating herself more. “You lied to me, Doogan. You lied.”

“Don’t do it, Doogan,” Dawg warned him softly. “You’ll regret it.”

Doogan only stared back at her mercilessly. “Zoey Mackay, you’re under arrest for the murder of Harley Perdue . . .”

Then all hell broke loose.

—

Zoey came awake with a hard, brutal punch of awareness, her breath catching, the dream so surprising, so shocking it made very little sense.

Why would she dream something like that?

It made even less sense than the nightmares she so often had.

Hell, it made about as much sense as her life had in the past year. She would call it a comedy of errors, but there had been far too little comedy and far too many errors for the description.

As she rolled to her back, a little moan left her lips at the unique tenderness of her body that reminded her far too well of the hours past and the sexual exhaustion that had gripped her somewhere in the early hours of the morning.

She glanced at the bed beside her, and a folded square of paper had her reaching out. Picking it up and unfolding it, she couldn’t stop the pleasure that tightened her chest.

Had a few meetings this morn. Will be back to work on the cycle. As well as another project I’m considering.

She bit at her lower lip; still, a smile curved it and she couldn’t help but reread the letter and wonder what he had in mind for another project. She couldn’t imagine he’d top the night before. The things he’d made her feel, the pleasure that had exploded through her, still amazed her.

So why the dream? What was it that made her dream such a thing after experiencing such ecstasy at his touch?

As she glanced at the clock, her eyes widened.

Damn, Lyrica would be arriving in only a matter of hours. Zoey had promised her sister the painting she’d finally completed of her family. Graham, Lyrica, and their three-month-old twins. She had the painting ready and she knew her sister wouldn’t accept putting it off. Dammit.

Forcing herself from the bed to the shower, she made a mental note to make certain to inform everyone she was painting for the next week or so. That would keep them away; it would make certain no one bothered her while Doogan was there. She doubted he’d be there long; she couldn’t afford for him to stay long. But she wanted every touch she could take as her own, every moment she could steal with him before she had to let him go.

—

Elijah could feel the bullet Natches was going to put right between his eyes, bearing down on him. He was so dead and he knew it. The Mackays were going to kill him. It was his job to keep Zoey safe, no matter what she got into, or if he couldn’t do it, then he was to call one of them.

Her brother, Dawg, knew he was pushing Zoey away from him by being so overprotective with her older sisters. He was trying desperately to give her the freedom they hadn’t had, and to keep her from running from Somerset. She was the only one who didn’t threaten to do so, and the only one who withdrew from the family completely whenever she went head to head with her brother or cousins.

And they were right. She would leave. She wouldn’t run, she’d simply pack up, tell everyone good-bye, then be gone. That was why he’d agreed to help them. That was why he’d accepted her invitation to use the guest room when she’d offered it.

Then Doogan had called that night, just days after the Mackays secured his promise to watch out for her. And he’d seen what could happen to her, even while she was living within one of the most secure homes in the county.

Drugged, convinced she’d killed a friend, her mind so vulnerable, so open, he and Doogan had to remain completely silent, communicating with hand signals alone while slipping her back into her suite at her mother’s inn.

He’d watched her hold on to Doogan as he laid her back in her bed, heard her quiet sobs as Doogan eased her arms from around his neck.

“Don’t leave me,” she’d begged him, as though aware Doogan was more than the dream she’d been told he was. “Please don’t leave me.”

And he’d seen Doogan’s face too. That tormented, dark regret that creased the other man’s face and filled his dark eyes. He’d never seen that look on Doogan’s face before, and he’d known the older man nearly all his life.

Eli knew him well enough to know that Zoey had somehow taken a hold on him, and it was one Doogan hadn’t been able to free himself from in the past year. But that didn’t mean Doogan wouldn’t shred her heart and leave her broken.

Eli had become fond of Zoey in the past year. And he’d found more than one reason to regret the promise he’d made her brother. If he betrayed Zoey, she would hate him. There would be no forgiveness. And if he didn’t? What would happen to Zoey if he didn’t find a way to protect her from Doogan and the enemies now focused on the woman someone had realized the other man cared for?