Deadly Sins by Lora Leigh

let it happen.
    She would be no more than a one-night stand. And that was something she knew her heart wouldn’t survive.
    It was something her reason for being here couldn’t accept.
    For the first time since her parents’ deaths, the first tear fell, and the puppy whined against Skye’s chest again.
    For such a small, young animal she was unnaturally attached to a man who didn’t want him. She didn’t want to leave Logan’s property. As though leaving might steal a chance of her seeing the man she had already decided was her owner.
    “It’s okay, little girl,” Skye murmured as the puppy whined again.
    Skye put the puppy on her feet before picking up a newspaper on the bedside table and spreading the pages across the floors.
    “I’ll get you a blanket,” she told the puppy as she bent and ran her fingers down the soft apricot fur as the pug lay down slowly on the floor next to the door.
    Dark brown eyes stared up at Skye despondently.
    “You’re not the only one he didn’t want,” she told the puppy softly. “Evidently, he didn’t want me either.”
    Unfortunately, it seemed she wanted him far too much.
    “Get some sleep.” She sighed deeply before moving to the bed and sitting down.
    Reaching out, she opened the drawer on the small bedside table and drew out the photo she kept there.
    Amy was leaning, her head against Skye’s, her brown eyes filled with laughter.
    God, what would she have done without her foster family, her foster sister, in those first years after witnessing her parents’ deaths?
    After seeing her nanny and her father’s bodyguard shoot her mother and father in the head before searching the house for her.
    Amy had kept her sane.
    She had made Skye laugh.
    She had made her want to get up in the mornings.
    And she had held the younger Skye when brutal nightmares had brought her awake screaming and crying.
    A tear landed on the picture.
    Wiping it away, Skye bent over with the pain that struck at her stomach, her chest. The agony of the loss had never broken her. She hadn’t had Amy nearly long enough to heal before a killer had taken her away.
    “Logan Callahan is a baby doll, Skye,” her sister had sighed. “He’s cute as hell, and so sad. Something’s going on there, and I have to find out what. He and his cousins are good men. They don’t deserve this.”
    Amy hadn’t told her what was going on. She hadn’t told Skye she was chasing a killer. But Skye had known, whatever it was, it had darkened Amy’s eyes and left her filled with worry for Logan.
    “One day, maybe I can find a good man like Logan,” Skye had said somberly. “Someone who won’t get killed like my daddy and mommy did.”
    Amy had smiled and brushed her hair back from her face. “I’m much too old for Logan, Skye. Maybe, when you’re a little bit older, we’ll find him again so he can fall all kinds of in love with you. I want you to have someone who will protect you, little sister. Someone who will love you with all his heart and soul.”
    That had been their last conversation.
    Days later, Amy had gone missing. Two days after that, a hiker had found her body, beaten, broken, horribly molested, and bled out.
    “Oh, God!” She hadn’t realized sobs were tearing at her chest as she clenched the picture, or that tears were falling from her eyes.
    She’d only been fifteen. Her parents had died five years before and still the nightmares had tormented her, terrified her.
    Finding her way in life after witnessing their brutal murder wouldn’t have been possible without Amy. Then, she had been taken from her, too.
    A soft whine had her staring down.
    The pup sat at her feet, head tilted for a second before moving to lick her ankle as though in consolation. A second later she jumped up, placing her front paws against Skye’s legs, obviously wanting up.
    And Skye needed the comfort, she admitted.
    She needed Logan. Needed his touch, and needed that something she had seen in the pictures Amy had shown