“Hold on, baby,” he warned her through the helmet headset.
Gripping his waist, Zoey held on as he sped back to town, the Harley eating up the miles. She could feel the tension in his body, feel the anger pouring through him, and wondered, when it was over, where it would leave her in his life.
SIXTEEN
Doogan drew the Harley to a slow crawl as he started up the lane to Zoey’s apartment, his eyes narrowing on the sheer number of vehicles parked in front of it.
“We might have a problem, Zoey,” he murmured into the Bluetooth headset. “A big one.”
She snorted at the understatement. “Ya think, Doogan?” she asked. The sarcasm in her voice would have made him grin at any other time. But her brother, Dawg, and cousins Natches and Rowdy were waiting at the head of the group, their glares trained on him.
Damn. This was going to get dicey. He could feel it, like an itch at the back of his neck.
“Zoey, don’t let them pull you away from me. We don’t know what the hell’s going on yet.” And they would try. He could see it in their set expressions. “And I’ll be damned if I’ll watch them drag you off and lock you down tighter than Fort Knox.”
“They look really pissed,” she muttered.
Pissed wasn’t even close. It wasn’t just her brother and cousins either. Her brothers-in-law, Graham, Brogan, and Jed, stood behind them while Timothy Cranston leaned against his truck and glared at the motorcycle as it inched up the drive.
“Dawg looks really mad, Doogan,” she pointed out.
“We could always turn and run,” he suggested, watching the other men as the back of his neck started to itch with a sense of rising danger.
“Where’s your backbone?” She pinched his waist lightly. “They’re all bark . . .”
“Bite,” he amended, grimacing as she gave him a light, though concerned little laugh. She was nervous herself, she couldn’t help it. She’d never had every damned male in her family waiting on her like this before.
Pulling the cycle up to the group of men, Doogan eased his helmet off slowly, aware of Zoey doing the same. His gaze locked with Dawg’s immediately. Zoey’s brother was beyond pissed. The fury burning in his gaze made the celadon green appear to swirl with a hint of emerald.
“Dawg? And friends.” He nodded to them a bit mockingly. But hell, he felt as though he were being ambushed. “What can I do to help the lot of you?”
“Get off the bike, Zoey,” Dawg ordered, his voice harsh. “Eli will take you back to my place . . .”
Zoey’s hands tightened at his waist. She was tense behind him, wary.
She laughed without so much as a hint of nerves, though. “Really? No explanation, just pack up and go?”
“I didn’t mention packing,” Dawg informed her, his voice icy. “I said go.”
The tension in the air grew.
“I don’t think so. Not without a damned good reason.”
“A damned good reason,” Dawg snapped, his arms dropping, his shoulders going back confrontationally. And he did present a hell of a powerful impression. That fist was going to hurt when it struck, Doogan knew. “How’s this for a reason. You go or he’ll end up in the hospital tonight. You don’t want that, Zoey.”
“No, Dawg, you don’t want that.” There was steel in her voice, a core of pure, tempered titanium that surprised Doogan for a moment. “You want to get in your truck and drive out of here and come back later, while you’re calmer, and Christa can accompany you. Otherwise, I promise you, I’ll make damned sure every one of you are on your knees begging me to leave this county within three months.”
“That’s an awful big threat from such a little girl.” Natches stepped in. “That will never happen and we both know it.”
God, she wasn’t in the mood for this. First some bastards ambush her on a perfectly nice drive back from a killer sale, and now, her brother thought he could just order her about? Was it Pick on Zoey Day?
“You have any other threats in your arsenal?” Doogan muttered, evidently doubting the fact that her brother was bluffing.
“I don’t need any other threats,” she assured him, though she had to admit, she was becoming a bit concerned when Dawg simply flicked her the same look he gave his daughter when she was acting up. “Zoey, get off the damned cycle and go.” Dawg took a single step forward.
“Dawg, get off my damned property until you can treat me like an adult,” she demanded, hurt feelings, wounded pride, and anger mixing with the other emotions ripping at her now.
