He glanced at her, relaxing now, a sense of sudden balance invading that. That last measure of restlessness was easing now. He had Sierra back. Come what may, for the moment, she was his.

Her lips thinned. “It’s nice to see you again, too, John.”

She stared straight ahead, like the perfect little mannequin despite the edge of nerves in her voice. She better be nervous, because he was damned upset that she had run as she had. If she had stayed, if she had faced him, she would have been here with him rather than in an apartment without protection when a rapist came looking for her.

She likely wouldn’t admit it. Yet.

“I bet it is.” He grinned.

This might end up being fun. Hell, yes, he was going to make damned certain it was going to be fun. She had a whole lot of time to make up to him, he decided. A whole lot of pleasure to fit into a very short amount of time if he knew his father. And if there was one person he knew well, it was John Sr.

Maneuvering the Denali to the now empty airstrip, he hit the gas and raced down the clearing to the farm road at the end of the strip.

“Don’t worry, you’re going to have lots of fun,” he promised her. “I intend to make certain of it.”

He could have sworn resignation pulled at her expression before it cleared once again.

She was quiet again. Too damned quiet. This wasn’t the Sierra he knew. She wasn’t quiet. She was either laughing or she was raging. There was rarely an in-between. Happy or angry, that was his Sierra. But this Sierra was a stranger. A woman who wasn’t even bothering to pretend to be the little troublemaker he had known all her life.

That was okay, though. Give him just another hour or so, and he was confident that the Sierra he knew would once again appear. He was going to make sure of it. If knew how to do anything, then he knew how to piss his Sierra off.

John’s father had told her that John was now living on a houseboat, but Sierra hadn’t exactly known what to expect when they pulled into the small Mackay Marina.

The houseboats there ranged in sizes, colors, and names, spreading out to the larger, almost home-sized crafts at the end of the docks.

“I can walk,” she informed him as he opened the passenger side and reached in for her. “There’s nothing wrong with my legs or my ability to move.”

It hurt though. Walking for more than short distances could leave her breathless with the pain that shot through her bruised ribs.

“Nothing but the bruises that went bone deep, you mean?” he grunted as he lifted her in his arms anyway. “Don’t argue with me, lollipop. The walk to the Nauti Dreams is a long one and you’re not used to the shifting of the floating docks yet.”

He picked her up out of the seat, turned, bumped his shoulder into the door to close it, then hit the remote lock.

He did it all so seamlessly, with such male grace and effortless ease that Sierra nearly sighed in envy. No man should be able to move so smoothly. She was already at such a disadvantage with him, he didn’t have to make things worse.

“The bruises are getting better,” she muttered defensively, even though she knew they were still extreme.

“I’m sure they are.” The comment didn’t do much to stem the rising nervousness building inside her.

There were times over the years that she had sworn she knew John better than she should, and she knew he was angry right now. She could see it in the hard set of his jaw when she glanced up at his face, the glitter in his violet-blue eyes.

Those eyes should give him a feminine appearance, but they did more to maximize his masculinity instead.

God, he’d changed so much. He wasn’t just darker, his hair lighter. His muscles were harder, his chest broader. She was beginning to wonder if he was even the same man she had known in Boston.

“Here we are.” He stepped confidently from the floating walkway to the deck of a two-story houseboat whose side was emblazoned with the words NAUTI WET DREAMS. The play on words would have had her eyes rolling if she weren’t so damned tired.

The sliding glass door swung open easily and John stepped inside to the dim, cool recess of the craft. Moving several steps to a large sectional couch, he set her down easily before staring down at her for long moments.

“Stay put,” he told her, his voice rougher than she remembered. “I’ll bring your luggage in then we’ll see about getting you some breakfast.”

“I don’t need breakfast.” She needed to sleep. Between preparing to leave, the stress, and the early morning flight, she was exhausted.

“You’ll eat it anyway,” he informed her, arrogance fairly oozing from his pores. “I’ll be right back.”

He would be right back, which meant she had very little time to shore up her defenses, and to hopefully find a way to keep her heart from being broken. Again.

THREE

John didn’t walk back to the Denali, he stomped. His heavy work boots pounded against the floating docks as he made his way back to dry land and the marina parking lot.

Her throat was still bruised. He could see the marks against her pale flesh.

His fists clenched at his side as he fought to breathe through the agonizing fury. It tore at his insides with a force that made him want to howl. Son of a bitch. He’d kill the bastard responsible if he ever had the chance.

She was tiny, so fucking petite. He could span her waist with his hands and likely have room left over. Large, marbled gray eyes stared back at the world with an innocence that made him wonder, considering the crowd she used to run with when she was younger and the rumors he heard, if his fantasy dreams of that night with her might be more reality than wishful dreaming. That long swath of blue-black ringlets that fell from her head only made her look more endearing, more fragile. So fragile he couldn’t believe the bastard that bruised her hadn’t managed to break her.

Sierra wasn’t a woman who could be handled with anything less than gentleness. A hard wind bruised her tender white skin, everyone who knew her, knew that. She often joked that she couldn’t walk through a room without marring her skin.

