Bounty and Bait

by Tiffany Allee

  He had a manner about him that put her at ease, but no way was she letting the man get under her skin. She had terrible taste in men—and the way she'd reacted to his kiss the night before reinforced how much she should stay away from him. She'd never had someone light such passion in her like that before. But, she couldn't read too much into that. It was obviously just the situation that was unique, not the man.

  Besides, she'd sworn off the less fair sex.

  She hadn't been with anyone, had barely hugged another person, in almost a year. And the last time she’d been with a man… Darrell.

  Yup. Just hormones.

  And that was all there was to it.

  “We've declared a truce, remember?” he said, raising an eyebrow at her.

  That was before we kissed.

  She sighed but nodded. “Not much happened at work, pretty much same old, same old.”

  “Pretty much?”

  She shrugged, not particularly eager to tell him what happened because he'd read way more into it than there really was. “A friend dropped by. Asked if I wanted to hang out this weekend.”

  “And what did you tell this friend?” he asked, voice very carefully tinged with no emotion.

  She suppressed another sigh. God, talking to him sometimes was like… Well, it was like talking to a cop. “I avoided Brooke's question if you must know. And I didn't commit to anything if that's what you're worried about.”

  Just the slightest bit of tension ticked in his jaw. “It could be a trap, you know.”

  She shook her head, then hesitated. She guessed it could be, but not the way he thought. “If it is a trap, I guarantee you Brooke doesn't know about it.”

  “But you could see her being manipulated,” he pressed.

  His perceptive abilities were most annoying. “You must've been one heck of a cop.”

  Nick didn't seem to be thrown by the shift and subject, but his expression immediately became more guarded. “I did okay.”

  It was evident he didn't want to talk about it, but dammit, he made her talk about all sorts things she didn't want to talk about. “Where did you work?”

  “Chicago.” He ran a hand through his hair. “I was a beat cop most of my time on the force. Then I moved into vice as a detective.”

  Something about that bothered her. Why would somebody work their ass off to make detective, only to give it up almost as soon as they'd earned the title?

  But before she could ask him further questions, he cut in with one of his own. “So how'd you end up in that podunk city?”

  “It was a perfectly charming town, thank you very much. Until you got there, at least.” She waited for a reaction to that, but he just shrugged and took a sip of his tea. “I'm surprised your weirdly extensive background check didn't tell you that, anyway.”

  “Alan's good—really good. But if an explanation isn't easily found on the computer, then he's not going to see it. I love the guy, he's like a brother to me. But human motivations and emotions are a little beyond his understanding.”

  “I suppose if he didn't go back far enough…” She hesitated, but what was the harm in telling him? Hopefully, when all of this was said and done, she'd be able to go back there. Finish school. Maybe settle down there, or maybe somewhere else. But the goal here was to make sure she could go wherever she wanted without worry. “My grandma lived there. She died when I was little, maybe eight or nine. But I always had good memories of the place. I never told anyone about it so I figured it would be safe.”

  “I see.” He seemed to struggle with what to say, then finally settled on, “Grandmas are pretty incredible.”

  She swallowed the lump in her throat. “She was the only one I got to know. And like I said, she was gone when I was pretty young.”

  “Still, seems like she left an impression.”

  Her leg started to itch with the urge to run away, but she forced herself to stay still. “She was trustworthy, you know?”

  “In a way most adults around you weren't.”

  Annoyance surged through her. “Who do you think you are? Some kind of Chinese restaurant psychologist? Save the analysis, doctor.”

  He held his hands up in mock submission. “I'm sorry. That was over the line.”

  “Just because you read a file about me doesn't mean you know me. It doesn't mean you know anything about me.”

  “Fair enough,” he agreed. “But after tonight, I feel like I know a little.”

  Without looking at him, she forced a couple of bites of the chicken coconut curry into her mouth and chewed. Her favorite dinner had suddenly become tasteless. But he was trying, wasn’t he? And he’d apologized. She had to give him credit for that.

  “I got lucky, too, grandma wise — one of mine passed away when I was younger, like you. But the other one is still raising hell every Thanksgiving.” A short laugh escaped him. “My mom's mom. Even my dad won't fuck with her. About eighty pounds of pure meanness. Of course, she’s only about four and a half feet tall.”

  Sophia stifled a laugh. “Sounds like you’ve got a big family.” She did her best to make the question sound matter of fact, but the wistfulness in her tone was apparent even to her own ears.

  “Too big, sometimes. Big personalities. High drama.”

  “But you wouldn't give them up.” It wasn't a question, the emotion in his voice, in his expression, spoke voumes.

