“One of us has to,” Lyrica objected, lifting her coffee cup to her lips. “It’s obvious you don’t intend to.”

“Lyrica, sometimes I’m very scared it’s too late to worry about that. I just want to live, just in case those nightmares aren’t nightmares. And I want to experience the touch of a man I can’t say no to . . .”

“That man can have you locked up, baby sister,” Lyrica warned her softly. “Those nightmares ambush you. You never know . . .”

“I know that.” Raking her fingers through her hair, Zoey turned quickly from her sister.

“Zoey, I’m scared for you,” Lyrica whispered.

“I trust him.” Zoey didn’t know why, couldn’t explain why. “He’ll break my heart, I have no doubt.” She turned back to Lyrica slowly. “If he left right now, my heart would shatter, Lyrica. But he’d try to protect me. I know he would.”

“Zoey . . .”

“It was a nightmare,” she whispered, and she had no idea why she kept telling herself that. “We know it’s a nightmare. Right?”

“Zoey.” Lyrica reached out and covered her sister’s hand gently. “It was a nightmare. You know that. He was seen that night leaving town, and you said yourself when you woke up, you were in your own bed at the inn. Come on, no one can get into those rooms without the cameras showing something. You checked the cameras, right?”

“And he hasn’t been seen since,” Zoey whispered. “Something happened that night. I don’t know what, I don’t know why I know it, but I know it did. Something bad.”

She could feel it. Everything inside her assured her there was a reason for those nightmares. Yet, as Lyrica said, Harley had been seen leaving town late that same night. Even the woman he’d been sleeping with had seen him at the convenience store along with dozens of customers, including Samantha Bryce, a detective on the Somerset police force.

But Lyrica was right. Zoey had checked the cameras as soon as she’d had a chance. A few squirrels had slipped across the porch, moths had slapped against the porch light, but no one had slipped into her room, or out of it. The same for the hall camera. Zoey had watched a mouse her mother was unaware they had run along the baseboards, but no one had crept to her room or out of it.

There was nothing but Zoey’s certainty that something had happened.

Nothing made sense or added up. She was actually worried enough that she was somehow crazy that she’d created a bucket list. A list of adventures she wanted to experience before losing her sanity completely. Or being arrested.

“It was just a nightmare,” Lyrica objected. “If it hadn’t been, honey, you wouldn’t have woken in your own bed, in your pajamas. Remember that. You didn’t hurt anyone, Zoey. Come on, you know you didn’t hurt anyone.”

When she was awake, she knew it had to be a nightmare. She’d gone to sleep in her bed; she’d woken in her bed. But the nightmares . . . God, the nightmares were like memories, so vivid and so messed up she woke screaming, terrified.

“Zoey.” Lyrica reached out, her hand covering hers, concern filling her emerald eyes. “Please, please talk to Natches about this. If anyone knows where to find Harley . . .”

“No.” Jerking her hand back, Zoey moved quickly from the counter, panic suddenly tearing through her, the certainty of danger, of a gun sight aimed at her almost overwhelming her.

The nightmare threatened to become a delusion, a hallucination. A waking hell she couldn’t escape.

“Zoey . . . ?” It was her sister’s voice, filled with an edge of fear that had Zoey pushing those visions back, fighting to escape them.

“This has nothing to do with Natches.” She forced herself to control her breathing, to push back the fear. Natches wouldn’t hurt her. He would never hurt her. But he didn’t need to know about this.

“Okay,” Lyrica agreed hastily. “That’s fine. We’ll figure it out another way. I promise.”

She promised. Her sisters never broke their promises to her. It was going to be okay, because they’d find another way to locate Harvey. Natches didn’t have to know . . .

Zoey stepped into the garage area quietly several hours later, her gaze finding Doogan hunched next to the bike as he finished tightening something inside the motor.

He was tall, powerful, but without the bulky muscle most powerful men possessed. Doogan’s muscle was lean, appeared more natural, denser, and harder than that of his bulkier counterparts. He was at least six three, his dark hair a bit long.

“Eli has strangled the power in a variety of ways,” he told her as she continued to watch the muscles of his back flex as he worked. “If one weren’t aware of his particular genius, then the entire bike would have had to be stripped and everything replaced.”

A costly project, Zoey thought, thinking of the amount of money she now had in the motor, electronics, and various running parts.

“It’s fixable, then?” she asked.

“Fixable,” he assured her. “It shouldn’t take long either. A week, maybe. I’ll have it ready in plenty of time to win that race next month.”

She had at least a week. At least six or seven nights with him.

“You’re sure I’ll have a chance of winning?” she questioned, tilting her head to watch his profile.

“If you can control the power, which I believe you can.” He shrugged. “Once I balance the bike sufficiently, there shouldn’t be a question of winning. I’ll find a proper area where you can test it before the race, though.”

Her brows lifted. Eli fought her tooth and nail whenever she attempted to test the bike before the races. And without his truck, she had no way of testing it without Billy learning exactly how the bike performed.

Eli had helped her keep the bike running since she’d begun riding in the private races Billy Ray and his friends put together every month. She knew Eli had deliberately cut back the power the motor was capable of, though, and once Billy had informed her of it a few months ago, it had done nothing but piss her off.

She’d suspected it before Billy had come to the garage and confirmed it. Billy had even offered several times to help her. But he’d use his knowledge to win each race as well. There was no fairness in that any more than there was any fairness in what Eli had done.

“I need to get a few parts,” Doogan stated as she stood watching him. “Nothing too expensive. And I have a few ideas to fix your weight-to-balance ratio. The items I’ll need for that I’ll have to run a search for. I checked a few places in Louisville just before you came in. I may have to get them out of state, though.”

Straightening, he moved to the toolbox, replaced the ratchet he was using, then moved to the small sink to wash his hands. Drying them, he turned back to her, his gaze curious as it settled on her.

“Figures. I keep losing it in that curve as I hit higher speeds,” she told him, leaning against the back of his pickup and tucking her hands in the pockets of the cutoff shorts she wore. “Never matters how I balance it, it wipes out there.”

“You’re too light to balance and make up for the impetus you need to get around it, even with the speeds you can actually attain.” Facing her, he nodded to the cycle. “It’s fixable, though.” Then a little grin tipped his lips. One of those wry, almost amused curves. “So did your sister lecture you properly about me?”

Lecture her? She and her sisters tried hard to never lecture each other; they heard far too much of it from their other family members. Especially their brother and cousins.

“Lyrica and Eli say all your agents live in fear of working with you,” she admitted. “You get them shot at.”

He leveled a look of superior mockery in her direction.

“Eli?” His brow arched with a hint of inborn arrogance. “He forgets his job description includes such things. Working with Graham has made him squeamish.”

Squeamish wasn’t the description she would have used. Eli wasn’t a coward.