She was older now, she told herself. She was a much better liar than she’d been as a teenager. She’d had to learn to lie, or she would have died a long time ago.

Now she just had to wait for Jazz and his little discussion. He surely wouldn’t tell them who she was while she was standing there. He knew how desperately she feared them knowing the truth.

He wouldn’t betray her. She had to believe that, because anything else would destroy her trust in him. A fragile, cautionary trust her heart was clinging to with a strength that refused to let go. With a hope that refused to diminish.

*   *   *

Jazz watched the Maddox brothers. Cord, Deacon, and Sawyer were no man’s fools. Or woman’s. Not for a second had Cord taken his eyes off Kenni, but not until she informed him that he could talk all he liked, she wasn’t going to listen, did he see a reaction in them.

Cord had actually flinched, while Deacon and Sawyer’s eyes had widened in some surprise, or disbelief. If suspicion hadn’t been there before, it was now.

When Sawyer had tried to get his brother’s attention, Cord had shot him a look so hard, so filled with a demand for silence that Sawyer had immediately backed down.

“Why are you here, Cord?” Jazz asked him softly, hoping to keep the confrontation he feared the other man would instigate from Kenni’s hearing.

Cord shook his head. Propping his hands at his hips for one long second he looked at the floor, his gaze so intense that Jazz actually had a moment’s concern as he wondered what the other man was thinking.

When Cord lifted his head his face was carefully blank, his emerald eyes cool and without emotion.

“I had two of my men watching her house.” The information came as a surprise to Jazz. “They reported seeing two men slip inside about dawn. They were dressed in black with their faces covered. Before my men were in position to find out who it was, they left. One of them was carrying a pack at his shoulder, though, and I wondered what they’d found.”

“You didn’t tell me anyone was watching the house.” Jazz had known there would be, though. Cord wasn’t sloppy and once he realized Kenni’s identity was false, he’d have covered his bases.

“Yeah, my bad,” Cord drawled, the icy tone of his voice causing Jazz to watch him warily. “I’ll make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

Damn, they were all in trouble now. He would have been amused if he weren’t certain it would get him killed at the moment.

“You do that.” Jazz nodded. “And while you’re at it, whoever’s watching my house better disappear, too. Right fast.”

If Cord could have tensed further, then he did, while his brothers watched in surprise.

“No one’s watching your house.” That was a hint of anger in Cord’s green eyes now. “Yet.”

“The watcher’s fair game then?” Jazz pushed. He wanted to be certain. When he took the watcher out, he didn’t want to chance killing one of Cord’s men.

“Like I said, yet,” Cord assured him. “If you’ll excuse us, we’ll be going now.” His eyes narrowed on Jazz, though. “You and I will talk later, I believe.”

Jazz stepped back from the doorway, watching the three men more closely now. Something wasn’t right, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on what.

Following the Maddox brothers to the kitchen he watched them pause, their gazes moving to Kenni as she deliberately avoided their looks. Leaning against the wall, she stared at the toes of her boots, arms crossed over her breasts, silent and obviously guilty of something.

He almost grinned. He would have, but he was aware of Cord watching from the corner of his eye, tracking every reaction Jazz might have. He was obviously suspicious, but evidently he wasn’t suspicious of the right thing yet. Because if he had even a second’s thought that his sister was standing in that kitchen, then World War Three would look like a picnic compared with his rage.

Without another word Cord left the house, followed by his brothers. Tension filled the three men, as well as anger. Whatever they’d come there to find had eluded them, and they weren’t happy about it.

As the door closed Kenni moved quickly past him, brushing against his chest and sending a rush of hunger straight to his already hard cock. If she was going to keep up that attitude, he’d end up fucking her before they left the house.

She was rolling beneath the bed again as he returned to the bedroom doorway. Jazz waited. The sound of material ripping had his brows lifting. The only thing it could be was the thin cover beneath the box springs.

Moments later she rolled into sight once again, clutching the small, tablet-sized laptop, a leather bag hanging from her arm. Jumping to her feet, she tossed him an imperious little look before brushing past him again and heading for the back door.

“Kenni, you’re pushing,” he warned her before she made it to the door her brothers had passed through minutes before. “That’s not a good idea, sweetheart.”

Jerking the door open she stomped outside and he could have sworn he heard “Bite me” before she stepped past the threshold.

Watching that cute little ass twitch with feminine ire had his cock throbbing as he pulled the door closed and followed her to the truck. It was so damned cute, he just might have to give her what she was asking for when he got her home. He was going to bite her.

*   *   *

“Why did we leave? Goddammit, Cord…”

“Don’t take His name in vain,” Cord murmured as he watched the girl stalk from the house, her rounded little nose lifted disdainfully. Like a princess with the scent of a peasant far too close to her delicate senses.

That profile, the jut of her chin, the expression on her face. They were eerily familiar. Too familiar, even though he knew better, knew he had to be imagining the resemblance.

He wiped his hands over his face. It couldn’t be. It wasn’t possible.

“Then answer me,” Sawyer demanded. “Why?”

“It can’t be her,” he whispered. “You know it can’t be.”

The silence behind him was heavy, filled with certainty and fury. They were certain, but he couldn’t allow them the luxury. He’d learned the hard way that it wasn’t possible.

“You know better,” Sawyer retorted, the low, dark undertone a warning that his youngest brother wasn’t accepting the truth Cord needed him to believe. “You saw it as well as I did. You knew her as well as we did, Cord.”

He shook his head. No, he’d known her better than anyone else. She’d been his shadow, as dear to him as his own child would be, he imagined.

And because he knew her, for a second, one grief-stricken, horrified second, he wondered …

“She would have come to us. If she was alive and here in Loudoun, she would have come to us, Sawyer. If she was alive period, she would have come home.” She wouldn’t have left him wondering, searching in vain, if she had been alive.

It wasn’t possible.

Neither Deacon nor Sawyer said anything further, but that didn’t mean they’d taken his word. Suspicion was a horrible thing in a Maddox. It made them stubborn, determined to find the truth.

They’d searched for her for years. Based on one homeless drunk’s certainty he’d seen someone shoot the pretty little blond girl who escaped with the man wearing a marine’s uniform, they’d searched for her.

Cord had almost driven himself insane with that search, and Deacon and Sawyer hadn’t returned much better. They hadn’t been there when Slade had needed their help. Cord hadn’t been there when Jazz had tried to contact him for help. They’d come too close to losing control of the Kin because of their search for her and it had taken the better part of two years to regain it.

And now Annie Mayes with her eerie familiarity was throwing their lives into chaos again.

He wasn’t going to allow it.

Putting the truck he’d driven into gear, he pulled out from the neighbor’s hidden drive slowly. It didn’t matter what he told them or how much he tried to make himself believe: He’d seen what Sawyer had seen and he had to force himself to leave.