Loe raamatut: «The Bounty Hunter's Baby Surprise»

Chapter 1

Six months later...

“I should have listened to you,” Seymour Tuttle said. The bail bondsman paced the small confines of his office, nearly tripping over Jake Howard’s feet as the little man made the pass between his desk and the door Jake was leaning his back against, his long legs crossed at the ankles.

Tuttle had called him into his office and told him to shut the door. That was never a good sign for Jake. Every time someone had spoken to him in private before, it had been to give him bad news.

Your mother is dead...

Your father is gone...

But usually Tuttle didn’t give a damn about privacy—his or anyone else’s. But since he’d just admitted he was wrong, Jake understood his not wanting anyone else to overhear his admission. He was surprised the stubborn old guy had admitted it even to himself, let alone Jake. That must have been Tuttle’s version of bad news: being wrong.

“What should you have listened to me about?” Jake asked, holding back his “I told you so” until he knew the specifics.

“The Davies family.” Tuttle uttered the last name as if it was a vulgar curse word.

Jake flinched at just the mention of it, and a twinge of pain clenched his heart, stealing away his breath and his words. He couldn’t speak.

But Tuttle didn’t stop talking. He rarely did. His wide mouth was nearly as big as his short body. “You told me not to bail out another one of them.” He shook his little bald head in self-disgust. “You warned me that they always run.”

Jake’s pulse was running now in overtime. He didn’t want to think about the Davies family, didn’t want to think about what he’d done, the extremes he’d gone to the last time that he’d had to apprehend two of them.

“Why aren’t you saying it?” Tuttle demanded as he stopped in front of him.

Jake blinked and stared down at the little man. Tuttle was barely five feet tall to Jake’s well over six-foot height. “Saying what?”

“I told you so,” Tuttle said. “You were right. I paid the bail and now you need to go bring back another damn Davies for me.”

Jake shook his head and ran a slightly shaking hand through his thick hair. He needed a haircut. But then he always needed a haircut. “Not me. That’s not going to happen.”

“You’re the expert on the Davies family,” Tuttle persisted. “You know where to find them.”

“In jail,” Jake said. “That’s where most of them are.” He couldn’t believe Don or Dave would have gotten bail again after jumping it last time. And if a judge had been stupid enough to give it to them, Seymour had been even stupider to pay it. “I told you so” wasn’t enough recrimination for risking his money on one of them again.

“Not her,” Seymour said.

And Jake’s blood froze in his veins, sending a chill straight to his soul. “What?”

Tuttle paced around his desk, pulled out his chair and plopped down onto it. The metal desk was old and scratched up. His leather chair was more duct tape than leather. The bail bondsman liked money, but he didn’t like spending it. Leafing through a sheaf of papers on his desk, he held up a mug shot. “Her. I thought she was different than the rest of them. She has no record. No prior arrests at all. That’s the only reason the judge granted her bail. That’s why I posted it, even though I know you warned me not to.”

He trailed off as if waiting for Jake to say something—anything—but Jake was too stunned. He couldn’t move as shock gripped him. Seymour couldn’t be talking about...

Not Lillian.

But she was the only female Davies now. Her mother had passed away when Lillian was eighteen, leaving her with her degenerate father, three older brothers and one younger one.

“Her trial was supposed to start Monday,” Seymour said, “but she never showed up for court.”

Trial. For what? What the hell was going on?

Jake’s spine stiffened. He shot away from the door to grab the mug shot from Tuttle’s hand. As he stared down at the photo, myriad emotions passed through him.

Guilt. He’d felt that for the past eight months every time he had thought of her, which had been always. She had never left his mind. He remembered how devastated she had looked that last time he’d seen her, how her beautiful blue eyes had been dark with betrayal and pain. She’d thought he’d used her. And he had. That had been his plan all along, to get close to her to find out where her dad and brother Dave were hiding, but then something else had happened to him.

Desire. He hadn’t planned on that, hadn’t plotted to get as close to her as he had gotten. But he’d wanted Lillian Davies more than he’d ever wanted any woman. With her shimmery pale blond hair and deep blue eyes, she was stunningly beautiful. And sweet. She had acted and tasted so damn sweet. Her kisses had gone straight to his head and desire had gone to his groin. He hadn’t been able to resist her. And he’d nearly forgotten all about apprehending her dad and eldest brother.

Maybe that had been her plan, though. Maybe she had known all along who he really was and she’d set out to seduce him into forgetting about the bounties on her brother and father.