“Then act like an adult.” His hands went to his hips, disgust lining his face as he pinned Doogan with one of those insulting, superior Mackay looks.
Doogan was ignoring the confrontation for the most part, or at least pretending he was. As she and Dawg jockeyed for dominance of her life, he was sitting back on the Harley’s seat, one booted foot propped on the footrest, the other braced on the ground as he studied the area silently. Curiously.
At Dawg’s demand that she act like an adult, he tensed once again, though, his head lifting, and Doogan’s expression was anything but friendly.
Stepping from the bike, Doogan turned, his eyes like chips of ice, his expression savage. “In the apartment. Now.”
She swung from the bike, took his hand, and let him lead her through the wall of male bodies to the garage door at the front of the building. Swiping the security card through the reader, she waited for the metal door to lift, surprised when Doogan ducked and pulled her inside the second it was high enough to do so.
“They’re following us,” she informed him, aware of the press of male bodies behind them.
“Of course they are.” There was something dark and knowing in his tone. Some sense of coming upheaval that had her tensing in dread.
“Eli, get the fucking door secured once they’ve finished posturing and filed in,” Doogan barked, leading Zoey to the stairs. “Then I want you and the Three Stooges to make sure this damned building’s secure.”
“Three Stooges?” Graham wasn’t the least pleased with the description.
“Stooges.” Pulling Zoey up the metal staircase behind him, Doogan glanced back, his gaze connecting with Graham’s.
“Jed, Brogan, check this level,” the other man ordered. “The Mackays and I will check the upper level before we have this little talk with Doogan.”
“He doesn’t give the orders here, Graham,” Dawg snapped, his glare meeting Zoey’s gaze, the anger and concern riding side by side.
“In this he does,” Graham refuted, then nodded back to Doogan. “Let’s make sure the building’s secure before we get into this, Dawg. Make sure Zoey’s safe first.”
Make sure Zoey was safe first. What the hell was going on?
Tossing her hair over her shoulder, Zoey pushed at Doogan’s arm with her shoulder, indicating her insistence that they keep moving. Get it over with and get everyone out of her house. She needed to recoup; she needed to figure out how to handle the memories that had been shrouded in nightmares and the nightmares that hid the memories.
“Graham, get hold of Sam; I want her here now.” Doogan pulled Zoey behind him as he indicated that the other man should follow him in the direction of Zoey’s room. “She has twenty minutes. I’ll check Zoey’s room, then meet the rest of you in the living area.” He turned to Zoey as he stopped at her doorway, his expression commanding. “Stay here, let me check it out, and then you can shower or whatever you need to do.”
“And let you have all the fun by yourself?” She mocked him. “I don’t think so.”
For a second, an amused grin tilted his lips. “Fun? Is that what we’re calling your family today?”
The low, almost intimate tone of his voice soothed that rising panic inside her just enough to allow her to give him a little smile in return. Her stomach was still jumpy, though, nerves eating at her self-control, and it was all she could do to keep her hands from shaking.
“I’ll check your room. Wait here for me.” Doogan drew
her to the wall next to her bedroom door. “This will take just a few minutes.”
She almost rolled her eyes. “Really, Doogan?”
“Really, Zoey,” he assured her, a glower beginning to darken his expression. “This has nothing to do with ability and everything to do with someone trying to force you into destroying yourself. Admit this is a battle you need help with.”
Pressing her lips together tightly, she watched as her brother and cousins carefully checked the rest of the apartment. Rowdy and Natches were slipping into the spare guest room while Eli stepped cautiously into his own. And they were all armed. Just as she should have been.
Her bedroom door opened and Doogan stepped out, his expression still somber, his dark brown eyes still worried.
“It’s clear,” he promised, stepping back and allowing her inside. “Why don’t you let me take care of this, Zoey?”
