Nautier and Wilder by Lora Leigh Read Free Book Online Page A

“All I can do is pray that if
     she’s in trouble she’ll call me. That and trust in the man Timothy has watching her.”
     She winked at him. “Watching her, Dawg. Allowing her to do what she has to do, what
     she wants to do, while an impartial third person stands ready to protect her rather
     than standing between her and what she needs. That’s the difference.”
    He shook his head, worry tearing at him as he stared down at her, wishing, just as
     he had over the past six years, that he’d been able to protect Mercedes and the sisters
     he’d grown to love so much from his father’s cruelties before he had died.
    He hadn’t known about them. No one had known about them but Chandler Mackay, and Chandler
     had done nothing to ensure their protection should anything happen to him.
    “They’ll still get hurt.” That was part of what he couldn’t bear. “If not physically,
     then otherwise. They’re too trusting, Mercedes, and too innocent. If we don’t watch
     out for them—”
    “Then they might get their feelings hurt or their hearts broken?” she suggested as
     she turned and began cleaning the stove. “We can’t keep them from getting hurt, Dawg.
     It’s life. You know that as well as I do.”
    No, he damned well didn’t know that.
    They were innocent, gentle, and deserved far more than he knew they had waiting for
     them if no one was close enough to protect them.
    “You do know it, Dawg,” she stated as she turned back to him, watching him as though
     she could read the silent denial raging through him. “You don’t like it. You don’t
     want to admit it, but you know it.”
    He refused to accept it.
    “I won’t let them get hurt, Mercedes. I promised you that when you brought them home
     to me. I told you I’d look out for them.”
    He had promised them he would look out for them, and he was breaking that promise.
    She shook her head slowly. “There’s only so much you can do, Dawg.” The compassion
     in her expression tightened his chest as he suddenly wished he had brought Christa
     with him for this confrontation. Maybe she could have talked some sense into Mercedes.
     On the other hand, she would have probably agreed with her.
    “Dawg, give her this time, she needs it,” Mercedes said softly. “More than you know,
     she needs it.”
    She needed it.
    But what happened if it was the chance an enemy needed to strike out at her?
    What was he supposed to do then?

FOUR
    P iper loved New York City.
    The pace, the energy, the sense of excitement that seemed to permeate every corner
     of the city sank into her senses. Her heart beat faster. Blood rushed quick and furious
     through her veins, and the ordered chaos, the shopping throngs and ever-present sea
     of faces channeled a chaotic pace inside her own body and filled her with elation.
    The first time Dawg and his wife, Christa, had brought her to the city had been to
     introduce her to the many and varied bolts of fabrics and exquisite costume jewelry
     and fake gems available in the small, out of the way shops and fabric stores there.
     Rhinestones, glittering crystals, clear sapphire – and emerald-colored stones—the
     choices seemed almost unlimited.
    Now, five years later, she still found the little shops and stores impossible to leave
     once she began searching for the items she needed for each design—those already sketched
     and those that built in her imagination as she found hidden bolts of unique or discontinued
     fabrics, bows, ribbons, and glittering stones.
    It was the first place she’d headed the minute she had rented her car that morning
     after arriving at the hotel.
    The black four-door sedan was actually much smaller than she preferred for a four-door,
     but the latest trend in economy and fuel efficiency had also inspired a new generation
     of car designs that she simply wasn’t as fond of.
    Driving in New York City wasn’t always safe, but it was rarely dull. Piper found her
     senses tuning in to the