Nauti Dreams by Lora Leigh Read Free Book Online

across from the desk and lowered
    himself into it as he considered Dawg’s question.
    “She has pretty hair.” He finally shrugged, his expression creasing into male
    contemplation.
    “She’s homely,” Dawg grunted.
    Rowdy snorted at that. “We’ve been saying that about every woman we’ve come across
    since Kelly and Crista got their hooks in us. Admit it, Dawg; we’re prejudiced.”
    Dawg glared. “I know a pretty woman when I see one. Just because you’re blind as a bat
    doesn’t mean I am.”
    Rowdy shook his head. “She looks okay, I guess. Can’t tell much with those loose clothes
    and the way she scrapes her hair back from her face.”
    “She smokes.” Dawg tapped the desk with his fingers, his expression worried.
    “You’re nitpicking. What’s the real problem, Dawg?” Rowdy leaned forward, watching
    his cousin carefully. “It’s not like you to nitpick.”
    Dawg’s lips tightened, then pursed thoughtfully.
    “Natches brought a woman out of the Iraqi desert with him on that last six-week mission
    he took. You know he was always goin’ off on a hit and taking his good ole easy time
    loping back to extraction so he could spy a little on the enemy?”
    Rowdy nodded.
    “Word got around. Natches managed to hook up with an Army Intelligence agent.
    Female. Beaten, tortured. He pulled her out and the extraction team picked them both up.
    After that, no one’s talkin’. Something happened after that, Rowdy. Something that made
    Natches darker than ever.”
    “Female agent, beaten and tortured.” Rowdy frowned. “She didn’t have time to break his
    heart, Dawg. A lot of shit happened to all of us in the Marines. That wasn’t a pleasant
    place to be.”
    Dawg shook his head. “No. Something bad happened out there that Natches doesn’t talk
    about, and I think she was there. Natches knew her the minute we met the team Cranston
    brought in last year. That night he went on a drunk like I ain’t seen since he busted up his
    daddy’s restaurant for him.”
    Rowdy leaned back in his chair and grimaced at that information. He hadn’t been a part
    of that mission. His damned cousins seemed to think he needed a vacation after dealing
    with the serial killer who had tried to kill his wife.
    But Dawg was right, something had changed in Natches last year, something that had
    bothered both of them for a year now.
    “Is he in love with her?” Rowdy mused.
    It was damned hard to imagine Natches in love with any one woman. He seemed to like
    them all equally. But there had been something different about how he acted last year
    outside the spa in town.
    Dawg and Rowdy had met with Natches there, while Kelly and Crista went in for their
    woman stuff. They hadn’t felt secure enough to leave the women unguarded. And Greta
    Dane—no, Chaya, Natches had told them her name was really Chaya—had been there
    following Dawg and Crista.
    Natches hadn’t been able to stay away from her and neither of them acted just normal
    around each other.
    “She’s on an op,” Dawg muttered. “I can feel it. Something’s getting ready to go down
    and she’s going to pull him into it.”
    “Hell.” They didn’t need that. Rowdy knew Natches. His cousin could be as impulsive as
    hell, and he rarely thought to cover his own damned ass until it was too late.
    Rowdy pushed himself to his feet and paced the interior of the office. He knew the
    operation that had played out the year before and it still kept him awake at night.
    “What was left untied?” He turned to Dawg. “The operation last year, the money Johnny
    got as a down payment on the missiles, was it found?”
    “Not hardly,” Dawg grunted. “Cranston was pulling his hair out by the roots when it
    didn’t show up.”
    Timothy Cranston, that rabid little bastard of an agent in charge. He should be shot with
    his own gun. Rowdy had had the extreme displeasure of meeting him several times. He
    still didn’t like him.
    “Who else would have helped Johnny,