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had barged aboard.
    "Enough," Ethan barked when he'd found Nolan sitting on the edge of his rack at noon, holding his head on to his neck with the help of both hands. "I've reached my limit of seeing you this way, Bro."
    "Easily solved." His big, bad self had managed to stand and actually stay upright with the help of an unsteady hand on the bulkhead. "Stay the hell away from me."
    Ethan had shot him a look. "Yeah, that's going to happen. Just be glad it's me and not Dallas who showed up."
    Nolan grunted but knew his oldest brother was right. As former Special Forces, Ethan still played on his negotiating skills from his stint as a Green Beret to win the majority of his arguments. Dallas, however, two years Nolan's senior, had more of a tendency to go for the throat than use diplomacy. Bucking the family army tradition their father had started when he'd become a U.S. Army Airborne Ranger during the Vietnam conflict, Dallas had chosen the marines. Ten years total—the last six in Force Recon. Enough said.
    Nolan loved his family. He wished his brothers and Eve, who'd opted out of the Secret Service to join the firm last year, all the luck in the world at E.D.E.N, Inc., but he didn't want any part of it. What he wanted was to be left alone.
    "Fair warning," Ethan had cautioned, clanging around in the galley making coffee and bringing Nolan to tears when he dumped a fifth of Glenlivet down the drain, "If you don't get your sorry ass straightened out by tonight, I'm sending Eve."
    Pain lanced like a stiletto behind Nolan's left eye when he thought of his twin. Eve was a pit bull packaged like a Twinkie. Because of all those soft curves and misty blond looks, people tended to underestimate her—to their eternal regret. Eve never forgot... and she took no prisoners.
    "Christ, no."
    "And Mom."
    Stiff-armed, he'd braced both hands on the galley table and dropped his head between them with a groan. He thought of his mom, happily settled in a gated community in West Palm Beach where she played canasta and did water aerobics with her "ladies who did lunch" and his father shot the shit every morning on the golf course with the boys. "I don't want them to see me like this."
    "Then do something about it."
    He dragged a hand over his stubbled jaw. "I plan to. In my own good time."
    "You're out of time. I need you onboard. E.D.E.N. needs you. Starting tomorrow."
    The hand on his shoulder undercut the anger and disgust in Ethan's voice and reduced everything to the most basic level. They were brothers. They loved each other, and Nolan knew his actions had been the cause of much pain.
    In the end, that had been the deciding factor.
    "OK, fine. What, exactly, can't you three overachievers do that requires my services?"
    "We can't be you. And you, according to Darin Kincaid, are the man."
    "Kincaid?" It took a moment to dig the information out ofthe cobwebs mucking up his brain. "The publisher? What be hell does he want with me?"
    "Shower first. Then I'll explain."
    So he'd hit the head—and caught a glimpse of himself in the small mirror above the sink. Death was warmer and had more color. Except for his eyes. They were as red as fire ants and burned like hot cinders.
    Feeling marginally human after showering, he'd joined his brother in the galley again. Ethan had peeled a cherry lifesaver out of a roll and filled him in on the death threats against Kincaid's daughter and Kincaid's personal request to hire Nolan as her bodyguard.
    "He read the newspaper article about your missions in Afghanistan and Iraq. Has always been a big fan of Special Ops. Respects the patch ... wants you."
    As they drank black coffee, Nolan realized the booze hadn't diluted his blood nearly as much as he'd hoped. He sobered up way too fast.
    "You went beyond the patch," he pointed out to his brother who had gone from Rangers to Special Forces—Green Beret.
    "And I'm ass deep in alligators on the Benton case. So are Eve and Dallas. Without you, I'll lose the