“Are you trying to become domesticated, Dawg?” she asked as he opened the wood gate and ushered her into the ranch yard.

He could still hear the nerves in her voice, her fear. The knowledge that Cranston now suspected her had thrown her. But there was no guilt in her eyes or her expression. Confusion, fear, yes. But it wasn

’t blazing; it was subdued. Whether Crista wanted to admit it or not, she trusted him.

“Come on into the house.” He unlocked the front door, pushed it open slowly, and checked out the open, airy rooms before leading the way inside.

The walls were unpainted. The floors were unfinished. The stairwell wasn’t banistered, and the upstairs wasn’t much better. It was, as he liked to tell Rowdy and Natches, a work in progress.

Kind of like Crista. He looked at her as she stared around the entryway nervously and smiled.

That same smile that seemed to worry Natches so much. Possessing her heart might not be easy, but he was damned determined to do just that.

SEVENTEEN

Dawg’s house was incredible. The large entryway held a curving staircase to the second floor and an open hall that looked out over the unfinished balustrades. There were no doors on the five entrances on the second floor, but sunlight spilled from the windows on the front section and bathed the hall as well as the foyer in myriad sunbeams from the tall windows that looked out on the graveled road.

To her right, a large, open entrance led into what she assumed would be a living room with another entrance to the far end into another room. On her left, farther along the foyer, was another wide entrance into a dining room. Crista moved forward hesitantly, staring into the room and seeing the two sets of French doors that led onto the wide porch wrapping around the house. At the end of that room was another entrance that led into what was clearly a kitchen.

“Come on, I’ll show you around.” Dawg led the way into the dining room, then into the kitchen.

“The foyer opens up to a back hall.” He pointed out another door as they entered a large kitchen. “There

’s a pantry, a washroom, and a small spare bedroom along the hall as well as an office that opens into the living room.”

Nothing was finished. By the look of the drywall and the dust along the floors, it hadn’t been long since it had been installed.

“I’m surprised,” she said as he gave her a quick tour of the house, upstairs and downstairs. “You’

ve managed this without a hint of gossip.”

He flashed a grin as they stepped from the stairway back into the foyer. “That wasn’t easy, either.

I bought the land about three years ago through a third party, and I’ve had the work done in stages, through the same people. Once it’s complete, we’ll file the proper deeds, etc., through the county. But it’

s mine, regardless.”

“So why hide it?” she asked as they moved back into the kitchen.

Dawg moved to the roughly framed center island where the picnic basket sat on the strip of plywood covering the top frame. He braced his hip against the side of it and looked around silently for long moments.

“Pure spite, probably.” He sighed, shaking his head ruefully. “The relatives seem to delight in knowing every damned move I make, so it’s become a game to do things they don’t know about and rub their noses in it.”

“What about the house your parents left you?” Crista had seen the outside of that property several times. The front of the house was all that showed at the bottom of the mountain it had been built into.

Dawg’s father had been said to be one of the premier architects in the country for such buildings.

“The place makes me damned claustrophobic.” He grimaced. “I’ll probably sell it eventually.”

“Once you’ve milked your relatives of all the satisfaction you can squeeze from them?” She smiled in turn.

A wry smile curled his lips as he stared back at her.

“We’re not exactly a close family,” he admitted. “Nadine Grace and Dayle Mackay are thorns in my side, not to mention Natches’s and Rowdy’s. If they could destroy Uncle Ray, they’d do it in a heartbeat. Unfortunately for them, Ray figured out how to protect himself early from them. They were snake mean even as kids, from what I understand.”

“Except Ray.” Crista had heard that herself. Of all the older Mackays, Ray was the only one spoken of kindly.

“Except Uncle Ray.” Dawg nodded, his expression flickering with affection. “Ray raised Rowdy right, and Rowdy helped raise Natches and me until Ray could get his hooks into us. Neither one of them gave up on us. Rowdy held us together.”

“Even to the point of drawing you into the sharing?” she asked.

A bark of laughter left his throat then. “Come on, we’ll talk while we walk.”

Dawg held his hand out to her, waiting, watching as she gazed at it a second before lifting her smaller, more delicate hand to his. Dawg twined his fingers with hers, watching as her paler, softer hand meshed with his.

It looked right. It felt damned right. Damn her. She had his guts and his heart twisted in so many knots he knew he would never be free of her.

As he led her from the house and into the tree-shaded backyard, Dawg found himself feeling emotions he hadn’t expected. Aside from the protectiveness he felt, there was a well of heated hunger, fierce possessiveness, and a gentleness he had never felt toward another woman.

“You and Alex are pretty close,” he said as he let her spread the tablecloth on the thick, well-cut grass at the edge of the small clearing that looked out onto a private natural cove the land created for the lake.

“We had to be,” she said as she tucked a thick strand of hair behind her ear and smoothed out the tablecloth.

Dawg set the basket in the center before lowering himself on the cloth and leaning back. Crista seemed more hesitant, sitting rather than stretching out, but at least she sat close enough to him to assure him that she wasn’t running from him.

