by Erika Wilde
Her fingers curled around the steering wheel, and she stared straight ahead as the wipers swished back and forth. “No, I’ve never gone all the way in a car before. Just foreplay stuff.” Finally, she slanted a curious look his way. “Have you?”
“I’ve made it as far as third base in the back seat of a car with my senior prom date, but never all the way,” he admitted with a grin. “But there’s a first time for everything, even having hot, dirty sex in a car, don’t you think?”
She inhaled deeply. Her chest rose and her taut nipples grazed the material of her blouse, confirming that the thought thrilled her as much as it did him. “I’m thinking we shouldn’t venture down that particular path,” she said in a practical tone.
Lifting his hand, he stroked his fingers down the side of her neck, loving the feel of her soft skin and the way his touch made her shiver. “Don’t discount anything between us, Jo,” he murmured huskily, meaningfully.
“I’m not discounting anything at all.” Her reply was candid and portentous, matching the sexy, brazen smile quirking the corner of her mouth. “I just meant that this probably isn’t the best conversation to have right now, considering the long drive ahead of us.”
He winked at her. “We could consider it verbal foreplay.”
She shifted restlessly in her seat, seemingly already hot and bothered by their discussion. “How about we save that arousing subject matter for another time, when I don’t have to concentrate on driving in the rain?” she suggested prudently. “Now hand over a cookie and a change of subject, please.”
Satisfied that she was fully, sensually aware of him, despite her request to temporarily end their sexy debate, he granted her wish. “Change of subject coming up, along with junk food.” He ripped open the bag of shortbread treats, and the scent of rich milk chocolate permeated the air. “How long have you been a bounty hunter?” he asked conversationally.
“The politically correct term is bail recovery agent,” she said, the amusement in her voice telling him that his choice of topic was one she was comfortable talking about. “I’ve been around the business since I was seventeen, but I’ve only been an actual certified agent for the past two years. I went for training and my license after I quit the police force and went to work for my brother, Cole, at his investigative firm.”
Pulling a cookie from the bag, he bit it in half and lifted the other section to Jo’s mouth. When she gave him a perplexed look, he smiled and said, “You drive, and I’ll keep the supply of chocolate coming.”
She opened her mouth and accepted his offering and he deliberately let his fingers linger on her bottom lip. “Thank you,” she murmured, and chewed the confection.
“You’re welcome.” He licked the taste of chocolate and the sweetness of Jo from his thumb. “I have to say, seventeen seems kind of young to be exposed to such a rough business, considering you’re dealing with dangerous criminals.” He couldn’t imagine allowing a daughter or sister of his to take an active interest in the search and seizure of delinquents. “Or is that what your dad does for a living?”
She accepted another half-eaten cookie and shook her head. “No, my father is dead. He was a police officer, too, and was shot and killed in the line of duty when I was sixteen. For the most part Cole raised me after that, though my other brother, Noah, helped out, too, until he joined the Marines six months after my dad passed away.”
He contemplated her answer, and realized one crucial element was missing. “Where was your mother during all this?”
Her lips flattened into a grim line. “That’s a story all in itself.”
He heard the tinge of bitterness in her voice and discovered the need to understand its source. “I’m all ears.”
She tipped her head in his direction, her gaze flickering with doubt. “You sure you want to hear all the sordid details of my unorthodox family life?”
“I wouldn’t ask if I wasn’t interested.” And he didn’t think her life could be any more dysfunctional than his own had been. “Besides, you’re the one who didn’t want to talk about sex,” he reminded her, flashing an irresistible grin. “And we’ve got a good hour and a half to fill before we get to Medford.”
“All right,” she conceded, “and when I see you nodding off, I’ll know you’ve heard enough of my boring tale.”
“I can’t imagine anything about you boring me, sweetheart, but give it your best shot.” He filled her mouth with the other half of the cookie he’d nibbled on.
She chewed and swallowed, seemingly gathering her thoughts. “My mother and father divorced when I was five, which wasn’t so surprising considering they were always arguing about something. From what Cole has told me, my mom was having an affair with a guy she worked with, and when Peter Shaw was offered an intercompany transfer to Prescott, Arizona, my mother decided to end her current marriage to my dad to go with him.”
“And you and your brothers stayed with your father?” he guessed.
“No. It wasn’t enough that my mother was leaving my father for another man, she wanted to make him suffer even more than that and used me as a way to hurt my father because she knew I was daddy’s little girl. I adored my father. He was always larger than life to me.” She brushed errant cookie crumbs from her jean-clad thigh. “Anyway, my mother fought and won full custody of me, left my older brothers with my dad, and off we went to Arizona, where I was ignored for the most part because my mother was so caught up in her new marriage.”
Compassion welled up in him. “That must have been pretty difficult for all of you, being separated like that.”
She nodded. “Yeah, it was. I can remember feeling so lost and confused and homesick for my dad and brothers, but I was only allowed to see them during summer, winter, and spring vacations. That pattern went on for three years, until my mother was killed in a car accident.”
“I take it your dad was finally granted custody?”
