Fuck, it was hard letting her go.

Rubbing at the ache in his chest, frowning at the tightness there, he wondered at the feeling he’d identified years before as a premonition, a warning of danger.

Who or what could be in danger?

Maybe it was better that Piper was leaving for a few days after all. Her sister had nearly died the year before because she was too close to his partner, Brogan Campbell.

God help anyone who dared to threaten Piper Mackay. He would kill. Perhaps not for the first time, though it would definitely be the first time he’d killed over a woman.

She was worth killing for.

She was worth dying for.

The brilliance that was Piper Mackay couldn’t be contained. She was wild and free, bright and burning, and there were already too many men determined to tame that fire. To lock it in. To take the freedom she fought so valiantly for.

He refused to become one of them.

Jed forced himself to move, to walk slowly and easily across the stretch of lawn that led to the inn and the suite he had taken next to Piper’s.

She was gone and he had no choice but to let her go.

That didn’t mean he liked it.

It sure as hell didn’t mean it was easy.

THREE

Amy’s sister, Gypsy Seavers, was waiting exactly where Piper had directed her to the day before.

The small clearing just past the inn was far enough away that if the other woman had turned her lights off before pulling in, then there was no way in hell Tim could possibly see them. Yet it was close enough for her to jog to, even carrying the two bags she had brought with her.

“Trunk’s open.” Gypsy’s voice came from the other side of the vehicle as Piper moved for the car.

By the time she reached the trunk, Amy’s sister was standing next to it, lifting it for her as Piper threw her bags in. She took a good look at Gypsy’s face in the trunk’s light. Just to be certain she was who she was supposed to be, Piper told herself, realizing some of Dawg’s lectures on safety might have actually stuck in her mind.

The second Piper moved back from the trunk, Gypsy had it closed and was moving around her to the driver’s side.

“Ready to roll?” the other woman asked, glancing back as Piper watched her.

“Ready to roll.” A quick nod and Piper was opening the passenger door and sliding inside quickly before pulling it closed.

Gypsy’s door didn’t so much as squeak as she closed it and restarted the vehicle.

She resembled Amy, Piper decided as the car pulled back out onto the main road and headed toward town.

The same amber or caramel hair, streaked with much lighter strands by the sun. She was slender, compact, and the jeans and racer-back T-shirt she wore showing off her lightly tanned, well-toned upper body made her appear smaller and more fragile than her diminutive five-foot-four frame already did.

“Amy and I were betting you wouldn’t make it out after she told me who your brother and cousins were.” Gypsy flashed her a quick, rueful grin. “I don’t know if I would have followed through after I learned Natches Mackay was your cousin if I hadn’t already promised.”

Piper stiffened, turning to stare back at Gypsy warily. Great, she knew Natches. Piper wasn’t even going to bother asking how yet. Only one question was uppermost in her mind. “Did you contact him?”

“Natches?” Flicking her a questioning look, Gypsy efficiently navigated the curvy mountain road that led to the interstate.

“Yeah.” Piper could feel that sense of freedom slowly disintegrating.

“Not hardly.” Gypsy grimaced. “Picking you up might piss him off at me, but calling him and letting him know would only add a shadow of distrust to my name if he ever actually meets me.”

Neither the resignation in Gypsy’s voice, nor her explanation, made sense.

“What do you mean?” Piper shook her head. “Wouldn’t it be the other way? He wouldn’t trust you if he learned you had helped me? Wouldn’t he trust you more if you contacted him?”

“Doesn’t work that way.” The other woman rejected the suggestion, her expression still a bit stiff, with an air of secretiveness. “I promised I’d help you before I knew who your cousin was. You don’t appear to be in any trouble, and my own sources verified how protective your brother and cousins are. If I called him without cause, no matter how much he would love to know where you are and who you’re with, then he’d count that as a betrayal of confidence. I’d be deemed untrustworthy, unless you were in trouble.” She threw Piper a quick, amused look. “Are you in trouble?”

“No trouble,” Piper promised her, breathing out a sigh of relief. “I just don’t need company, you know?”

She hoped Gypsy understood. Just as she hoped the other woman didn’t call Natches later.

“Sometimes a girl just has to do what a girl has to do. And sometimes she just has to do it alone,” Gypsy agreed as the lights from the dash emphasized the unsmiling expression she wore.

“Exactly,” Piper stated. “The New York fashion scene isn’t a place where any of them would get along well. It would be like placing a herd of bulls in a roomful of china. Forget the china shop. They would raze the shop and head for the warehouse.”

Gypsy gave a small, surprised laugh at the description before her amusement was quickly pulled back.

“I’ve heard that about Natche.” She gave a light laugh. “He was a legend in Afghanistan while he was there. One of the best damned snipers the Marines had, and better at covert intelligence than he had any right to be.”

Yeah, that sounded like Natches.

“How do you know him?” Piper asked. “Are you with Homeland Security, too?” That would be just her luck.

