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of emotion that he fought to keep buried and hidden.
    As they came up beside his jeep, Natches opened the door and stepped out slowly, his
    gaze still centered on the building. He’d called the little girl on duty at the front desk
    before he arrived to make certain Miss Dane was given the proper room.
    One that looked right out on the parking lot. He wanted her to see him, wanted her to
    know she was being watched.
    “What’s brewin’, Natches?” Dawg leaned against Rowdy’s gray pickup, his arms
    crossing over his broad chest.
    Natches lifted a brow as he took in the pressed jeans and white shirt his cousin was
    wearing. It was a damned far cry from the holey, scruffy appearance his cousin had
    before he picked back up with Crista Ann Jansen last year.
    “Snazzy-looking duds there, cuz.” Natches grinned. “Crista iron those for you herself
    with her own little hands?”
    Dawg scowled back at him, but his light green eyes, nearly a celadon in color, flared with
    impatient arousal at the mention of his wife.
    “Dry cleaners,” Dawg finally growled. “And I don’t think you called us here to discuss
    my laundry.”
    “Watch him, Natches.” Rowdy grinned, his dark green eyes, sea green, crinkling at the
    corners with mirth. “Dawg’s been a hair upset over the laundry. Crista put her foot down
    over the wrinkled, hole-ridden T-shirts he likes wearing to the store. She won’t let him
    play the disinterested owner anymore.”
    Dawg grunted as Natches smirked absently and glanced back toward the hotel.
    “That call you made earlier sounded kind of important, dumb ass.” Dawg sighed as he
    addressed Natches again. “What the hell is going on?”
    Natches turned back to him, glaring at his cousin for the nickname that was becoming
    more frequent.
    “You keep calling me ‘dumb ass,’ and I’m going to split your head open for you.”
    Dawg grunted and it was his turn to smirk. “I think it suits you. You go moving out of
    your houseboat, for solitude over that damned garage, and start working like a man who’s
    grown some principles, and I start worrying about you.”
    Natches’s nostrils flared as anger began to churn inside him. Damn Dawg. He didn’t need
    his damned advice or his snide-assed comments, which pretty much described the reason
    why his cousin was calling him names. Because he refused to listen to either.
    “Cranston’s running another op in town,” he told the other two men before he let that
    anger take hold. The rest of the accusation he ignored completely.
    He didn’t need to get pissed right now. He’d spent a lot of years trapping that emotion so
    deep inside him that it didn’t burn in his gut anymore. Keeping it there was important.
    Keeping it there kept breathing certain and Natches’s conscience clear.
    “What the hell does that fat little fucker want?” Dawg straightened and glanced toward
    the hotel with obvious animosity. “Is he in there?”
    “No. Not yet. Miss Chaya Greta Dane is there right now, and if my guess is right, she’s
    watching us right now from room three oh four. Do you think maybe she’s figured out
    we’re onto her?”
    “How did you find out?” Rowdy was watching Natches.
    Natches hated it when Rowdy watched him like that. Like he knew something, or saw
    something Natches didn’t want seen.
    “Anonymous tip.” Natches grimaced. “And that ain’t no joke. A call to my cell phone an
    hour ago—untraceable so far—letting me know she had hit the county line and was here
    for DHS. If Cranston’s lost more missiles, boys, I might have to kill him.”
    He was joking. Kind of.
    “We haven’t heard anything.” Dawg rubbed at his clean-shaven jaw as he glanced toward
    the window of Chaya’s room.
    She liked to go by the name Greta, but hell if that name suited her. With her multihued
    blond hair and exquisite features, she was as exotic as a tropical flower. Chaya suited her.
    The name rolled off the tongue, and in the darkest nights, as