Free Nauti Dreams by Lora Leigh

“Maybe next time we’ll have a
    chance to chat for a while.”
    Dawg and Rowdy ducked their heads, but Natches’s expression never shifted, his eyes
    never left hers.
    “Greta, you don’t want to be here,” Dawg finally muttered as his head lifted, his
    expression concerned. “Let this go. Make Cranston send someone else to do his dirty
    work.”
    “But, Dawg, you know how convincing he can be,” she reminded him mockingly. “I
    think you and I both know I’m rather stuck here. And I do have a job to do. Good day.”
    She nodded to them, then moved past the sheriff, who had stood back, watching the
    confrontation. Natches’s eyes still followed her, silent, aware.
    Did the memories bring him awake at night in a cold sweat? she wondered. Did he even
    let himself remember?
    She tried not to remember, but she did. Too often . . . Remembering was a weakness,
    because each time she allowed herself to remember hell, then she was also reminded of
    ecstasy. And she wondered if hell wasn’t safer.
    “You want to tell us what’s doin’, bro?” Dawg stared across the table at Natches as he
    sipped at the coffee he’d finally ordered.
    “Nothin’s doin’,” he replied, flicking his cousin a mocking look.
    “Take the glasses off, Natches,” Rowdy finally bit out.
    And he didn’t dare. He’d been out of the game too long. His eyes showed what he knew
    his face didn’t, and when it came to Chaya, they showed even more.
    There were secrets he kept, secrets he was determined to keep. And Chaya was one of
    them.
    “I have you, Chay. Hold on, baby. Just hold on. I have you.”
    He almost flinched at the memory. The smell of gunfire, of violence and blood, filled his
    head, and the sounds of her screams. Screams so horrifying, so filled with rage and pain
    that he hadn’t known how to live with them in his head.
    “I need to roll.” He pushed the coffee cup back and dug into his jeans for a few dollars to
    pay the bill.
    He didn’t have time to fuck around here. Chaya and Zeke were on the move, and Natches
    was very curious as to the names on that list she had shown the sheriff.
    He was very damned curious as to why she was here to begin with. He had the official
    line. He had the rumors and he had the suppositions his contacts had come up with. None
    of those satisfied him. None of those reasons kept his hackles from rising every time he
    thought about it, or every time he saw Chaya.
    He tossed the money on the table and started to rise.
    “I don’t want to make a mess of this diner, cuz,” Dawg said then. “And if we fight, you
    know there’s gonna be a mess. Sit your ass down here and tell us what the hell is going
    on. Let us help you, Natches.”
    He stared back at Dawg, then Rowdy. He could see the concern in their eyes, the worry
    that he was riding that line again. He had ridden that line a lot in the past. The one that
    separated common sense from pure, bloody violence.
    What the hell was wrong with him? He couldn’t make sense of it. He hadn’t made sense
    of it in seven years and it still didn’t make sense. When Chaya was anywhere near, he
    didn’t know himself. He didn’t know who he was and he didn’t understand the needs that
    tore through him, nor did he understand the extreme possessiveness.
    In one hot afternoon in the Iraqi desert while he waited for the calvary to ride in and
    listened to the enemy get closer, he had found something he hadn’t expected to find.
    There, buried in a hole, he had held a woman, and somehow that woman had slipped
    inside his soul.
    How did that happen? In such a short time, how did one woman change everything a man
    knew about himself?
    “I’m married.” She had whispered the words, and they had been filled with pain, with a
    knowledge he couldn’t have guessed at, at the time.
    And what had shocked him clear to the bottom of his soul was that it hadn’t mattered. As
    he held her, he’d known that marriage wasn’t going to stand in his way. She