Page 7 of Nauti Siren (Nauti 7)

Whoa.

Bad idea.

Very, very bad idea.

She really wanted to call Jed, and that was an even worse idea, because there was no way, despite his promise, that he wouldn’t let Dawg in on where she was going and what she was doing.

She read the letter again.

The excitement was about to get the best of her.

This was her dream. It was that one-in-a-million shot to realize every dream she’d ever had of what she could accomplish with the talent she had.

And she couldn’t tell anyone.

She lifted her head, moving her gaze from the letter to stare through the Jeep windshield, her excitement suddenly overshadowed by a heavy sadness. If she dared to say anything to anyone, then she would end up with more bodyguards on that trip than the queen of England. And wouldn’t that make a hell of an impression?

If she thought for a moment that Dawg, Rowdy, or Natches would consider just one of them accompanying her, then it might have swayed her. She knew better, though. For the past summer, they seemed to be everywhere together. Piper had even gone so far as to ask them whether they were married to their wives or to one another.

She’d even questioned why. Why had her sister been kidnapped the summer before? Who had done it? Why had they done it? All she’d received in answer was a closed expression and change of topic. And the certainty that her brother and cousins, along with Timothy Cranston, were involved in something far more dangerous than they wanted their sisters to be aware of.

Carefully pushing the letter back into the large envelope it had arrived in, she turned it over and stared at the address once again.

S. Chaniss, the address read. New York City.

There was no way anyone at the post office could really place exactly whom the letter was from or what it contained. Hiding it and the contents from curious eyes wouldn’t be too hard.

Putting the Jeep in gear and pulling from the post office parking lot, she turned the vehicle toward home.

This sucked.

The rebellious resentment that had been brewing inside her for the past year flamed through her senses with a suddenness that made it nearly burst into full-fledged anger.

It simply wasn’t fair. She should have been able to shout this accomplishment far and wide. At the very least she should have been able to race to the boutique where she sold many of the unique clothing designs she created.

She couldn’t even do that.

Her fingers tightened on the steering wheel as she drove out of town and made the turn toward Mackay’s Bed-and-Breakfast Inn.

As the renovated farmhouse came into view, Piper couldn’t help but acknowledge the fact that had it not been for her brother Dawg, then her mother would have died and she and her sisters would have been worse than homeless.

They’d been abandoned by Chandler Mackay long before the Department of Homeland Security had found the small house he’d purchased for her mother when he’d brought her from Guatemala. When they’d been thrown from that home, her mother, Mercedes, had been horribly ill with a lung infection the doctors had been unable to treat.

It was only after Timothy Cranston had brought them to Somerset and introduced them to Dawg that their lives had changed. Dawg had ensured that her mother’s medical care was paid for while Piper and her sisters had found security, and they had all found a family unlike any Piper could have imagined.

There was another side of that coin, though.

With the security, acceptance, and love the Mackays had given her and her family there was the heavy-handed overprotectiveness her brother and male cousins exhibited.

It was so heavy-handed that for the past year she and her sisters—except the eldest, whom Piper actually blamed their present state on—had no hope of actually living outside the stifling watchfulness they were suddenly surrounded with.

Slip out to a lake party and what happened? Before they could finish their first beer either Dawg, their cousins, or one of their cohorts—Sheriff Mayes, Chief of Police Alex Jansen, or some other tough-assed Mackay male friend—was there with an eagle eye.

Forget even considering the unmentioned search she had begun for a lover. She was fated to remain a virgin for the rest of her days, evidently.

At twenty-four, Piper considered herself far too old to have not taken a lover. And as much as she would have loved—loved—to have taken Jedediah Booker to her bed, the last thing she needed was one of her brother’s watchdogs keeping a leash on her.

Pulling into the inn’s parking lot, Piper tried to push back the regret and the hunger she couldn’t keep from building inside her body. The sensitive flesh between her thighs felt swollen, aching for a touch. Her clit actually throbbed, and she knew damned good and well that only a man was going to put out that particular fire.

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