Zoey smothered a smile as Kelly gave a little sign while throwing her husband a chiding look.

“You are just like Uncle Natches,” Annette cried out furiously, her face flushing in anger. “You would just lock me up until I’m fifty if you could.”

Rowdy seemed to consider the accusation. Bracing his hands on his hips he stared down at his delicate teenage daughter, the look on his face thoughtful.

“Fifty’s going a little far,” he finally retorted. “I’d settle for thirty. Maybe by then I’ll be so senile that the shenanigans you and your cousins get into won’t bother me near so . . .”

He stopped.

Zoey watched curiously as his head jerked up, his eyes meeting his wife’s as she seemed to choke before turning her back on him.

In Kelly’s eyes was such a wealth of laughter that Zoey was suddenly dying to know the private thought they’d obviously shared.

“Aren’t you supposed to be helping your cousins outside?” Rowdy gave his daughter a “daddy” glare, arms going across his chest in a display of pure male command. “Get to it now, before I start checking out those convents your uncle Natches keeps finding.”

“You are ruining my life,” Annette cried, the tone of pure teenage drama causing her mother to choke on her laughter again.

Tossing her thick black hair Miss Annette Theadora Mackay lifted her determined little chin and stalked out the door, pausing outside only long enough to slip her feet into colorful sandals before stalking along the side of the building.

“God.” Rowdy plowed his fingers through his hair in disgust. “I’m starting to repeat the same crap Dad used to yell when he was arguing with me, Dawg, and Natches.”

Kelly turned to him with a laugh. “Better lock the windows tonight. She was more determined to attend this party than the last few she’s demanded to go to.”

Rowdy’s look was filled with disgust. “She thinks she wants to go dance with that little brat that’s been hanging around the marina the last few weeks.” He turned his head to glare at the door before stepping closer and peeking out to check to be sure the brat in question wasn’t there. “He’s going to keep it up I’m going to call Natches.”

Zoey’s eyes widened at the threat.

“Rowdy Mackay, you will not,” Kelly exclaimed. “He’s a kid. Natches would traumatize him.”

Rowdy snorted. “So? He traumatizes me and Dawg on a daily basis; let him spread it around a little.”

“Not to mention his wife and daughter,” Zoey pointed out. “And me and Doogan.”

Rowdy turned back to her, his expression curious. “What did Doogan do?”

Zoey rolled her eyes as she turned to Kelly. “Notice he doesn’t ask what his cousin has done, it’s what has Doogan done. That is just wrong.”

Kelly laughed at the comment, her brown eyes warm and filled with laughter.

A high-pitched scream cut the laughter off.

Before Zoey could think she and Kelly were racing behind Rowdy as he all but tore the door off the front of the store to get to the parking lot.

The scene that met Zoey’s eyes was horrifying.

Terror dragged a weak cry, filled with complete blood-freezing horror, from her as she watched the overly large male trying to drag Natches’s daughter, Bliss, into a van as her cousins, Laken, Annette, and Erin screamed and attacked the heavily muscled assailant. Annette was holding on to Bliss’s arm for dear life, screaming for her dad, her voice filled with such overwhelming fury Zoey knew she’d never forget the sound of it.

At the sight of Rowdy bearing down on him, the dark-clothed, masked assailant pushed Bliss into her cousin and jumped into the van as it tore away, tires screaming.

Annette wrapped her arms around her cousin as the other girls surrounded her just as Rowdy, Kelly, and Zoey reach them.

“There were no plates, Dad, but he smelled like fish and smoke.” Annette was flushed, her green eyes darker, the anger in them a sight to see.

“Get inside.” Rowdy didn’t pause to get details.

Pushing the girls from the marina, he was on his cell phone.

“Get to the dock,” he yelled into the phone, and Rowdy never yelled. “Now, goddamn it. Get here now.”

He’d called either Dawg or Natches, who would call the other. Soon, the marina would be swarming with reinforcements. Grabbing the cell phone from her back pocket, Zoey hit the first number programmed in.

“Babe?” Doogan answered immediately.

“Get to the marina.”

The line disconnected. Doogan didn’t waste time with words; he was a man of action. He’d be there within minutes.

Pushing the girls into the store wasn’t enough. Rowdy didn’t stop until they were safely behind the reinforced steel-and-wood barrier of the walls that surrounded it, his wife and Zoey dragged in behind them.

Kelly rushed to the girls, her hands catching Bliss’s shoulders as her gaze went over the girl. “Are you okay, baby?”

Her voice was trembling, adrenaline and fear crashing through her as Zoey watched Rowdy move to the safe.

The guns were there.

Zoey rushed to him, catching his arm as his gaze snapped to her.

“No,” she whispered. “Not while they’re here.”

She glanced at the girls, especially his daughter as she watched him.

“Let him get his gun, Zoey.” Fury still raged in Annette’s voice. “Uncle Natches will have his. Bet me.”

Zoey felt like knocking her and her father’s heads together.

“Stop being so bloodthirsty Annette,” she ordered the girl. It was an order she heard often. “Your father isn’t getting a gun. . . .”

Tires were screaming outside, and the rev of an engine accelerating from the marina entrance and more rubber howling in protest as the vehicle was forced to a stop had them all pausing.

“Bliss!” Natches’s voice thundered through the store.

“Dad. Dad.” Tears choked the teenager’s voice as she tore away from Kelly and met her father at the doorway of the office. Instantly, she was pulled into his arms, lifted from her feet as Natches sheltered her against his chest, one hand at the back of her head as he held her with his other arm, his eyes closing as Bliss wrapped her arms tightly around his neck, the fear finally hitting her.

She was sobbing against her father’s shoulder as such agony creased Natches’s face that it clenched Zoey’s chest.

“Where’s Chaya, Natches?” Rowdy questioned him, his tone icy as Natches opened his emerald-green eyes, and focused on his cousin.

“Dawg . . .” He cleared his throat as his hold tightened on his daughter.

Moving to the chair next to him Natches sat down as though afraid his legs wouldn’t hold him much longer. He cradled his daughter in his arms, her head still buried in his shoulder, her arms locked around his neck. “She was with Dawg and Christa.”

At the same time the sound of tires screaming again just outside the marina had Zoey jumping in fear and moving quickly to look outside the large glass window where Dawg’s truck nearly touched the glass.

Moving aside as Chaya raced inside, tears streaming down her face, Christa and Dawg moving behind her.

“Bliss. Bliss.” Chaya nearly fell as she tried to get to the door, caught herself, then went to her knees in front of her husband and daughter.

“Mom. I’m okay, Mom.” But she was still crying.

Bliss’s looks were nearly identical to Zoey’s but for the emerald eyes and Zoey’s celadon green ones. They were often mistaken as twins to those who didn’t know them.

Behind Dawg, Doogan pushed into the office, his features hard, his brown eyes ice until they found hers. Warmth blazed in them, then relief and love filling them as he moved to her, his arm sliding around her to pull her to his chest.

Still holding her hand over her lips Zoey realized Bliss wasn’t the only one crying. Tears dampened her own cheeks, and as Christa ran to her daughter, the other woman was crying as well.

“Someone tried to abduct Bliss,” she whispered, lifting her gaze to him, the horror of it still resounding through her. “They almost took her, Doogan. Someone nearly took her.”