“Have patience with me?” he whispered as he buried his face against her neck again, holding her close to his heart.

“Always,” she swore, and he was warmed by her heart touching his.

“It may take me a while.” Closing his eyes, he prayed—prayed he could keep the evil of his world from touching her. “I promise to get the hang of it soon.” He lifted his head from her neck; then his lips lowered, touched hers, and he belonged.

“I love you, Eve,” he vowed.

And her smile completed his dreams, filled his life with light, and once again Brogan knew hope.

“And I love you, Brogan Campbell. Forever and always. I love you.”

NINETEEN

There was something about Eve, Brogan decided, that just made it impossible to maintain distance.

She’d declined the job offer before they had shared a shower, then cussed him out when she realized she was too sore to take him again. She’d decided instead to make the trip to the store for the groceries her mother needed, kissed him with enough heat to damned near blow his tiny mind, then drove off.

Shaking his head at her particular brand of revenge, Brogan mounted the Harley, listened to the smooth throb of the motor, then pulled out of the inn’s gravel parking lot and headed toward the Mackay Marina.

He’d accomplished what they wanted; now he wondered what those three intended to do with, basically, a license to kill with impunity.

It would have been damned concerning if he didn’t know the Mackays as well as he did.

Fortunately, he did know them that well, and he knew they weren’t stupid men. They wouldn’t risk the agreement, especially considering the compensatory package was for the single purpose of ensuring that nothing risked their ability to protect their family, friends, and the county itself from the undercurrents of treason and homeland terrorism, and the people who had been attempting to use the sheltering mountains as a cover for their activities.

The same thing he intended his own agreement for. He wasn’t a stupid man either. While ensuring the Mackays’ protection, he’d taken steps to ensure his own, as well as that of any family he might have. How much more dedicated could a loving husband and father be?

He intended to find out.

Pulling into the marina’s nearly full parking lot, Brogan wasn’t in the least surprised to see the three men leaning against Natches’s black-on-black Mercedes Roadster, waiting for him.

They didn’t look too damned happy with him either. Especially Dawg. Brogan was guessing Eve had gone to her brother for advice while he was gone. Not that he could blame her. It wasn’t as though Brogan had been there for her, or had given her reason to believe he would return.

Pulling the Harley in behind the expensive little Roadster, he inhaled for strength. For a man who prided himself on never asking anyone for a damned thing personally, he was about to ask the Mackays for a hell of a favor.

Stepping from the bike, he moved the slight distance to the three men and stared back at them without so much as a hint of the nervousness he could feel in his gut. His nerves were on edge, a sense of foreboding that made no sense filling his gut.

As he stepped to them, the three men watched him with narrow-eyed suspicion.

“Dawg, Natches, Rowdy.” He nodded in an attempt at politeness. “Before we take care of business, I need to ask a favor.”

Dawg’s gaze sparked with anger as the other two watched him with cool suspicion.

“Seen Eve since you got back?” Dawg actually showed his teeth.

Brogan turned his gaze to Rowdy, usually the tolerant one of the group. There would be no hope there.

“Dawg, could you stop . . .” being an ass, he wanted to say.

“Have you stopped breaking her heart? Because once was too damned many times to hold my sister while she cried over your worthless ass.”

“I still say, get the papers we need, then tie his feet to cement blocks and dump him in the middle of the lake,” Natches grunted.

Brogan forcibly controlled his grin as he turned back to Dawg. As he started to speak, the door to the marina offices opened and Ray Mackay stood in the doorway. Dawg might be Eve’s brother, but Ray was the acknowledged patriarch of the clan.

“Brogan, son, is Dawg giving you problems?” Ray shot Dawg a warning look.

“Sir, I’ve been trying to ask Dawg to accept my request to marry his sister Eve, but he doesn’t seem too inclined to let me get the words out.”

Even Ray appeared completely shocked by the request.

“You’re joking,” Dawg said, the look in his eyes nearly dazed as he stared back at Brogan.

“And you’re trying to piss me off,” Brogan decided. “Now, while I’m away from her, I’d like to go to the bank and take my grandmother’s ring out of the safe-deposit box I have there. But it will do no damned good if you refuse the request.”

“Why?” Dawg was still staring at Brogan as though uncertain whether he should believe him.

Brogan shoved his hands into the back pockets of his jeans to keep them away from Dawg’s throat.

It would be simpler, easier to explain what he wanted, further, he decided.

“My grandmother left me her engagement ring and her and my grandfather’s wedding bands,” he gritted out in irritation. “But I can give them to my fiancée only if a male relative gives permission for her to marry me.”

Dawg frowned. “She won’t like wearing a ring your first fiancée wore.”

Yeah, Dawg was just trying to piss him off; that was all it could be.

“Candy never wore my grandmother’s ring,” he snapped. “No other woman has even seen it since my grandmother’s death. Candy had no male relatives to ask, so I couldn’t have done it even if she had known about it.”

“There are ways around that.” Natches grinned. “You could still have given it to her.”

“Dammit, I didn’t want to give it to her,” Brogan snapped furiously before turning back to Dawg. “Yes or no, dammit. And if you say no, I’ll show her the rings and tell her you’re the reason she can’t have them.”