  “Not for anything.”

  She went quiet. What else was there to talk about on the subject? She'd never had a big family, never experienced that kind of safety net. Her dad died when she was young, and her mom drank herself into oblivion and ignored her daughter in favor of her own demons. She didn't want to admit it, but Nick was right. Her grandmother had been the only adult, the only family member, that she could ever remember being able to rely on. Able to trust.

  Self-pity threatened to swallow her, she shoved in another big bite of food into her mouth. Fuck that. She was strong. And she was going to make a life for herself—whether the likes of Nick Ward or anybody else believed it.

  “So, what did you do around here, other than work at that little store?” A small almost grin touched his mouth. “And hang around criminals.”

  She rolled her eyes at the stinging joke. It wasn't not true, she had to give him that. “Hung out with friends.” That answer didn't seem to satisfy him, he just watched her with his unreadable hard stare. Finally, just to break the tension, she added, “Dreamed.”

  If that surprised him, he didn't show it. “What did you dream about, Sophia?” he asked, voice low.

  “A different life. A better life. School. Art.” Fun that didn't involve drinking and drugs and assholes, she almost added. But she managed to leave that bit of honesty out of it and keep it to herself.

  For once, surprise blossomed in Nick's expression—his eyes widened, and he leaned back in his chair. “I see.”

  But then he didn't say anything else. And she couldn't think of anything to say either. Nothing that wouldn’t just make it all even more uncomfortable. The man might not realize it, but she’d just bared more than a little bit of her soul to him.

  Needing to end the awkward silence, and more importantly the concentration on her, she asked, “Why aren’t you a cop anymore?”

  He looked down at his napkin. “Bounty hunting is more lucrative. Usually.”

  The man was hiding something. “I just gave you a real answer, Nick. Why don’t you do me a solid and give me the same courtesy.”

  A long moment passed, and she thought he wasn't going answer her. When he looked up from his napkin and locked gazes with her, she saw something more than the usual hardness there, in his eyes. Pain. “I fucked up, Sophia. Got fired. Became your run-of-the-mill fucking criminal.”

  6

  Sophia dropped the box of video games on the ground and it landed with a dull thump, then reached for her box cutter. She couldn't quite wrap her brain around what had happened the night before. The damnable thing was, she'd been half a mi
nute away from deciding that Nick Ward might just be a human being.

  Then he’d let her in on who he really was.

  Nick's admission that he'd been fired from the police force for being one of the criminals he so viciously eschewed made her wonder if she'd ever actually known anything real about the guy. It was her own damn fault. She’d thought their little moment of opening up to each other had been real.

  Man, had she been wrong.

  The assumptions she'd made about him had proved to be true. He was just like the others.

  Sure, he hadn't exactly lied to her. But he’d lied by omission. Lied with the judgment he carried in his eyes whenever he spoke of her old friends, of her ex-boyfriend. Of her ex-life.

  A niggling voice in the back of her head whispered that otherwise, Nick seemed to be exactly who he said he was. He'd never told her he was a good guy—quite the opposite. But she thought him somehow… Better. Better than what she wasn't sure, but better.

  She almost wished that she’d pushed for more information from him. She’d tried, but her initial reaction—angry and incredulous—seemed to have shut him down. And she wasn’t entirely sure she even wanted to know.

  The first couple hours of her shift did little to distract her from her thoughts. She forced herself to do all the mindless work that it built up in her absence. Dust covered some of the boxes in the back room, and while Al had done a good job getting most of the new hot items on the shelf, there were a few it looked like he hadn't touched. Some of which didn't even qualify as new anymore. A spike of guilt hit her. If she hadn't run away, things wouldn't be so bad for Al.

  Of course, she'd probably be dead. So that wouldn't exactly be super helpful either.

  Nick inevitably drifted back into her thoughts, despite the busywork she tried to focus on. And she couldn't even seem to force herself to concentrate on the bad bits. On the lie. Instead, her mind drifted into dangerous thoughts, like how gentle his touch, and his lips had been the other night. How she felt when he reassured her that she was safe with him. That she was safe with him, period.

  Without realizing it, her gaze drifted to the window. And she started to look for him.

  Cursing under her breath, she turned away from the window, chiding herself. He’d told her to pretend he wasn't there. His little sting operation could hardly work if she made it obvious that she was being followed, being protected.

  For only the third time that day, the bell over the front door jingled. Irrationally happy to see a customer, she looked up from the box she was unpacking onto a shelf.

  She froze. Unable to breathe. Unable to move. Her heart thundered in her chest.

  She had to run. She could only see the man from the corner of her eye, but that profile was unmistakable.