“Not hardly.” Gypsy’s lips tilted into a crooked smile. “I was with the Marines myself. Many of Natches’s missions in Afghanistan and Iran are used as training points now.”

Piper had heard Tim mention that several times, while Natches seemed rather proud of it.

“What are you going to do when they find out you’re gone, then?” Gypsy asked as Piper stared into the darkness and wondered what the trip would have been like with Jed.

“Hopefully, they won’t find out,” she stated irritably. “Because, trust me, New York City would never be the same if those three showed up there.”

She shuddered to even imagine the chaos the Mackay cousins could still manage to create.

“Best-laid plans and all that,” Gypsy pointed out. “Surely you have a plan, just in case?”

“I’m a Mackay; what do you think?” She grinned back at her friend’s sister.

“I think you have one,” Gypsy reflected. “But I think you’re not so sure of it, and I think you’re really afraid it won’t work.”

“And what makes you think that?” Unfortunately, she was right.

“Six years in the military. The last two in the investigative side of the military police. I can hear it in your voice, and I can see it in your face. You’re a piss-poor liar, aren’t you, Piper Mackay?”

“Unfortunately, that’s far too close to the truth,” Piper agreed.

It didn’t surprise her to learn Gypsy Seavers was some sort of investigator. She had that air of secretiveness and quiet watchfulness. “I left Mom a note. She’ll find it in the morning, and I begged her not to say anything. And for the first time in my life I lied to my mother. I told her I needed to get away from the male portion of the family and I was staying with friends.” She grimaced at the lie. “What she’ll actually end up doing is anyone’s guess.”

“And how long do you think it will take for your brother and cousins to find you?” Rueful amusement reflected in Gypsy’s voice.

They would find her far too soon if she didn’t get very lucky.

“Let’s hope it takes a while,” Piper suggested, terribly afraid that if she wasn’t very, very lucky, then her brother and cousins would find her far too quickly.

* * *

“What the hell do you mean, she’s not here?” Dawg rubbed his hand along the back of his neck in irritation as he faced Mercedes the next morning, barely holding back a glare. He needed to talk to Piper about what had happened the night before. Catching her with Jed Booker had reminded him all over again of what had happened with Eve the summer before. He didn’t want another sister in danger because of her association with one of Timothy’s agents. He also didn’t want her endangered because she was trying to hide it from him. And he definitely didn’t want to piss Mercedes off as he tried to find out where the hell she had gone.

Timothy, the quarrelsome little bastard, got all kinds of out of sorts if he managed to upset Mercedes over her “babies.” But he’d be damned if those sisters of his weren’t going to drive him to drink.

Their antics were making him seriously consider a nunnery for his daughter.

“Dawg, give her a break,” Mercedes ordered, though her voice was calm as she moved around the kitchen and cleaned up from that morning’s breakfast preparations. “You’ve hounded her, Lyrica, and Zoey for almost a year now. Everywhere they go, everything they do, and everyone they talk to is reported back to you so you can fuss at them over their friends, potential dates, and acquaintances. I warned you last year they were going to get sick of it. Piper just got fed up with it first.”

Her arms crossed over her breasts as she stared up at him, her expression tight with defensiveness as her determination to stand in his way became more than apparent.

“And you know why I’ve done it,” he reminded her. “Hell, I remember a time when you were all for it.”

Now that those stubborn, independent young women were crying on “mommy’s” shoulder, she was backtracking from the protective atmosphere just as quickly as she had agreed to it.

“A year ago.” One hand propped on her rounded hip as she faced him with fiery dark eyes. “When there was a chance she was actually in danger. Even you admit there’s nothing going on now, no one is watching you or the girls, nor is there any apparent backlash from what happened last summer. I believe, Dawg, you can’t let yourself accustom to life without that danger. It’s not fair to make the girls live such a life as well.”

He was not going to allow her to draw him into this argument, not after having this exact confrontation with Christa after returning home the night before, furious at finding Jed in Piper’s room, and Piper in Jed’s arms. His own wife had been quick to rip a strip of his hide, first for not knocking, and second for daring to butt his nose into his sisters’ sex lives again.

He did not want to know his sisters had sex.

He especially didn’t want to know who they were having sex with.

“Where’s she at, Mercedes?” He wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction of this argument. They’d already been down that road far too many times.

“I’m not telling you.” Pure stubbornness pulled at her expression.

As much as those girls looked like they could belong to him or his cousins, Rowdy and Natches, he had to admit there were times, like this, when he realized they looked just like their mother.

“Then I’ll have Alex put out an APB on her,” he warned, trepidation beginning to tighten the back of his neck.

Hell, he hadn’t expected levelheaded Piper to be the one to test her safety first.

“No. You will not. Attempt it. Dare to take this from her, Dawg Mackay, and I promise you neither I, my daughters, nor Timothy will ever allow you to forget it.”

He turned away from her, rubbed at the back of his neck, and grimaced in frustration.

“I don’t feel good about this,” he muttered as he turned back to her. “Mercedes, I don’t feel good about this at all.”