A mocking laugh fell from her lips. “When did you decide you had a death wish?” She shook her head, glancing into the apartment to see her brother and cousins converging in the kitchen. “No. You don’t handle the Mackays, Doogan. That was your first mistake.” She turned her gaze back to him, betrayal slicing at her as vague, barely-there memories of him and Sam began filtering through the shadows of her mind.
His jaw clenched, his gaze becoming hard and cool once more. “Of course you do, darling,” he drawled. “The same way you handle any other wild animal. Look it in the eye, growl deeper, and be prepared to bite harder.”
She would have laughed if she’d had anything even approaching humor left inside her right then.
“Try honesty first,” she whispered painfully. “It works wonders.”
“Does it really?” His fingers curled firmly around her upper arm as she started to turn away from him, holding her in place and sending a rush of pleasure from his touch racing through her.
She was so weak. Why did his touch affect her as it did? Why couldn’t she deny him as she’d denied so many other men in the past?
“I hate to disagree with you, sweetheart, but honesty doesn’t work with that fucking drug they pumped into you that night or the suggestions they left in your very complicated little brain,” he informed her, his voice gruff. “So until you’ve remembered every fucking whisper they planted there, don’t assume you can judge me, or my level of honesty toward you. Doing so could well end up being disastrous.”
Her heart was racing, his suggestion causing her head to ache further, the disjointed memories to slip through her mind like shadows, there then gone, never staying in one place long enough to force them to make sense.
Doogan stepped back, the icy chill in his gaze only growing deeper as Rowdy stepped to the doorway.
“Sis?” he questioned her, the compassion and concern in his voice and expression causing her heart to clench.
He and Natches had taken her and her sisters to their hearts just as Dawg had. They weren’t cousins in the Mackay males’ eyes. They were sisters to all of them, just as they were more brothers than cousins.
Doogan held her gaze; the warning she could see in the dark depths caused her throat to tighten and trepidation to rise. This wasn’t over by a long shot. And she had a very bad feeling that she still hadn’t remembered nearly enough.
“You have five minutes,” Doogan told her. “But have no doubt, Zoey, the days of protecting those men in there from their own natures is over, as far as you’re concerned. They’re big boys. It’s time to let them face the fact that you’re probably more of a Mackay than any of your sisters ever thought to be. That, or put your damned head down and deny everything you’ve fought for in the past five years. Marry their choice of man for you and settle down to having babies and being the nice, safe sister Dawg dreams of.”
Zoey flinched at the suggestion. “You’re an asshole, Doogan.”
“And I take great pride in the fact.” His gaze sliced to Rowdy before a hard smile tugged at his lips. “But then, I’m not alone, am I?”
Doogan strode from her bedroom, his shoulders straight, his expression so arrogant and damned confident it made her back teeth clench.
“Zoey?” Rowdy stood at her bedroom door, his worried expression causing her breathing to hitch painfully.
“Why are you guys even here, Rowdy?” Rubbing her hands over her face, she wondered if her life would ever come close to making any sense at all.
“Because you’re in trouble,” he answered her without hesitation. “And like him, we’ll always be here whenever you’re in trouble, Zoey, whether you want us to be or not.”
Whether she wanted them to be or not.
When it came to her family, she had no idea what she wanted and what she didn’t. Staring beyond Rowdy’s shoulder, she glimpsed Doogan as Eli stepped to him. The secrets those two probably shared would make grown men shudder. Eli resented it sometimes, felt anger in it other times, but watching them now, Zoey could see the innate trust the younger man felt for Doogan, despite his anger.
“I need a few minutes,” she told Rowdy. “Please don’t let them hurt him before I get back.”
“So you can have that privilege?” Rowdy grinned.
Zoey shook her head, sighing deeply. “No, so I can protect him from himself and that death wish I’m still convinced he has. Why else would he ever consider taking on a Mackay?”
Why would anyone choose such a completely irrational battle?
—
Doogan was furious, and he knew it was a mistake to allow the anger to grow inside him as it was. He wasn’t at his most rational when he couldn’t control the dark, building fury that could burn deep and far too hot. And when dealing with a Mackay, a man had to be at his most rational, with no anger marring the logic he had to use to keep them under control.
