Dressed in jeans and a dark T-shirt, Natches was a mature man. That maturity had placed a few lines and creases along his eyes, a hint of gray at his temples, but other than that, he was still a powerful force.

Chaya grimaced and shook her head as her husband placed a loving kiss at her neck. “Natches, sweetheart, are you still trying to fool yourself?”

Wearing loose cotton pants and a white T-shirt, her shoulder-length golden brown hair pulled to the crown of her head in a clip, with wisps falling around her face, Chaya appeared far younger than her husband though Lyrica knew the difference in their ages wasn’t that vast.

Chaya had once confided to Lyrica that Natches had been there the day her first child had died in a fiery blast that terrorists had instigated in the Middle East. If it hadn’t been for him, she would have died that day, too, she had admitted.

In the six years since Lyrica had been a part of their lives, the love and sense of bonding between this couple had never ceased to amaze her. Just as with Dawg and Christa, and Rowdy and Kelly, their commitment to each other had only increased over the years.

They were both nearing fifty, but they hadn’t seemed to age much at all since Lyrica and her sisters had arrived in the county. It was as though their love kept them young, kept them seeing the innocence and beauty in the world.

“Talk to your cousin.” Chaya moved from his arms after giving him a quick, forgiving kiss. “Kelly and Janey are coming to take Bliss shopping with the other girls. Then you and I will talk.”

Natches’s brows lifted and cunning sensuality filled his eyes as he watched his wife leave the room. It was a look he probably had no idea others could see. The look of a man who knew joy, never-ending surprise, and pleasure in the woman he loved.

“For a man who loves his wife so dearly, you have an amazing ability to believe other men have no capacity for the same feelings, Natches.” Crossing her arms over her breasts, Lyrica watched her cousin suspiciously as that cunning sensuality morphed and she caught the slightest glint of calculation before it was quickly hidden.

“I have never said I don’t believe in it,” he retorted as he adopted an expression of such innocence it was almost believable.

Lyrica knew him better than that.

“That look might fool your daughter, but it doesn’t fool me, cuz,” she informed him.

Still, it remained.

“Lyrica, you’re so suspicious.” He sighed.

“Natches,” she drawled with tight mockery, “you’re so full of bullshit.”

He merely grunted at the accusation.

“Why were you and Chaya arguing over me to the point that Chaya’s sending Bliss shopping with Janey and Kelly?” she tried again.

The look he shot her was classic Natches. Playful, charming, with a barely there glint of cunning that locked onto any weakness and used it instinctively. He was a master manipulator, a man with instinctive perception, and a sharp-eyed, merciless sniper. A man who in the past had taken aim between a cousin’s eyes and pulled the trigger.

“Sometimes Bliss only hears part of a conversation . . .”

“Stay away from Graham, Natches.” She didn’t beat around the bush.

She could do that with Rowdy and Dawg, laugh and playfully tease and still get her point across. She knew better than to even attempt it with Natches.

“Then you stay away from him.” Natches dropped the pretense instantly, his emerald green eyes narrowing on her as he hooked his thumbs in the front pockets of his jeans.

Lyrica stared at him in disbelief. “You’re kidding me.”

“No, I’m not kidding you.” At least he wasn’t lying to her. He’d been known to do that.

“Why are you doing this, Natches? Why take a stand like this over something that’s none of your business?” she asked him, confused now.

“Who says it’s none of my business?” A dark frown flitted at his brow. “You’re my business, Lyrica. And Graham Brock’s bad news for you.”

She would have laughed at him if the disbelief hadn’t run so deep.

Her lips thinned. There were very few ways to convince Natches to let something go. He was worse than Dawg. Her threat to move away and let him deal with Dawg’s anger had obviously not worked.

“Natches, stay out of this,” she warned him softly.

“Why should I?” He seemed to be laughing at her, albeit silently.

“Because if you don’t, then I’ll be too concerned you’ll hurt him, and I’ll give up on the one man I can’t seem to stay away from.” It was the truth. Stark. Simple.

“So why would I bother to back off if it’s working?”

He wasn’t a stupid man, though. Tension filled his shoulders, his expression veiled as he watched her carefully.

“Because then I’ll have given up not because the man isn’t in my best interests or because it’s my choice; I’ll have done it because it’s your choice. I’ll never stop resenting you for it and once I’ve accepted that’s how it will end, then I have to accept that it doesn’t matter who I love, because you’ll always stand between us. Why should I bother to love then? Why should I bother to care that whoever I sleep with cares for me in turn?”

“Stop trying to snow me, Lyrie. You might say that, you might mean it right now, but you’re too damned stubborn to actually do it.”

“Natches, at this point, I’m struggling to decide for myself if Graham Brock is something I want or merely something I’ve been fascinated with for years. Don’t turn the question into a quest to prove to myself and to you that you have no control over me, or a lesson in the fact that you can control me by hurting someone I care about. You wouldn’t like either outcome, and neither would I.”

Unlike her sisters, she believed in facing Dawg, Natches, and Rowdy in ways they understood rather than from a stance of pure stubbornness. She loved them, very much respected them, but she knew that if given the chance, they would wrap her and her sisters in cotton batting and do whatever they thought necessary to avoid ever seeing them hurt. And they’d never realize how the total sterility of such a life would destroy them.

“How much do you expect me to let him destroy you?” he growled, anger beating just beneath the surface. “I know things about him that you don’t, Lyrica. Things that would hurt you if you ever learned the truth of it.”

“You’ll tell me that, but I know you—you will never tell me what those things are, will you, Natches?”

His expression was the only answer she needed.

“Until you can tell me, then let’s drop all the dark hints as to the man he is, was, or could be.” She sighed wearily. “He saved my life. And I know he tries to be a good man. No matter what kind of man he may be, he’s a good man.”

“He’s a dangerous man!” he snapped. “He may have saved your life, but he could also end up getting you killed.”

“And how many times was Kelly warned of that where the Mackays were concerned?” she argued bitterly. “Or Christa? You forget, Natches, I know your pasts, I know the men you were before you fell in love, and I know how dangerous the three of you were. What if Chaya had walked away from you because of Johnny?”

He’d killed Johnny Grace. The cousin he’d been raised with, the one who had attempted to kill Christa and would have killed Dawg. Natches had put his rifle sights between the man’s eyes and he’d felt no remorse pulling the trigger.

“Look at your past, at Dawg’s and Rowdy’s, and tell me that you didn’t deserve to be loved.”

“Hell no, we didn’t deserve it. Not then we didn’t,” he growled back at her. “And what we have wasn’t handed to us, either, Lyrica. We had to change to be able to have the hearts we share, and if Graham Brock thinks he can have you without facing one of us, then he can think again.” He moved to her quickly, gripped her shoulders, and stared down at her with the merciless lack of remorse she imagined was in his eyes when he killed his cousin. “I love you, girl. I see you and I see the child that owns every beat of my heart. The one I’d go into hell fighting for, and I’ll be damned if I’ll betray my instincts on this. If I do, I may as well tell every man who ever meets her that would hurt her to go ahead and do just that. Graham knows the score, and I have no doubt if I beat the hell out of him, you’ll hate me. For a while. But at least you’ll by god hate me with a whole, beating heart rather than half a one or, god forbid, from a casket. Remember that one.”