“Your parents were pretty distant around people,” he said as she set out the small covered platter of still-warm chicken and began unpacking the side dishes.

“They were like that with Alex and me as well.” A little frown pulled at her forehead as she spoke.

“They planned Alex’s birth, but I was kind of a surprise.” The curve of her lips was tipped with an expression of subtle bitterness. “They didn’t want me. They gave me to Alex to raise pretty much. Mom was only concerned with pleasing Dad, and he was only concerned with her and his moneymaking schemes.”

Chester Jansen had always been certain a fortune awaited him just around the corner. He had searched for gold, for artifacts. He had nearly destroyed his small business playing the stock market, and he had constantly been taken in with fly-by-night moneymaking schemes.

“Alex did a good job raising you,” he pointed out.

“He did. Alex was already ten when I was born. He had learned to take care of himself, and he applied it to taking care of me.” She nodded as she arranged the chicken and side dishes before setting two china plates between them and pulling out the glass carafe of sweet iced tea and unscrewing the lid that covered it before pouring the dark liquid into drinking glasses.

“Neither one of you turned out too bad.” He accepted the glass she handed him, then watched as she began opening the food and placing the serving spoons into it.

“We survived.” She shrugged, glancing at him warily again. “He warned me about you when I was sixteen, you know.”

“Really?” Dawg drawled. “I’ll have to discuss that with him. What warning did he give you?”

“To stay away from the Mackay cousins.” She flashed him a teasing smile. “He said the lot of you were bad news to any girl who wanted love rather than nasty games.”

“And you didn’t want nasty games?” He smiled back at her wickedly. He had a feeling that some of those games she would have taken to like a natural once she had gotten older. She sure as hell took to them now.

She ducked her head for a long second before lifting it slowly and staring back at him in determination. “I didn’t want to be one of the Nauti Boys’ Toys. That’s what your women were called.”

“But you wanted to be my woman?” He needed to know. He needed to hear her say it.

Crista dragged her gaze away from Dawg’s and stared across the clearing to the serenity of the small cove they faced. Water lapped against the rocky shore with a soothing rhythm.

She had wanted to be Dawg’s woman. Even then, ten years before, at a time when she had no concept what it meant to be anyone’s woman. Her fascination for him had been soul-deep, and it had culminated in one heated night that had threatened to destroy her soul.

“I wanted to be your woman,” she admitted on a sigh. She hadn’t lied to him to this point. Lying was something she hated. She had hated it as a child, and as an adult, she hated it even more.

“What changed that, Crista?” he asked her then, his voice insidiously soft, gentle. “We had one night together, and instead of slapping me with a frying pan the next morning, you ran.”

She shook her head. Over the past few days she had figured that one out for herself.

“I was too young for you, Dawg,” she finally admitted as she turned back to him. “We both knew I was too young for you. I couldn’t handle what I felt for you along with what I thought you wanted from me. It was too much.”

“And now?”

“And now you’re blackmailing me.” And she loved him more now than she had then.

“If I hadn’t blackmailed you?”

There was something in his voice that pulled at her then. Something she was certain she would see in his eyes if she pulled the dark glasses from his nose.

She reached out and did just that. Slid them from his face as he watched her, met his darkened gaze and felt her heart trip in her chest.

He was staring at her like no other man ever had. Equal parts hunger and pain.

If he hadn’t blackmailed her?

“I would have caved eventually,” she whispered, caught, held by that look in his eyes. “One of those nights that I was driving around the marina just to see if you were there, I would have weakened. I would have walked out to your houseboat, and if you had been alone, I would have come to you.”

She had been weakening, and she knew it. Tempted by his smiles, his teasing, his determined irritation each time she rebuffed him.

“You came to the marina just to see me?” He reached out, his fingertips smoothing over her collarbone and sending heated spirals of need crashing through her system.

Crista licked her lips, and for once, she didn’t fight the need welling inside her. She didn’t fight the love she knew no other man would ever possess.

“Often.” She fought to overcome the breathlessness, the racing of her heart. “And I’d stop and see the lights on in the Nauti Dawg, and I’d have to make myself stay in my car. I’d have to fight the need to go to you.”

“You should have come to me.” His hand cupped the back of her head, and he pulled her to him.

“You should have let me love you, Crista.”

Crista’s senses exploded when his lips touched hers. It wasn’t the fiery, hungry kisses she was used to. It was a slow, tender exploration. It was letting her get used to the feel of his tongue against her lips before he slipped inside. It was sharing the taste of himself even as he drew hers in. It was heated, sensitizing, it was a kiss that drove the breath from her lungs and left her moaning with the need for more.

Her hands braced on the cloth beneath them as her hair enveloped them, hiding their faces, their kiss, shielding them in a veil of intimacy as his lips pulled back just enough to cause her eyes to open as a whimper of denial left her lips.

“I would have pulled you inside,” he whispered, his lips brushing hers as he spoke. “I would have locked out the world and drawn you to my bed. I would have made certain you never wanted to leave it again.”