“Not at first, and not easily.” Lightning flashed outside the vehicle, followed by an ominous rumble of thunder as the storm unleashed its fury and the black clouds overhead finally let loose a downpour of rain.
“What happened?” he asked.
“Peter held on to me for six months, fighting for custody of me in some warped way to hang on to my mother’s memory,” she went on, slowing her speed and switching the wipers to high to keep up with the steady downpour. “But he ultimately lost any rights, thank God. I was eight at the time, and when I returned to Oakland to live permanently with my dad, both of my brothers became very protective of me. Especially Cole, who was the one who took on a good part of the responsibility of raising me since our father worked varying shifts for the police department.”
He pilfered another cookie to share. “I’m not surprised that he was protective of you, considering you were the baby of the family, the only girl, and you all had been separated for three years.”
She narrowed her gaze at him, that he dared to side with her overbearing sibling. “I couldn’t even go to the bathroom without letting Cole know where I was off to,” she said, an exaggeration, Dean was certain. “Trust me, the coddling and the constant chaperoning was overkill.”
Only to a very independent, stubborn young girl who’d grown into an equally obstinate woman, he thought with a mild degree of amusement he knew better than to express.
Twisting the top off the water bottle, he took a long drink. Once his thirst was quenched he said, “Back to my original question. How did you learn the tricks of the bounty hunter trade, especially at the young age of seventeen?”
“Bail recovery,” she reminded him with a half grin. Accepting the plastic bottle he held out to her, she took a generous swallow. “Cole was twenty-one when my father died, and at the time he was going to college during the day to get his degree in criminal justice and working part-time at night as a bouncer at a local dance club. Since I was a minor, Cole had to apply for guardianship, which he was granted, but he also realized he now had to support me and my brother.�
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“Did he quit college?”
“Cole?” Her voice held a cynical note, underscored with reluctant pride. “No, he managed to juggle school while raising me and my brother, and holding down a full-time job. He’s the most single-minded, ambitious person I know—to the point that he has tunnel vision, never deviating from his goals, or work, or what he believes is expected of him.”
Jo could have been talking about him. “Hey, I know someone like that.”
“At least you’re beginning to realize that there’s more to life than the next project, case, or contract.” Warmth and humidity from the outside storm found its way into the truck, and Jo turned the air-conditioning on low to ward off the tropical heat. “I don’t hold out the same hope for Cole. He’s been programmed to be the responsible one for so long, he doesn’t know how to stop and smell the flowers or, in his case, see that his own secretary is hot for him.”
Dean’s brows rose in surprise. “Really?”
“Yeah, really.” She shook her head in disgust at her brother’s inability to take note of a woman’s obvious interest in him. “Then again, the mere fact that Melodie Turner is the daughter of the man who was once my father’s sergeant and best friend, and still a mentor for Cole, would make Mel off-limits to my dense brother anyway.”
Dean chuckled. He couldn’t wait to meet her brother and form his own opinion of the man, which he suspected would differ drastically from Jo’s.
“Back to my story,” she said, putting the conversation on its original track. “After my father died, Cole went to work for a private investigator who was a good friend of my dad’s, mostly doing surveillance and security work and learning the ins and outs of the business while finishing up his degree. In order to earn extra money, he started picking up recovery cases from a local bondsman. And because Noah was off in the Marines, there were times when Cole had to take me along on a job during the summer months when I wasn’t in school because there wasn’t anyone to watch me, and he didn’t want to leave me alone.”
She cast him a quick glance and seemingly read the thoughts filtering through his mind. “Yeah, I know it was kinda unethical taking a minor on those runs, but as a teenager who led a sheltered life thanks to my brother’s overprotectiveness, I thought it was cool.”
He heard the undeniable excitement in her voice and couldn’t help the smile that formed. “And that’s how you learned the business?”
She nodded, staring ahead as her headlights slashed through the heavy deluge of rain. “That was the start of it, and spending that time with Cole made me realize how much I enjoy the chase and capture, but of course, I was too young at the time to actually help him in any way, not that he’d have let me get involved, even if I’d wanted to.”
She took another drink, licked the droplets of water from her lips with her tongue, and continued. “Over the years, Cole continued picking up bail recovery jobs, and even saved up enough money to put me through college and open his own investigative company. And I have to say, after raising me for so many years, he wasn’t too thrilled when I decided I wanted to go into law enforcement, like our father.”
He munched into another cookie, wondering if she’d been out to prove something when she’d made that decision, and slipped the other half of the chocolate-covered shortbread into her mouth. “You were his baby sister and I’m sure he worried about you getting hurt.”
“Being his baby sister is just one of the many strikes against me,” she said around a mouthful of cookie, followed by a frustrated sigh. “Being female doesn’t help, as well as being a featherweight, as my other brother, Noah, so fondly loves to call me.”
He tipped his head, amused and curious at the same time. “‘Featherweight’?”
“Yeah, as in small, delicate, and petite,” she told him.
He took in her slender but toned stature, liking the package he saw. “From my viewpoint, it’s not a bad combination.”
