"hell!" dawg pushed his fingers through his hair and stalked to the door.

ray mackay, rowdy, and kelly were waiting on the other side. kelly was concerned, but ray and rowdy were pissed off.

"god bless ralph grace's soul." ray shook his head as dawg closed the door behind him. "he's turning over in his grave."

"easy, uncle ray. we'll get things worked out."

crista heard the tone dawg used and wondered at it. he was comforting his uncle rather than accepting any comfort.

"i'll work it out," ray snapped. "with the business end of my rifle. you think you're the only mackay who knows how to shoot a gun?"

"dad." rowdy glanced at dawg, and crista saw the worry in his eyes. "let's see what we can do to help rather than shed blood here."

"seems like shedding blood would be the best help." ray grimaced, though he moved to his nephew, slapped his shoulder in that gesture of male camaraderie, and shook his head in disgust. "dawg, son, one of these days, you're going to have to learn: give those damned people an inch, and they take a mile. i can't even convince natches of that, not all the way down. you thought they'd back off when you let that land go. i told you johnny would never stop."

bitterness pierced ray mackay's voice as well, and crista began to glimpse the family dynamics that were rife with pain and anger.

"i'll get the land back when they arrest johnny, uncle ray. my lawyer will make certain of it."

crista watched, confused, as kelly walked over to her and leaned against the bar beside her.

"johnny's mother managed to win over half the property in dawg's father's estate," she told crista softly, obviously seeing the confusion in her face. "it was a prime piece of property and borders the land dawg bought to build the house on. she and johnny have gloated over it ever since. just as dawg gloats over the fact that he owns the rest of that valley and they have no idea who bought it out from under them."

"this is insane," crista muttered. "how could they steal his inheritance? didn't his parents have a will?"

"a will nadine protested based on several letters dawg's father sent to her stating that dawg didn

't deserve it, and how he wished johnny had been his son as well. they read those letters in the courtroom. i was there when it happened. i swear, crista, you could see something break inside of dawg then. for years, there was so little softness inside him that he would have terrified you."

it terrified her now. it would have destroyed most men.

"johnny's a dead man walking," kelly said then, her voice steady, saddened. "rowdy, ray, or dawg won't touch him, but natches..." she turned and looked crista in the eye, her own gaze heavy with remorse and fear. "natches will kill him. he's closer to dawg than he is to anyone else. he won't let this go."

and that would destroy dawg.

crista stared at the three men as they moved into the kitchen, and she could hear the worry in ray

's voice as he asked about natches.

"he'll be fine, uncle ray." dawg was assuring his uncle, but crista could hear the worry in his voice, too.

"you know he didn't start building that house until you moved back to somerset, don't you, crista?" kelly asked then.

crista stared back at her in surprise.

the other woman's face was reflective, her gaze assessing.

"i hope you love him as much as i think you do, and that doesn't even compare to how much i know dawg loves you. don't betray him." kelly's voice hardened then. "betray him, and you'll make some very bad enemies."

it was a warning, and one crista took no offense to. she shook her head as a smile tipped her lips.

"kelly, i'd die first," she said softly. "i didn't wait eight years to grow up and come back to him, just to betray him. you can forget the warnings, because they're not needed."

a bright smile tipped kelly's lips then, and a hint of teasing laughter filled her eyes.

"we're going to be great friends then," the other woman declared. "after all, we need each other to talk trash on them. trust me, you'll have days you'll swear you should have shot him rather than loved him, but it all balances out good. rowdy and dawg are too much alike. there are days i swear i'm going to shoot rowdy, but i know i could never live without him, so i resign myself to dealing with it."

crista let her gaze linger on dawg again. he stood with rowdy and ray at the other end of the kitchen. they were talking in low voices as they fortified themselves with the beers dawg had taken from the refrigerator.

his eyes met hers, and the corners of his lips tipped into an encouraging smile at he nodded at something ray said.

"dawg's different with you, crista," kelly said then. "calmer. not as prone to stand distant and apart from the others. he was doing that before you returned. slowly drawing away from rowdy. it was breaking rowdy's heart."

as she watched dawg, she could understand why he would have been drawing away. rowdy had a father who loved him, a family, and a woman to fill his heart. dawg understood what he was lacking in his own life, just as crista had always known what was lacking in hers.

"rowdy was loved," crista murmured then. "he had something dawg knew he needed as well."

kelly glanced at dawg, then back to crista as she nodded slowly.

"the change didn't come after he blackmailed you. it came with your return. dawg knew what he was missing, and he thought he'd never find it. when you came back, the part of him that knew how to love reawakened, crista. don't doubt that. and don't doubt for one minute that he would give his soul to protect you."

as she would give hers. no. she amended that. she no longer had a soul separate from dawg's.

it was melded with his and had been for over eight years.