Anger. He felt it now as he stared down at her mug shot. He could barely look at her beautiful face, and she was still beautiful—even with dark circles rimming her eyes. He looked instead at the charge printed on the photo: embezzlement. She must have played him, just like she had everyone else. Her boss, the judge and the bail bondsman. Lily-white Lillian Davies was anything but. She was a con artist just like the rest of her criminal family.

“I know, I know,” Tuttle said. “You told me that if I bailed one of them out again, that you didn’t want to hear about it, that you wanted nothing to do with any of them again. But...”

Jake had been adamant about that because he hadn’t thought he’d ever be able to face her again—because he’d felt so damn guilty over hurting her.

He’d staged their whole cute first meeting, literally bumping into her in the grocery store. She’d apologized when their carts had collided, even though he’d deliberately plowed his into hers. Somehow he had sweet-talked her into dinner and then he’d made it for her.

All he had been after was information on her dad and brother Dave. But he’d gotten so much more...

Had he seduced her, though? Or had it been the other way around?

“I’ll call one of the O’Hanigans to bring her in instead,” Tuttle offered.

“No!” was Jake’s sharp retort as some emotion even uglier than anger coursed through him. Was it jealousy? He’d never felt such a sick, twisty feeling in his stomach before. He didn’t want Lillian seducing one of the O’Hanigans like she’d seduced him.

No, if she was going to seduce anyone...

Images flitted through his mind, like they did every night when he tried to sleep. Images of her lying naked in his bed, her silky skin flushed with desire, her lips parted on a husky moan.

No. She wasn’t going to seduce him this time. He would not be conned twice. He’d spent the past eight months hating himself for making her hate him. He’d felt guilty and remorseful because he’d hurt her.

And she’d probably been laughing at him—as she stole money just like her brother and father had. She’d been laughing at him and her hapless trusting employer.

She wasn’t going to get away with it.

Not this time.

She wasn’t going to elude justice.

This was why he had resigned from the US Marshals and gone into business for himself as a bounty hunter. The US Marshals didn’t have the time or the resources to bring back all the fugitives from justice. So Jake had taken it upon himself to do the job.

“Don’t call the O’Hanigans,” he said with more control. “I will bring back Lillian Davies.” He’d spent the past eight months dreading ever seeing her again, but now he couldn’t wait.

His pulse tripping away with anticipation, he turned toward the door but not so fast that he missed the little smile that curved Seymour Tuttle’s thin lips. The old bail bondsman had played him—just like Lillian had.

He would deal with Tuttle later. Right now, he had a fugitive to apprehend. A beautiful fugitive...

* * *

Lillian felt sicker than she had during her first trimester when she hadn’t just had morning sickness but all-day sickness. Of course, that might have had less to do with her pregnancy than the charges she faced—charges that could put her behind bars for a very long time.

But jail was the least of her concerns at the moment.

Her heart pounded fast and her palms sweated against the steering wheel she clutched. She had no idea where to go now. Since ditching court, she was a fugitive.

She knew what that meant. She knew who might come looking for her. That was her biggest concern, even bigger than finding out what the hell had happened to the flash drive.

Her lawyer claimed she’d never received it. But dare Lillian believe her?

Or had he gotten to her? Her former boss.

Mr. Kuipers was wealthy, even wealthier since he’d embezzled all that money from his company. He could have easily bribed an underpaid legal aid attorney to lose the evidence that would have proved Lillian’s innocence and his guilt.

That had to be what happened. She couldn’t consider the alternative. Then it would only prove that Jake Howard had been right about her family.

And he wasn’t...

He hadn’t been right about anything. But the man was good at his job—so good that he would use whatever means necessary to get what he wanted. Just like he had used her.

She hadn’t been complaining at the time, though. Of course, she had been totally unaware that he was using her. She’d been so naive.

Again. Why did she trust people that she shouldn’t?

But Jake had overwhelmed her—with his good looks, his charm. Her pulse quickened just thinking about him, how he’d looked at her that first time he’d literally bumped into her. His dark eyes had twinkled with amusement, and his sexy lips had curved into that wicked grin of his. He was so damn good-looking with those chiseled features and overly long thick dark hair. And his body.

Tall, broad and muscular.

And powerful.

While she was naive, Lillian had never been romantic or foolish. She’d never believed in love at first sight—until that moment. But it had been like she’d always known Jake and he her.

