Immediately phones were pulled. Brogan tossed Jed his phone and Lyrica watched silently as the back of each phone was opened, batteries were pulled, and the phones inspected carefully. Finally, they were put together again, turned on, and rechecked.

“Phones are clear, Lyrica,” Tim promised her, turning to watch her somberly.

“Mine wasn’t, Tim,” she informed him. “Graham wouldn’t lie to me and he wouldn’t lie to Kye.”

“I never imagined he would.” Running his hand over the top of his head, Tim blew out a hard breath. “Graham’s partner checked in with their boss and the boss notified us of your whereabouts. We’ve been trying to get hold of you since last night. We’ve had damned near every cop in four counties looking for you as well as countless DHS agents in the area. We were about to call Dawg when I received the text informing me of your whereabouts.”

“Graham’s boss?” Lyrica frowned back at him now. “Graham joined DHS?”

Kye had been certain over the past few months that something was up with her brother, that he was acting far too secretive. Evidently, she was right.

“No, he hasn’t joined DHS.” Tim sighed, glancing away from her momentarily. “I spoke rather loosely perhaps. Graham doesn’t work for DHS, but sometimes, he reports any anomalies he sees. He reports this to another agent who then reports to D.C.”

“I hate it when you lie to me.” And he was lying; she knew all the signs. Her mother had laughingly relayed those signs to all her daughters to ensure that, in his efforts to protect them, Tim didn’t keep needed information from them. “And I’m telling Mom as soon as I see her. Maybe you’ll tell her the truth.”

Tim grimaced before wiping his hand over his face in irritation. “Dammit, Lyrica. I swear to god, the Mackays are going to drive me to an early grave and that’s the damned truth.” He cursed under his breath.

“Graham’s not officially an agent, Lyrica, and his work with whatever agency he’s with can’t be mentioned. Especially to his sister, Kye.” Brogan met her gaze in the rearview mirror then. “Give us time to get you back to your mother’s place and we’ll explain everything.”

She rather doubted they would explain anything more than they absolutely had to. She knew these men, and she knew their protectiveness and determination to keep the true extent of their work from those they loved. How much her sister Eve knew of Brogan’s work, she wasn’t certain. But Piper laughingly claimed that as far as she could tell, Jed was no more, no less than the contractor he claimed to be, even though she knew he and Tim locked themselves in Tim’s office far too often to “discuss” things.

Tim only did that when he was gathering information on things that were going on in the county that he needed to report back to DHS.

Retired, her ass.

Her mother as well as her sisters all knew Tim wasn’t nearly as retired as he pretended to be.

“Your mother’s beside herself with worry,” Tim told her softly as he reached over and patted her shoulder gently. “We’ve all been damned worried.”

“I know. I’m sorry, Tim. I tried to call.”

“I guess Graham has the phone?” Brogan growled then. “I’ll head back and pick it up later. We’ll need it.”

Lyrica lifted her head, turned, and stared through the darkened window of the SUV rather than answering.

Yes, Graham had her phone, but she’d left more than that at his house. She could feel everything inside her longing to return, to assure him she didn’t want to leave. That she didn’t care which flavor he wanted her to be that month, as long as he tasted her again.

How pitiful was she? How desperate?

Just as she had always known she would be.

If Tim and the males of her extended family hadn’t shown up, she would be in his bed now. She didn’t have the strength to deny him again. Nor did she have the strength to shock him into stopping as she had that morning.

She’d known it had simply been a reprieve. Staring into his eyes after he’d pulled back from fucking her mouth, the taste of him still lingering on her tongue, she’d been shocked by her own response, by the acts she’d already shared with him. Rocked by the pleasure and hungers she hadn’t known she could share with any man, she’d needed time to come to terms with it. Or a chance to deny herself what she wanted most.

As she’d lain beneath him on the lounge chair in his sunroom, she’d known there was no running, no denying. There was no way she could walk away from him.

Until Tim had arrived with a protection detail to rival the president’s.

Seeing the police officers stationed to cover her exit from the house, the way she was escorted to the SUV, and how she was blocked by large male bodies now, she knew every iota of freedom she’d wrested from Dawg over the past few years was over. Once he found out about this, she’d probably be locked up so tight and so deep that she wouldn’t taste sunlight for days on end.

Dawg was too protective.

But, she admitted at the moment, she was terrified, too.

And all she wanted was to run and hide in Graham’s arms again.

EIGHT

Two weeks later

Lyrica stared back at Tim as he read the investigation report her brother-in-law, Brogan Campbell, and her future brother-in-law, Jedediah Booker, had brought into Tim’s office earlier. Dawg, Natches, and Rowdy had helped, he’d stated, and they’d verified everything through the Kentucky State Police as well as the Department of Homeland Security.

The contact list on her phone had been jammed by a high-tech device that affected only the numbers on that list when they were attempting to call Lyrica. The device was new technology, and detection for it hadn’t been perfected yet.

“Fourteen hours after you were shot at, a young woman perfectly matching your description was found two blocks over,” Tim continued, watching her somberly. “She was an informant for the state police on a drug gang moving into the area. Everything points to a case of mistaken identity.”

Were they crazy? Did they really believe something so preposterous?

“Mistaken identity?” Tilting her head, she stared back at him in disbelief, certain she must have misheard him.

“Lyrica, I’ve had this investigated on three different fronts.” Tim leaned forward, his somber expression and fierce hazel eyes piercing. “We’ve covered it ourselves. We’ve followed every lead, every shadow that could be found. The state police have covered it on their end and the Department of Homeland Security sent a team out to look into it as well. We’ve all come to the same conclusion. The assailants thought they’d found the informant they were looking for when you checked into the hotel. You should be safe now.”

She should be safe now? She’d gone through all this because they were searching for someone else? Someone had died, even though Lyrica had been mistaken for her?

And why did she have such a hard time believing this?

“This can’t be real,” she whispered painfully, staring around the room at the men that filled it. “It’s just wrong.”

It didn’t feel right. Nothing had felt right since the night she had stepped out of that elevator and realized someone was in her hotel room.

Her brother grimaced, his pale green eyes filled with regret and concern. “Sometimes the realization that there are no monsters in the shadows is the greatest battle, sweetheart.”

And how very skewed was that one?

“Great.” Rising quickly to her feet, she ran her hands down the sides of her hips, straightened the hem of her cotton shirt, then faced her family with that same sense of unreality. As though she wasn’t fully there, yet wasn’t really dreaming either.