natches had given him and rowdy a loyalty that, dawg didn't realize until this moment, he hadn't given his cousin in return.

"fuck." he sighed, wiping a hand over his face. "i didn't mean to cut her, natches. son of a bitch, if i didn't want to hate her though. and i was wrong."

natches continued to stare out on the water, and it broke dawg up inside, seeing the pain on his cousin's face. hell, he'd have killed anyone else if they so much as thought to cut that little agent as he had. the mackay cousins stuck together, it was that simple.

"i'd have never let anyone else do it," he admitted, and it wasn't easy. "we might fuss a little between us, natches, but you know that."

natches nodded then. "it's the only reason we're talking now, dawg. it's the only reason my fist hasn't gone down your throat and my boat is still here. because i know that."

dawg almost felt a spurt of fear. how had he let his enmity, his fear for his cousin almost bring them to that point? fucking dumb redneck, he thought to himself. that was how. sometimes, he was still the dumb redneck he had been when he was young.

"she's not plain," he finally grated out. "but she's tough. and whatever she's dragging you into scares the shit out of me because you're not sharing it with us. and i know you, natches. i know you know what's going on. you're protecting her from us when you don't need to and risking yourself. and that's what's pissing me off about her."

he watched as natches lowered his head, his gaze slipping to his cousin's bare back, and he still flinched. after all these years, so many years, as the moonlight washed over the scars on natches's tough, sun-bronzed flesh, fury still spiked through him.

natches's father had done that. that mean fucking bastard had lashed natches until he nearly killed him. he'd broken his rib, got him down, and then beat the living hell out of him. when dawg, rowdy, and ray had burst into the house, natches had been curled in on himself, nearly unconscious, his back in ribbons, and dayle still laying the fucking lash to him.

and dawg had sworn that night, sworn to god, it would never happen again. that no one, fucking no one, would scar natches like that again, physically or mentally.

and still, something had had almost as profound an effect on natches as his father had. a woman's pain. a woman's scars.

in that second, he realized that was what pissed him off now. once again, natches wasn't watching his own back. he was more concerned with someone else's safety, someone dawg didn't know and was too damned wary to trust.

"natches, stop looking at the fucking water, man. tell me what the hell is going on. i watched you tonight going over those files. you put something together, and you're still trying to protect the rest of us. let us help you. we didn't take that from you when we were in trouble. don't do it to us now."

whatever it was, natches had figured it out slowly, because he hadn't hit the roof, he hadn't dug out his sniper rifle, and dawg and rowdy hadn't heard the rage. natches was easier to figure out when he hit a hard, fast rage. the slow ones, those were damned scary. and natches was in a slow-building rage.

as he stared at natches, the boat rocked again. dawg looked up as rowdy crossed the deck now. their boats were close enough to jump from one to the other. rowdy wasn't being cut out from this late-night conversation and dawg could tell from natches's grimace that he knew it, too.

"beer's in the cooler," natches said softly, finishing the one dawg had handed him. "get me another while you're at it."

he turned and lobbed the empty bottle into the trash can at the corner of the railing.

at least dawg didn't have to look at those fucking scars anymore. the sight of them just pissed him off, even now, so many years later.

rowdy got the beers and moved to them, his expression still as he handed them over.

"you two going to fight?" he asked, and his gaze narrowed on them. "i'm not up to refereeing tonight, i'll tell you."

dawg snorted. "no, i've just been trying to convince knuckle-head here to tell me what the hell is going on with his woman and that damned cranston. my neck is starting to itch damned bad. it's keeping me awake at night."

"natches will tell us when he needs to." rowdy shrugged, but dawg heard the question in his voice as well.

"your neck itches," natches said then, his voice eerily quiet. "have you felt the sights between your eyes yet? playing with you, targeting you, just waiting, because the time isn't right yet?"

dawg froze. his gaze slashed to rowdy's and saw the same shock in his face that dawg felt.

"what the fuck are you talking about?" rowdy snarled.

rowdy rarely cursed, kelly just didn't like it, and he tried to clean his mouth up. for a marine, that was some hard shit to do. and the fact that he was slipping told more of his fury than anything else could.

natches lifted his head then and stared at the mountains around them. the grief they saw on his face then, the heavy, quiet sorrow had dawg's guts cramping with dread. because he knew. god help him, he was terrified he knew exactly what was getting ready to come out of his cousin's mouth.

"it's dayle, isn't it, natches? that's who cranston is after; he's the one who was helping johnny. that's why he's playing games with you, and with your agent." in a heartbeat, dawg knew the truth.

natches grimaced, a tight, mocking smile twisting his lips before he tilted the bottle to his lips and drank. in seconds the bottle was empty and crashing into the trash hard enough to rock the can as dawg and rowdy flinched.

natches stared at the can, wishing he could free enough emotion where his father was concerned to just get mad. just mad. just enough to rage at the injustice of life that allowed something as rabid as dayle mackay to sire a child.

but he couldn't. all he could feel was that cold, hard core of knowledge inside him. the same one he had felt when he realized johnny grace was as dangerous as a rattler coiled to strike. his fingers itched to caress his rifle, to take out the threat, to make certain, damned certain the bastard couldn't strike at chaya, rowdy, or dawg. or, god forbid, ray.

dayle couldn't touch his sister, janey, at least. she was away at college, far, far away; natches had made damned certain of it.