"let's get more plates and get them fed," crista said then, calculating the amount of food sitting on the table and how far it would go. it should just stretch.

"good idea. food usually settles rowdy's bloodthirsty instincts." kelly sighed. "he's ready to help ray kill johnny."

he wasn't the only one.

as they gathered around the table, crista continued to watch the three men, drawing in impressions and letting the final pieces of the puzzle that represented dawg fall into place.

his bond with rowdy and ray extended to kelly, but there was no lust, no hint of desire, when he looked at the other woman. crista saw friendship, affection, but nothing more. as she watched, she realized that one of her greatest fears had been that of seeing dawg stare at kelly with arousal.

she knew the games he had played in the past with his cousins and found it hard to believe they could step away from it so easily. even for love.

but it appeared that at least dawg and rowdy had done just that. crista wasn't uncomfortable when rowdy looked at her; she saw no interest other than the casual interest that would have been expected.

dawg teased kelly, laughed with her, but he didn't desire her.

watching the interplay made her realize exactly what she had missed in the years she had been away, but they weren't years she would regret. she had matured, grown up, learned something of herself and of the world around her. enough to know where home was and who her heart belonged to.

dawg belonged to her. she felt it, where she had feared it before. just as she belonged to him.

"what do you think, crista?" dawg's voice drew her back from her thoughts and had her staring back at him. she blinked and refocused to see the heat stirring in his light green eyes and the heavy interest in his expression as he watched her.

"about what?" she asked.

"about taking tomorrow morning to head into town for some fresh baked goods. after all, as far as johnny knows, none of us know what the hell he's up to. how do you feel about shaking him up a little bit?"

she stared at the three men and one woman watching her expectantly and felt shock rise inside her.

"i think you've lost your minds," she retorted in disbelief. "don't you think that once he realizes i never left somerset that he's going to get suspicious? that he'll figure out that you're onto him?"

the smile dawg gave her was frankly terrifying. it was filled with expectation, anticipation, and a gleam of dangerous determination.

"that, fancy-face, is exactly what we're counting on."

twenty

"i don't like it!" crista exclaimed again, hours later, after the houseboat had cleared out and she followed dawg upstairs, where he carefully pulled a panel from the bedroom wall and displayed more weapons than she wanted to think about.

lord, the man was an armory by himself.

"it's perfectly safe, sweetheart." he was using that conciliatory tone that he had used downstairs.

she hated it then, and she definitely hated it now. it smacked of patronization, and that was something she had never tolerated well.

"don't you sweetheart me," she told him fiercely. "and don't bother patronizing me now that you can't blackmail me any longer, dawg. that's only going to piss me off."

"and blackmailing you didn't piss you off?" his eyes crinkled with amusement, amusement overlying pain, as he glanced around the opened panel and pulled free several handguns and clips.

crista stared askance at the weapons. she recognized the glock handguns; alex had several similar ones. that didn't mean she liked them or the necessity of having them.

"at least i understood the blackmail," she snorted. "i would have done it myself if i had the chance."

he paused, his brows arching, as he laid the two handguns on the dresser and reclosed and locked the panel as he stared back at her in interest.

"you would have?" his gaze heated, filled with arousal, as she watched his body tense in preparation.

crista frowned back at him fiercely. "don't go there, dawg. we're going to talk about this."

"of course we are," he assured her smoothly as he sat down on the bed and patted his knee.

"come here, fancy-face, and tell me what you would have done if you could have blackmailed me."

her lips pressed together firmly, controlling the amusement that would have slipped free.

"i wasn't talking about blackmailing you." she crossed her arms over her breasts and glared back at him. "dawg, johnny can't be completely sane-"

a bitter bark of laughter left dawg's throat. "crista, sweetheart, johnny isn't insane. he's highly intelligent; he graduated only one point below valedictorian. just under natches, who claimed that honor during their high school graduation. he's not crazy; he's a highly intelligent menace who will cut your throat if you turn your back on him. just like he did the driver of the military transport carrying those missiles."

crista stared back at him in horror. "they killed him?"

"the lone female of the group sliced his throat open. we suspect, based on the video and voice box in the cab of the transport, that he knew her. or him, as the case may be. we know johnny has portrayed himself as female through this whole deal. as you."

"he set the explosive in my rodeo then?" she whispered.

dawg nodded heavily. "he's the only one with a motive, crista. killing you would have made it look like a hit by the mercenaries and placed all guilt on you. he would have gotten away with the money, and the mercenaries would have been in prison scratching their heads."

"what about friends of the men you arrested?"