The odd sensation had her off balance, and it refused to allow the fear that had filled her for the past weeks to recede.

“I’m going back to my apartment, then,” she announced, ignoring Dawg’s objection.

It was instinctive, she thought. Two weeks of believing she was in danger, only to be told there was really no danger, left her sick to her stomach with the knowledge that she seemed to be the only one that found this mistaken identity supposition to be so very convenient.

No one should have died. But someone had to throw her family off the fact that she was going to die. Or was she simply so paranoid now that she couldn’t see the truth?

“Lyrica, wait another day or so.” Tim came slowly to his feet, the white shirt he wore folded back at the sleeves, his slacks still appearing freshly ironed.

Sometimes it was very hard to associate the man she had known for the past few years with the man her brother and cousins knew before he met her mother, Mercedes.

“I’m not waiting, Tim. I’ve waited two weeks just to learn that someone else was murdered that night despite the fact that I nearly died as well.” Shaking her head, she ignored the fact that Dawg stood silently, his pale gaze far too intense and knowing. “I want to be alone for a while. I want to be home.”

In the short time she had lived there, her apartment had become home. It had become a haven away from the craziness that her family could sometimes be. That their lives never failed to be.

It wasn’t Dawg’s fault. It was just that he had a past, one that had already threatened her older sister Eve. He was terrified it would affect her and Zoey now. But he didn’t stop there. No, Dawg worried over every phase of their lives, even their nonexistent-because-he-fucked-it-up love lives.

Of course, he knew where Alex and Brogan had found her before he’d been told what had happened. They wouldn’t have hid it from him. And if Brogan and Jed hadn’t told Dawg, then gossip would have reached him quickly. There had been no fewer than twelve police officers with the chief of police when Alex rode with Brogan and Jed to collect her.

Some boss at DHS had found out about it, called Timothy, and informed him of everything he knew. From there, as she heard it, it had taken less than ten minutes to have a full squad of officers as well as Natches’s brother-in-law and chief of police and his former partner Jed, a DHS agent still working in Somerset on a case no one dared to talk about for some reason, heading her way.

Two days later Dawg was back a week early from the Caribbean and her life had changed so irrevocably that she had no idea how to get it back.

“Lyrie.” Dawg breathed out roughly, his still far-too-handsome face appearing more lined than it had been when he’d left three weeks before. “Take a few days here with Mom. Christa and I will head home tonight . . .”

“You think I want to leave because of you, Dawg?” she asked as she shoved her hands into the pockets of her jeans. “I’m not Eve, Piper, or Zoey. Your interference doesn’t make me want to run from you, remember? I just move in and make you crazy.”

He grinned, as she knew he would. They could look back at the four months she had lived with him just after they’d come to Somerset and laugh now. Then, they’d lived in a state of constant warfare with Christa, who was always either amused with both of them or furious with both of them, caught in the middle.

Finally, out of sheer desperation Dawg had sworn, on his marriage license even, that he would never interfere in her life again. To her knowledge, of all four of his sisters, Lyrica was the only one he kept that vow to.

He’d sworn it on his marriage license and she’d made him do it. Because there was nothing Dawg loved more than his wife and child.

“I’d love to have you move in with me again, Lyrie,” he said with a sigh, using the nickname he’d given her in the first days after he’d found his sisters. “You know I would.”

“We’d kill each other.” She sighed, too.

Dawg shook his head, his gaze still heavy. “No, I don’t think we would now.”

Maybe they wouldn’t, but still, it wouldn’t work.

“I just need some time to think, Dawg.”

“Or some time to give that damned hound dog Graham Brock a chance to get to you?” Natches made the accusation as he rose slowly from his chair across the room.

She’d known it was coming, and she had known it was coming from him. It had been in his eyes as he watched her, silent, thoughtful.

“If it hadn’t been for Graham, she would have died, Natches,” Dawg snapped, surprising more than one of the men in the room. “He did the same thing I would have done if his sister were in danger. Waited and ascertained the level of danger before contacting anyone. The fact that Timothy’s contact in Washington learned of it was a lucky break for all of us.”

Lyrica hid her smile. He was trying so hard to convince himself that Graham wasn’t a threat to whatever virtue she may possess. He did that with her all the time. If he didn’t acknowledge the reasons for something, then he didn’t have to stress about something he was sworn not to interfere in.

“Come on, Dawg, you know better than that,” Natches laughed. “And you know damned good and well if he ends up seducing her then he’s just going to break her heart.”

“Then I can just kill him.” Dawg shrugged as though the thought of killing a man he considered a friend was everyday business, and he stared back at Lyrica with no change of expression. Somber, worried. “Grant knows how it works, Natches. He has a sister himself.”

She almost rolled her eyes. “Sorry, can’t see any of you seducing her,” she stated with amused indulgence.

“Not us,” Natches agreed, his expression easy, his laughter natural as he leaned against the wall and watched her with that damned knowing expression. “But, you know, one day, we might know when some hound dog is out to break her heart rather than cherishing her as he should. We might not step up and beat the shit out of him before Graham can figure out what’s going on.”

Did he really think she didn’t know each one of them so much better than to believe that?

She did laugh now. “Natches, you’re such a liar. You actually like Kye and interfere in her life just as often as you do anyone else’s.”

“True.” He nodded, crossing his arms over his chest. “Just remember one thing, sweetheart: It was Dawg that swore not to mess with the Romeos that come sniffing after you. Not the rest of us.” His gaze encompassed the other men who were watching the byplay with interest.

“Natches, perhaps you should remember,” she answered sweetly with wide-eyed innocence, “mess in my life too far, and Lexington will be seeing me on a regular basis, because I will move. Then you can deal with Dawg.”

“Shut up, Natches,” Dawg growled under his breath. “Just shut up.”

Natches’s eyes narrowed, his lips pursing thoughtfully at the reminder. She’d almost done just that when he’d sucker punched one of the bouncers at a friend’s bar a few years before because Natches had been told the man was kissing her outside before she left one night.

Actually, the bouncer had kissed her cheek and thanked her for helping him with his girlfriend as he walked her to her car.

“I’m heading home.” The weariness that had engulfed her for the past weeks settled over her shoulders once again. “Do what you have to do, but remember, I’m a Mackay, too.” She included each man in her look then. “And trust me, I can be just as damned stubborn as any of you.”

Moving to Dawg, she hugged him tightly for a minute. “Thanks for watching out for me.”

His arms tightened around her briefly before releasing her. Tim was waiting at the door as she reached it and she gave him a hug as well. Behind her, she could feel the eyes watching her, the testosterone-driven assurance that they could guide her life better than she could piercing her back.