Not that anything or anyone completely controlled the wayward impulses that came with that particular bloodline.
“Tell me where you lost your mind, Doogan, because this is going to get you killed.” It was Graham who approached him once he stepped into the living area, preparing himself to face the less than rational male family members.
Graham was a good man; Doogan had known that the first time they met, in their early twenties. And he was a hell of an agent. Of the three agents to have married into the Mackay family, Graham was the one Doogan had depended upon the most.
“What is the ‘this’ you’re talking about?” Doogan questioned, wishing Eli would hurry with the files he’d been sent for.
“Zoey,” Graham answered, his voice low. “Letting her remain in danger . . .”
“From the moment I learned she’d been targeted, she was protected far more than you know.” Doogan’s head snapped up, that anger he always fought to keep chilled with logic slipping its leash a bit. “Never doubt that for a moment, Graham. And remember one damned thing, it wasn’t my security those bastards slipped past to threaten her to begin with.”
“No, it wasn’t. That failure’s mine.” Timothy Cranston’s admission as he stepped to them earned him a glare from Doogan.
As much as Doogan liked the other man, they still clashed as often now as they had in the past.
Dammit, he hadn’t meant for Timothy to hear that. This was why he fought to control his temper rather than letting it free.
Doogan sighed wearily, rubbing at the back of his neck. “What do you know, Timothy?” he asked as he let his hand drop, glimpsing Eli moving from the guest room with the box of files and written reports he’d kept over the past year.
The others were now standing around the dining table, Dawg and Natches glaring while Brogan and Jed watched him suspiciously.
“Not nearly enough, it seems,” Dawg answered for him. “According to an anonymous phone call this morning, there’s plenty you know, though.”
Anonymous phone calls, a man had to love them.
“Such as?” The box Eli set on the table drew the interest of the other men now.
“Why Zoey’s about to be arrested for murder.” Natches watched him
with murderous intent. “You know we’re not going to allow that, right?”
Doogan guessed that was a rather mild statement. His lips quirked at the thought while he faced Zoey’s family.
“If I intended to arrest Zoey, I would have already done so rather than giving even the weakest lawyer a perfect defense instead,” he assured them all, sliding his hands into the pockets of his slacks while watching them closely. “Are you aware Johnny Grace had a son before he was killed?”
The looks of shock on their faces assured him they were unaware of it. “He was perhaps ten when Johnny died, well hidden by Dayle and his sister Nadine Mackay Grace and raised by a couple Dayle chose himself.”
“Well, isn’t that just wonderful,” Natches drawled, the mockery in his voice slicing. “Good ol’ Dayle. The bastard.”
There had been little love lost between Natches and his father, even when Dayle had been alive.
—
“And let me guess.” Dawg crossed his arms over his chest, his expression dark, bordering enraged. “He has a grudge.”
Doogan inclined his head in agreement. “Did your anonymous tip inform you that a year ago Timothy’s security was breached and Zoey was drugged and taken from her room at the inn?”
Their shocked faces assured him they were unaware of that.
Briefly Doogan filled them in, aware of the gathering storm building in each man as he told them the hellish images planted in Zoey’s mind and why. Rigsby and Luther Jennings hadn’t felt the need to watch what they said, or worry about what to allow Zoey to overhear as they bragged of their intelligence. Just as they had never guessed the strength of the woman they were attempting to destroy.
Even Doogan couldn’t have guessed how quickly Zoey would overcome the suggestions implanted in her complicated little brain.
As he gave them what he knew and answered the questions they had, Zoey stepped from her bedroom to his side. The position she took, next to him rather than a family member, wasn’t lost on the other men if Dawg’s glare was any indication.
When he informed them of the afternoon’s attack and Rigsby’s death, he could feel the tension explode through the room. Every protective instinct the men possessed became heightened, and more dangerous than before.