She gave a very unladylike snort of disagreement. “My size and gender have always put me at a disadvantage with my brothers, especially when I made the decision to become a police officer. A lot of my colleagues, and even the men I dated, didn’t believe I was capable of handling the risk and rigors of the job.” Her voice trailed off and she glanced out the driver’s side window, away from him and toward the Oregon mountains surrounding them. “And I suppose I proved them right,” she added in an aching whisper that was so soft he wasn’t sure the painful comment had been meant for his ears to hear.
He remained quiet, waiting for her to offer more, but her continued silence indicated that she wasn’t willing to share an explanation. And when she looked back at him and he was privy to the grief and sadness in her eyes, he realized he wasn’t willing to push the issue right then.
A slow smile chased away some of the anguish he’d witnessed. “More than you wanted to know about me, I’m sure,” she murmured.
“Not at all.” If anything, she’d only whet his interest. He saw her as a woman struggling for her own individual identity, acceptance of herself, and respect for her abilities. After learning about her turbulent childhood and her free-spirited nature being tamped, he understood why.
Yet he suspected she was hiding other secrets, too, and he wanted to uncover them all, layer by intriguing layer.
“I’d like to know a whole lot more,” he said, his voice low and deeply genuine. “Anything and everything I can learn about you, Jo Sommers.”
She laughed, her fingers idly tracing the grooves in the steering wheel. “After the conversation we just had, I don’t think there’s much left to learn.”
“Sure there is,” he drawled, undaunted by her attempt to curb his interest. “Like, is your real name Jo, or is it short for something else?”
Surprise lit her eyes at his uncomplicated, casual question. Obviously, she’d been expecting something more personal. “My full name is Joelle, and my brothers shortened it to Jo when I was a baby.” She shrugged. “The nickname kinda carried on through the years.”
“Joelle,” he repeated, testing her given name on his tongue and enjoying how soft and feminine it sounded. “I like it. It’s beautiful and unique, just like you, while Jo suits your determined, obstinate, and confident side.”
She grinned wryly. “Thank you, I think.”
“It was meant as a compliment, and you’re welcome,” he replied, watching as she glanced down at the gauges on the control panel in front of her, which she seemed to be checking more and more often the past hour. When a slight, concerned frown marred her brows, he asked, “Is everything okay?”
“I’m not sure.” Her gaze ventured from the panel, to the rain-slicked road ahead, then back again. “For some reason, the temperature gauge is starting to run hotter than normal.”
They continued on despite her worry, but half an hour later it was obvious that something was very wrong. With the temperature needle climbing steadily into the red danger zone, and the first signs of steam rising from the front of the Suburban, there was no doubt in either of their minds that there was a problem with the engine.
They passed a sign indicating an upcoming off-ramp seemingly out in the middle of nowhere, and since Medford was still a good fifteen miles away, Jo was forced to make a split-second decision. “I’m going to have to pull off this exit and get us to a gas station.”
There was no sign of life in either direction, so she took a chance and made a right turn. The unevenly paved road wound its way through dense forests of trees, broken by occasional hills and green land and pastures…and nothing else. Two miles off the interstate, the vehicle gave a huge jarring shudder, and the engine shut down, forcing Jo to coast the mechanical beast to the gravel shoulder of the road where they came to their final resting place.
She glared up at the furious, stormy sky and blew an upward stream of breath that made the loose tendrils of hair around her face flutter against her forehead. “Dammit,” she muttered, clearly annoyed at their less-than-desirable predicamen
t. “What the hell could be wrong? Cole just had the truck serviced last month.”
“It’s probably something no one could have caught ahead of time,” he said, opting for a practical excuse. “I’ll go check under the hood and see what, if anything, I can find wrong.”
He reached for the door handle, ready to brave the driving rain for her, but she grabbed the sleeve of his shirt to hold him back. “I’ll do it.”
The mutinous tilt to her chin didn’t bode well for an argument on his end, yet he wasn’t about to sit in the car while she checked the engine, no matter how good her mechanical skills might be. “A second pair of eyes can’t hurt, Jo.”
She hesitated, then finally realizing that he wasn’t going to back down, she relented. “Fine.” Unlatching her seat belt, she twisted around and flattened the back seat so she could crawl to the back cargo area. Opening a side compartment, she retrieved a rag, flashlight, and an umbrella, then returned to the cab. “If you insist on coming out in the deluge, then you can hold the umbrella while I’m looking under the hood so we don’t get drenched.”
He rolled his eyes at the token assignment she’d given him, which left her in charge, of course. Fine, he’d cede control, trust in her abilities, and let her run this particular show her way, and not be the kind of overbearing macho male she abhorred.
It took Jo less than two minutes to discover the blown radiator hose that had led to their breakdown, while Dean did his best to shelter them from the elements of the storm. Thunder rumbled overhead, and lightning struck too close for comfort, startling them both. Since there wasn’t anything they could do about the fractured hose until they were towed to a service station, they shut the hood and slipped back inside the safety of the vehicle.
She picked up her cell phone and exhaled a frustrated stream of breath. “Great. I can’t get a signal in this area.”
“Yeah, we’re in a dense area, and it’s probably the mountains on either side of us blocking any cell service,” he said, not surprised that she was blocked.
