The excitement was about to get the best of her.

This was her dream. It was that one-in-a-million shot to realize every dream she’d ever had of what she could accomplish with the talent she had.

And she couldn’t tell anyone.

She lifted her head, moving her gaze from the letter to stare through the Jeep windshield, her excitement suddenly overshadowed by a heavy sadness. If she dared to say anything to anyone, then she would end up with more bodyguards on that trip than the queen of England. And wouldn’t that make a hell of an impression?

If she thought for a moment that Dawg, Rowdy, or Natches would consider just one of them accompanying her, then it might have swayed her. She knew better, though. For the past summer, they seemed to be everywhere together. Piper had even gone so far as to ask them whether they were married to their wives or to one another.

She’d even questioned why. Why had her sister been kidnapped the summer before? Who had done it? Why had they done it? All she’d received in answer was a closed expression and change of topic. And the certainty that her brother and cousins, along with Timothy Cranston, were involved in something far more dangerous than they wanted their sisters to be aware of.

Carefully pushing the letter back into the large envelope it had arrived in, she turned it over and stared at the address once again.

S. Chaniss, the address read. New York City.

There was no way anyone at the post office could really place exactly whom the letter was from or what it contained. Hiding it and the contents from curious eyes wouldn’t be too hard.

Putting the Jeep in gear and pulling from the post office parking lot, she turned the vehicle toward home.

This sucked.

The rebellious resentment that had been brewing inside her for the past year flamed through her senses with a suddenness that made it nearly burst into full-fledged anger.

It simply wasn’t fair. She should have been able to shout this accomplishment far and wide. At the very least she should have been able to race to the boutique where she sold many of the unique clothing designs she created.

She couldn’t even do that.

Her fingers tightened on the steering wheel as she drove out of town and made the turn toward Mackay’s Bed-and-Breakfast Inn.

As the renovated farmhouse came into view, Piper couldn’t help but acknowledge the fact that had it not been for her brother Dawg, then her mother would have died and she and her sisters would have been worse than homeless.

They’d been abandoned by Chandler Mackay long before the Department of Homeland Security had found the small house he’d purchased for her mother when he’d brought her from Guatemala. When they’d been thrown from that home, her mother, Mercedes, had been horribly ill with a lung infection the doctors had been unable to treat.

It was only after Timothy Cranston had brought them to Somerset and introduced them to Dawg that their lives had changed. Dawg had ensured that her mother’s medical care was paid for while Piper and her sisters had found security, and they had all found a family unlike any Piper could have imagined.

There was another side of that coin, though.

With the security, acceptance, and love the Mackays had given her and her family there was the heavy-handed overprotectiveness her brother and male cousins exhibited.

It was so heavy-handed that for the past year she and her sisters—except the eldest, whom Piper actually blamed their present state on—had no hope of actually living outside the stifling watchfulness they were suddenly surrounded with.

Slip out to a lake party and what happened? Before they could finish their first beer either Dawg, their cousins, or one of their cohorts—Sheriff Mayes, Chief of Police Alex Jansen, or some other tough-assed Mackay male friend—was there with an eagle eye.

Forget even considering the unmentioned search she had begun for a lover. She was fated to remain a virgin for the rest of her days, evidently.

At twenty-four, Piper considered herself far too old to have not taken a lover. And as much as she would have loved—loved—to have taken Jedediah Booker to her bed, the last thing she needed was one of her brother’s watchdogs keeping a leash on her.

Pulling into the inn’s parking lot, Piper tried to push back the regret and the hunger she couldn’t keep from building inside her body. The sensitive flesh between her thighs felt swollen, aching for a touch. Her clit actually throbbed, and she knew damned good and well that only a man was going to put out that particular fire.

God help her, she didn’t want a man as restrictive and just as protective as her brother and cousins. She wanted a lover, a friend, and a partner. She didn’t need a keeper.

It was Saturday night.

She had a week to make plans to slip from Somerset and make her way to New York. She was going to have to essentially escape. If that was possible. Because if Dawg had even a suspicion she was leaving town for any reason, then he would have one of his buddies and/or employees or agent-type acquaintances on her ass so fast it would leave road rash on her senses.

That, she didn’t need.

She knew the world she wanted to move within, and she knew for damned sure that neither her brother and cousins nor their overprotective friends would move well within it.

So, how to escape a town where the Mackays had eyes and ears everywhere?

Everywhere.

No doubt it wouldn’t be easy.

It would require a small amount of lying through her teeth.

Piper smiled.

Hell, she could do it.

She was, after all, a Mackay.

TWO

“You are up to something.”

Piper froze at the sound of Jed’s voice as she answered the call on her cell phone.

Lowering the smart phone, she glared at the number.

Piedmont’s Pizza.

“Since when did you begin using the phones at pizza houses?” Mockery filled her voice and she knew it.

A chuckle rasped across her senses. Even through the phone lines it had the power to weaken her knees.