"he's been playing with me," natches commented. "not right now, but often enough. he must have been busy this month, i haven't felt his gunsights in a while. but right after i terminated johnny, i felt them. i felt them hard enough that i wondered if he'd finally made his mind up to do it."

"and you didn't say anything?" rowdy growled, furious. natches could hear the anger in his tone.

natches shrugged. "i know how to give back. i let him feel me for a while." and it had amused him. just as he knew it had amused dayle when natches felt those sights between his eyes. once a sniper always a sniper, but once an assassin, a man always knew when it was turning back on him. dayle amused natches for the most part with his games. he didn't know how to target, didn't know any more than an experienced hunter knew. the wind positioning was never exact. he was always too far off. but he liked to pretend he could kill his son. the mess cook turned gourmet cook who thought he was a general in a revolution. it was so fucking laughable natches still had trouble believing it.

dayle mackay had the temperament for what he was doing though. he'd learned enough in the marines to know how to be hard. he'd made connections, and he'd kept those connections. and natches had known, as he'd read those reports, as he had begun to put the pieces together along with the mental snapshots of the past few events that had tied in. natches had known.

"how long have you known who agent dane is chasing, natches?" dawg asked.

natches could feel his anger, too. protective, that was dawg. and he knew dawg would never forget the night natches hadn't been able to protect himself. the night he had nearly let his father beat him to death, to protect his sister. and he would have done it again. if ray hadn't found a way to make certain dayle was too scared to leave so much as a bruise on janey, natches would have let his father kill him to protect her.

because no one in the damned county had the balls to stop it. they were terrified of dayle mackay. bullying, cold, mean to the fucking bone. and a fucking gourmet chef on top of it. it was almost enough to leave a man rolling in laughter at the thought of it. dayle mackay could make a meal that would leave a man crying in joy at the taste. and he could beat a man to a bloody pulp with the same cold precision.

"i knew before she arrived." natches finally shrugged. he hadn't wanted to admit it to himself. he'd refused to even consider the suspicion. but he had known. the day johnny had died natches had stared into his father's eyes across the town square and dayle had known who had killed johnny. and natches had known, in that one instant, who had helped johnny. hell, helped him nothing. johnny hadn't masterminded that little deal, dayle mackay had. and now natches had to deal with it.

"cranston has chaya playing a smoke game, and i know it. not enough to cause dayle to target her, but enough, he's hoping, to make dayle mess up just enough to rain down the wrath of timothy cranston on him. the wrong phone call. the wrong meeting with the wrong person. just enough to pull him in on suspicion of terrorist activities."

silence surrounded them. natches didn't feel the chill of the night on his skin, he felt the chill of betrayal in his gut. and of fear. because the one thing he hadn't considered until tonight, until that bomb had taken the other agent out, he hadn't considered the risk to chaya.

dayle had no problem whatsoever targeting her. killing her would kill natches, and figuring that out wouldn't take rocket science, especially not after the past few days.

"i'm moving the boat tomorrow," he told them then. "i'm going to dock her behind the garage for a while."

"the hell you are." rowdy faced him, cold, hard. "we stick together, natches. he'll expect you to separate yourself from us. we don't separate."

natches shook his head. "kelly and crista . . ."

"are just as fucking innocent in this as that woman you have in your bedroom now," dawg snarled. "i might not like the situation, damn it, but i'll be damned if you'll pull away from us like that. there's safety in numbers, man. and right now, dayle isn't going to take that risk here. we'd all know who did it. we know his style and his signature, he can't take that risk. you make yourself a target, and he can take you out easy."

natches scratched at his cheek and gazed out into the night. that was the only insurance natches had ever had against his father's wrath. he'd rubbed dayle's nose in it, too. he couldn't take natches out without the whole damned town knowing it. and a part of natches had never really believed his father would try to kill him, until recently.

hell, he should just pack himself and chaya up and leave. making a life somewhere else wouldn't be that damned hard. except there was no way in hell she would go for it. she was an agent, and she didn't break her word, she wouldn't betray dhs that way. she would resign, and that was a given once this assignment was finished, if they survived it.

"have you discussed any of this with chaya yet?" rowdy asked.

natches shook his head. he had only let himself believe it tonight. "she's sleeping."

she was curled in his bed, safe and warm for the moment, where he needed her to be always. safe and warm, and sheltering his child under her heart.

"she's pregnant." he let the words slip past his lips.