Of course she had—she just hadn’t realized it at the time, especially since he’d given her a different name. He’d called himself Jacob Williams. If he’d told her Jake Howard, she would have recognized him as the ruthless bounty hunter her family feared. She had felt a flicker of fear at that first meeting—because she’d somehow instinctively known her life was about to change forever.

Her baby kicked her belly, and she moved her hand from the steering wheel to rub over the bump where a little foot pushed against her abdomen. “Shh...”

She needed to calm down; she couldn’t risk her anxiety causing any harm to her baby. She had to think.

Where could she go?

If Jake came looking for her, he was bound to figure out where she was hiding. But he wouldn’t come, would he? After what he’d done, how he’d deceived and hurt her, he couldn’t have the guts to ever face her again.

That was what she was counting on...

She’d also been counting on that flash drive clearing her of all charges, though. And now the flash drive was gone. What the hell was she going to do?

Should she break into the lawyer’s office and look for it? She stared up at the dark building and considered it. What would breaking and entering charges add to her embezzlement sentence? Too long to risk it.

She had to think of something else. But first, she needed some rest. Because she didn’t trust Mr. Kuipers, she’d ignored the judge and the bail bondsman’s order to not leave the state, and she’d gone to Florida and the place her grandmother owned but hadn’t been able to use this winter. To get back in time for the court date in River City, Michigan, Lillian had driven all night.

If only she’d called her lawyer before she’d made the trip...

But she’d waited until she’d been back in Michigan only to be told that the flash drive had never arrived. The lawyer had to be lying. Lillian refused to consider that another person she’d trusted had let her down.

She blinked back the tears stinging her eyes and focused on the street in front of her. She wasn’t far from her apartment, but she’d given that up six months ago, right after she’d been bailed out of jail.

She should have given up the place sooner. All it had done was remind her of Jake, of how he’d cooked for her the first time they’d met, bumping into each other in the tiny kitchen, bodies brushing against bodies, that awareness making her tingle everywhere...

It had reminded her of how he’d grinned at her, his dark eyes sparkling with amusement. She’d thought he was the one man who appreciated her goofy sense of humor. But he’d probably only been amused because he was making a fool of her for falling for him when he was just using her.

And because of how he’d used her, she would always have a reminder of him now. She rubbed her hand over her belly again, and the baby moved beneath her touch.

His baby.

But she didn’t want him to know that, not after how he’d treated her. She didn’t want their child to have a father like him—one so ruthless and uncaring.

He couldn’t find her.

Nobody could.

* * *

“I want her dead!” Tom Kuipers shouted the words at the men gathered before him. Some of them flinched. A couple of them looked away from him.

They might be appalled at his ruthlessness, but they wouldn’t turn on him. Unlike Lillian Davies, they knew what happened to people who crossed him. They were never able to cross anyone again.

He raised his picture of Lillian Davies, blown up from her employee ID badge, and waved it at the group of seven or eight men gathered in the middle of the warehouse between the rows of building equipment and supplies. It was after hours. No one would overhear this meeting. And no one would repeat the contents of it.

He trusted these men because he knew they feared him. He wasn’t a large man or particularly muscular, and at fifty-six, he was no longer as young as he’d once been. But he was so much more powerful than he’d ever been. And they all knew it.

“She might have altered her appearance.” If she was smart.

And Lillian Davies was actually smarter than he’d realized. He’d thought she was so ignorant and trusting. And he had counted on her unsuspecting nature when he’d set her up to take the fall for all that money going missing.

But she wasn’t tumbling down as easily as he’d thought. Instead of showing up in court for the trial that would have sentenced her to prison, she was fighting back.

And he could not tolerate that.

“Whoever kills her and provides me with proof of her death will get a huge bonus for their loyalty,” he promised. It was, like so many others, a promise on which he would probably renege.

Tom had already spent more of that money he’d stolen than he’d wanted to. He had plans for it, plans for a new life.

But they didn’t know he was lying. Just like Lillian once had, they trusted his word.

“Do you have any idea where she is?” one of the men asked him.

He glared at the idiot. “If I knew, she’d already be dead.” He would have taken immense pleasure in doing it himself for all the trouble she’d caused him. Not only had she not taken the fall for which he’d set her up, but she’d recently tried to extort money from him, too.

Did that damn flash drive even really exist?

Once she was found, he would have her searched for it, just in case.

But first, she had to be found. Then she and the flash drive would both be destroyed.

Lillian Davies could not hide forever.