Dawg’s eyes widened in mocking innocence. “I never said such a thing as no, Brogan.”

“You didn’t say yes, either.”

Dawg grinned. “Hell, I didn’t. Did I?”

Brogan took a step toward him, intent on cracking the other man’s jaw on his fist.

“How bad do you want that compensatory package, Dawg?” he asked instead.

“Pretty damned bad.” Dawg’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully.

“I’ll take that as a yes then. . . .”

“Well, now, I don’t know about that. . . .”

“Hell, you have my permission to marry her,” Ray snapped, glaring at Dawg. “You want to see her cry again, moron?” he asked with more playful affection than true anger.

“I was going to give him permission,” Dawg growled as he propped his hands on his hips and stared at his uncle with a fierce frown. “There was no damned sense in making it easy on him.”

Brogan snorted at the smirk that curled Dawg’s lips then as Brogan glared back at him.

As Brogan opened his lips to say something particularly insulting, Dawg’s expression suddenly creased into one of concern a second before a blaring horn had the rest of them turning quickly. The two-year-old bright blue BMW barreled toward them quickly.

“Samantha,” Brogan shouted her name, sprinting toward the vehicle as it suddenly slammed into another parked car. Racing to the driver’s side, his heart in his throat, he jerked the door open, only just barely catching his baby sister as she toppled from the vehicle.

Mackays were cursing as Brogan caught her in his arms, the sight of her blood matting her hair from a jagged gash in her scalp, a deep puncture to her shoulder, and a slice across the side of her neck that only narrowly missed her jugular. Glimpsed, but not ignored by Brogan was the sight of her partner, Kraig, in the passenger seat staring unseeingly into the window, half his face blown away.

Brogan felt his insides freeze to jagged chips of ice inside his soul as he heard Dawg ordering an ambulance to the marina.

“Brogan,” Samantha sobbed weakly, her normally tanned skin paper white. “They have her; he betrayed me, Brogan. He betrayed both of us.”

“Who, Samantha, who do they have? Who betrayed you?”

“Kraig,” she sobbed weakly as he tore the bottom of his shirt before folding it to apply pressure to the wound at her neck, where she was losing more blood than she could afford. “I think I killed Kraig, Brogan.” She stared up at him, her gaze feverish and dazed. “I killed him, but he let them take her, I’m so sorry.”

“Who?” he wheezed, but he knew. He knew who had been taken even before she whispered the information. Samantha stared up at him miserably.

“Eve, I’m so sorry, Brogan, I tried to stop them but they took Eve,” she sobbed. “She was going into the grocery store when we pulled in. Judge Kiser’s big white truck pulled up and his foreman jumped out and grabbed her. I tried to get out of the car and save her, but then Kraig pulled a knife on me. He sliced me pretty good until I could get a shot off. My phone got damaged in the fight—thank God you told me you were meeting Dawg here,” she whispered hoarsely as Brogan stared down at her and felt a darkness unlike anything he had ever known before fill his soul.

Brogan could hear Ray, Dawg, Rowdy, and Natches as they contacted Alex Jansen, John Walker, and Sheriff Zeke Mayes, and ordered them to the marina.

“Forgive me, Brogan,” Samantha cried weakly. “Please forgive me.”

“It’s not your fault, Samantha, I promise, I don’t blame you,” he managed to say through the awful buzzing that filled his mind.

“Samantha. Samantha, sweetie.” Dawg knelt beside them as he tore his own shirt from his back, folded it, and pressed it to her head wound. “Did Kraig say anything?”

“He said you and Brogan would know why.” She stared back at Brogan painfully. “He said I would be dead, but you would know why.”

“No, Samantha.” He held her to him, cradling her against his chest as Dawg fought to stem the flow of blood from her wounds. “You’ve never failed me, sweetheart.” Brogan stared at Dawg, feeling nothing inside him, not even desperation.

Dawg blew out a hard breath. “I should have known—she told me DHS was watching Judge Kiser’s home and suspected him of being part of the Freedom League with Dayle Mackay, before Dayle’s death. I should have checked into it immediately.”

“When did she tell you this?” Brogan narrowed his eyes on Dawg. “DHS has not had Judge Kiser under surveillance.”

Dawg frowned back at him. “Eve overheard Jed talking about watching Kiser’s house. She told me about it the other day at the family reunion.”

The ambulance screamed into the marina followed by Zeke, Alex, and John Walker’s vehicles. Immediately the EMTs surrounded Samantha and the dead Kraig still in the car.

“Find her, Brogan,” Samantha cried as the EMTs lifted her carefully to a gurney. “They’re going to kill her.”

Agony threatened the ice that had his emotions in deep freeze, saving his sanity. As Brogan rose to his feet, Donny and Sandi pushed through the crowd surrounding them, and went straight to Dawg and pulled his attention to them as Donny hurriedly whispered something quickly in Dawg’s ear.

“Brogan, the office,” Dawg ordered, staring around at the crowd. They moved quickly to the marina office, closing the door behind them as Dawg turned to Donny as Brogan glared at them. Donny shocked him, though, Donny and Sandi. They flashed their badges and identifications declaring them FBI Special Agents Clarke. Hell, they were married.

“We know where she’s at,” Sandi said in a coolly authoritative tone.