And it always hurt. She would pout if she bumped against something, rub the offended flesh, and glare at it as though the weakness irritated her.

She was strong-willed as hell though, so he’d always thought it evened out. She would stand up to anyone, nose to nose, and had on occasion, out argued even John’s father. That wasn’t easy to do.

John couldn’t handle the emotions rising inside him at the moment, the thought of the attempt that had been made to hurt her. To destroy her. The pure anger. The need to go to his knees before her and kiss every inch of bruised flesh, to beg for her forgiveness for not being there to protect her. The need to demand explanations, to beg that she stay, to simply hold her, was tearing him apart.

He’d never had so many emotions surging through him. For a man that prided himself on his control, he was growing close to losing it. Because despite the bruises, he wanted her. He wanted to touch her, kiss her from head to toe, show her all the gentleness he could find within himself, and he wanted to fuck her until they were both screaming from the pleasure.

She was too damned young, he kept telling himself. Her gentle twenty-four was a far cry from his thirty-two. But she was his.

The thought implanted itself in his brain and he refused to let it go. Sierra was his.

“Hey, John.” The sound of Rowdy Mackay’s voice calling out had him pausing, his jaw clenching before he turned back to the other man before stepping from the dock to the parking lot.

Rowdy loped from the entrance of the marina to the parking area, his eyes hidden behind dark sunglasses but John knew the other man was likely processing every telltale emotion John couldn’t keep from his face.

“Hey, man, you were out early this morning,” Rowdy stated as he pulled up to him.

“I was,” John agreed as he continued to the SUV.

“Dawg said he saw your rig out at Hickley’s, meeting an unscheduled landing. You have problems?”

There it was. The Mackays weren’t just notoriously nosy, but also notoriously protective of their friends. And they considered John and his sister Rogue, friends.

It wouldn’t do any good to keep the truth from the other man; John knew him. Dawg was likely already running the Lear’s call numbers, ownership, and flight plan.

Stepping to the SUV, he leaned against it wearily and gave the other man the information he knew Rowdy would come up with eventually.

Besides, letting the Mackay cousins in on the truth would provide Sierra with an added layer of protection.

As he explained the situation, Rowdy drew the sunglasses from his eyes, his gaze narrowing, lips thinning as tiny sparks of anger filled his sea green eyes.

The information would hit too close to home for Rowdy. His wife had suffered at the hands of a stalker, a man they had trusted. One who had nearly raped Kelly while Rowdy was in the Marines.

John knew the other man still blamed himself for being away, for not protecting her.

Just as John blamed himself now because he hadn’t been there to protect Sierra.

What the fuck was happening to the world, he wondered. A woman wasn’t safe, no matter where she went, no matter what she did. There were simply too many men determined to prey upon them.

“How close did the bastard come to raping her?” Rowdy’s voice edged with latent violence.

“Her roommate frightened him off before he actually raped her. Her thighs, breasts, and neck are bruised extensively. I can see her neck . . .” He turned away, his jaw tightening as the guilt threatened to eat him alive. “Hell, Rowdy, I shouldn’t have left. God her neck . . .” He swallowed tightly. “That bastard nearly killed her.”

“Hindsight, bro,” Rowdy sighed. “That guilt will always follow you. You have to find a way to cover it, to bury it, or you’ll never live with it. And make damned sure it never happens again.”

Livid pain gleamed in Rowdy’s deep green eyes as John turned back to him.

“Kelly doesn’t sleep well if I’m not there with her, at least in the house at night,” he stated, his voice rough. “I never forget how close I came to losing her, and I never forget how important her and our child are to me.”

“Dad did his best to ensure no one knows where she is,” he informed the other man. “We’re hoping that gives him the time to figure out who attacked her. But like Dad, I have this feeling . . .”

And it was in his gut. The first time he had ever had the feeling his father described. The sensation of a phantom blade across his gut.

John stared out over the marina, his gaze moving instinctively to the houseboat where Sierra was awaiting him.

“She’s still in danger, then.” Rowdy nodded. “You have it bad man, if you can sense that. The only woman that ever triggered that response in me was Kelly. She keeps me breathing. Be damned careful, because if she leaves you, I don’t imagine breathing would be easy.”

No, it wouldn’t be. He didn’t have to wait to know that. He could already sense it. He’d already experienced the feeling a year before when he’d left town, walked out of her life. Now that he was back, he realized exactly how hard breathing had been without her.

He’d always known, in part, how important she was to him, but until that hazy night a year before, until she ran from him, he hadn’t realized how deep that importance ran.

“Let’s get this luggage to the Dreams,” the other man finally stated. “I’d say you can expect the family to descend on her soon, so save time somewhere, somehow while you’re convincing her to stay.” The snicker in Rowdy’s voice assured John that the fact that John was dying to touch her wasn’t lost on him.

Sierra hadn’t packed much. There were two suitcases, the briefcase, and a small box that he knew held all the family pictures she owned.

Sierra didn’t own much; since her father’s bankruptcy and death, there hadn’t been much for her to own. Getting back on her feet had been hard, and Sierra was a saver rather than a spender.