“For some unknown reason my caller ID refuses to behave properly,” he drawled. “Perhaps they had the number before me.”

Yeah. Okay. She’d let him get away with it, but she was highly dubious of the explanation.

“What do you want?” She tried for a vein of irritation in her voice, but she couldn’t help the fact that she was pleased he’d called.

And she shouldn’t be. He was bad news and she knew it, especially where her determination to hold on to the secret of her upcoming trip was concerned.

She’d wanted to tell him so badly—him more than anyone else, she was beginning to think.

“I want to know what you’re up to, of course.” His voice lowered, the question carrying an interesting sexual connotation.

Or did she just want to imagine there was something sexual there?

“What do you think I’m up to?” she countered, rather than denying the statement.

He was like her brother: He’d never believe an instant denial. It was their mind-set or something. They knew the sound of a denial in truth and in deception. And Piper wasn’t much of a liar.

She much preferred simple evasion.

“What do I think you’re up to?” Amusement filled his voice.

The sound of it had a smile tugging at her lips.

“Yeah, what do you think I’m up to?” she repeated. “Surely you have an opinion on what it could be.”

He was fun to talk to; she’d known that years ago, after he’d first taken up residence at the inn.

“Sweetheart, when it comes to a Mackay, it could be anything and everything,” he drawled.

“You’re talking about my sisters, not me,” she surmised playfully, though her tone was completely serious. “I’m the quiet Mackay, remember?”

She almost gave in to a light laugh at his disbelieving snort. “Quiet one? Nah, you’re just the sneaky one.”

She shook her head at him as she began folding her silk-and-lace panties and bras and placing them in the small suitcase.

“Shouldn’t you be in bed asleep?” she asked as she noticed the time was well after midnight. “I thought you worked on Mondays?”

“Inspections tomorrow,” he told her. “My foreman and the job supervisor know what they’re doing. I think I’ll take the day off.”

Oh, great. Just what she needed: Jedediah suspicious and possibly keeping an eye on her.

“The job is near completion then?” His company, along with several others, was building the new industrial office park and warehouses outside of town. Jed’s family’s company, Booker and Son’s Construction, had won the bid to build several of the huge industrial buildings.

“About halfway,” he answered her. “You get to put up with me another couple of years whether you like it or not.”

“I think Mom has adopted you,” Piper reflected as she carefully folded one of the frilly skirts and its matching bag that she’d made into the luggage next. “You’ve been here since the inn opened.”

“Yeah, and she gave us a hell of a deal for the long term,” he agreed.

“I’ll tell her to consider raising the rent,” she threatened, holding back her own laughter as his chuckle echoed across the line.

“I think she wants to adopt me and Elijah,” Jed teased her. “She likes us.”

“Not after Brogan took Eve out of the house,” she informed him. “She’s still not happy over that one.”

Neither were Dawg and their cousins, Piper thought. As a matter of fact, “irate” was a mild description of how they felt about it.

Mercedes Mackay was taking it particularly hard, though. Letting her daughter go hadn’t been easy for Mercedes, despite the fact that she dearly loved the man Eve was currently living with.

“We’re not related to the bastard,” he said with a grunt.

“Aren’t you?” she questioned him lightly. “You could have fooled me. You, Elijah, and Brogan play a good game, Jed, but I’m starting to wonder if you’re not brothers or something. The three of you are definitely cut from the same cloth.”

“Meaning?” Now, wasn’t that tone just slightly arrogant?

“Dominant, domineering, stubborn, intractable, opinionated—shall I go on?”

“Hell,” he muttered, though she caught the slight vein of amusement in his tone. “I was just hoping for a little sex, Piper, not a complete assassination of my character here.”

“Phone sex? Why, Jed, I’m a good girl,” she exclaimed as though scandalized. “I can’t believe you’d call me for such a thing.” Her voice dropped. Piper let it become breathy as she allowed herself to remember his kiss, his touch. “It’s none of your business if I’m lying here playing with just the most amazing little toy.”

“Huh?”

His surprised little exclamation had satisfaction curling her lips.

“Shame on you, Jedediah Booker,” she chastised him, barely holding back her laughter. “My momma would be heartbroken to know what a dirty dog you are. Just simply heartbroken.”

“What kind of toy?” The growl in his voice had her stomach tightening. “Come on, Piper; just tell me what it is. What are you doing with it?”

The wicked, sensual, sexual pitch of his voice made her wish she were playing with a toy.

“Why, that’s just none of your business, Mr. Booker,” she informed him with all the sweet Southern-belle charm she could inject into her tone. “I guess you’ll just have to find some other way of satisfying your curiosity.”

“I can pick the lock on your door,” he told her then. “I’ll steal the damned thing.”

“Even if it’s you I’m thinking of when I use it?”

She disconnected the call.

Tightening her thighs as her clit pulsed in time with the throb of need in her vagina, Piper covered her face and fought back the highly unwise action of answering the phone again as it buzzed repeatedly.