  The man spoke.

  “Hello there,” he said, and she stilled. Ever so slowly, she risked turning around to face the man fully.

  Not Darrell. She took him in with her eyes. Same build, same fucking haircut, even. At least, the same as the last time she’d seen Darrell. But his eyes were just a little closer together. His nose a little finer. And for fuck's sake, if she wasn't mistaken, his greeting had revealed him to be British.

  Before she could reply to the man, the front door swung open violently. Crashing against the display behind it. Nick stood, gun out pointing at the man she thought was Darrell.

  Apparently, Nick had come to the same conclusion.

  “Get the fuck on the ground,” Nick ordered the man.

  “Nick, it's not—” she tried to say.

  “Let me handle this, Sophia.”

  “What the bloody hell is—” the man said, hands above his head

  “It's not him!” Sophia yelled over the maybe-English man.

  Nick went still, eyes scanning the stranger.

  “I promise you—it's not him,” she said. “The resemblance is eerie, but it’s not Darrell. He's freaking English or something.”

  “Irish,” the man corrected, seeming insulted by her guess. To Nick, he added, “Can I put my hands down, mate?”

  After a quick hesitation, Nick nodded. He lowered his gun, but he didn't holster it. Nick watched the man carefully as he shuffled out of the store, muttering, “Fecking crazy arse.”

  “Sorry for the mix up,” Sophia called after him. She turned to Nick. “What the hell? Way to break your cover.”

  “He looked just like him.”

  Her own heart still raced because she too had thought the man was Darrell. Taking it out on Nick wasn't fair, but she couldn't seem to help herself. Fear coursed through her veins. “You might've spoiled everything.”

  “If Darrell finds out, we'll just have to deal,” Nick said coldly.

  Frustrated she threw her hands in the air. “You should just leave. I’ll finish out the last hour of my shift.”

  Without another word, Nick holstered his gun under his jacket and walked out the door.

  Shaken, Sophia flopped into a chair and tried to recover from what felt like a heart attack. But her pulse didn't slow down for the rest of her shift.

  Glancing at the stove clock, Sophia paced in the apartment. She was livid. Nick should have trusted her to handle herself. Should have waited, until she gave the signal. At least he should have come into the store more casually, without guns—gun—blazing.

  Worst of all, she couldn’t believe the way her pulse skipped a beat when he ran in to her rescue.

  Nick entered the apartment, expression shuttered. He closed the door quietly, and turned to face her.

  “I thought you were supposed to be a professional. You could get us both killed by jumping the gun.” Letting him get a word in edgewise wasn’t possible. The stream of frustration coming out of her mouth had taken on a life of its own. “You could have sneaked up and peered through a window to be sure it was Darrell before storming in like that. I could have handled things even if it had been him while you made sure. I’m not some damsel in distress.”

  Nick was silent for a long moment, which made her nervous. Finally, he said, “Killed, huh?”

  “Yeah, killed.” Her blood raced at the memory that haunted her dreams. Darrell. A bat. A poor schlub who probably hadn’t done anything worse than steal from Darrell. Or not pay back a debt. Same thing, in Darrell’s twisted brain.

  “Got something on your mind, sweetheart?” He closed the distance between them and stood over her, overwhelming her with his presence. “Because I thought you said you'd never seen anything? Or was that a lie?”

  His words knocked the wind out of her, and the room spun. Nick grabbed her upper arms, holding her steady. But she pulled away, taking a step back. Even the momentary closeness filled her lungs with his scent—masculine and natural. Just a hint of something wild.

  “I haven't,” she said, relief flooding her as she heard the steadiness in her voice. “But that's what people like him do, right?”

  Nick didn't answer, but he didn't look convinced, either. “When you feel like coming clean, you let me know.”

  “You're just trying to shift the blame here. Because you're the one who fucked up.” That wasn't exactly true—hell, remembering him charging into her rescue made her want to kiss him again. Do a lot more than kiss him. If anything, though, that made her even more upset—the man was so far off limits she didn’t dare even consider pursuing their mutual attraction. But he was the only outlet for her anger.

  The urge to get away from the bounty hunter clawed at her. Made her insides itchy. “I'm going to that party tonight.”

  “The hell you are.” He took a step toward her, and she leapt back. Frustrated, he ran his hand over his hair, expression revealing just a hint of regret. “I'm not going to hurt you.”

  Had she looked like she'd expected to get hit? Maybe so.

  “I'm going. You can either come with me and watch my back from a safe distance, or you can get the hell out of my way.” The only way to resist Nick even in the short term was to get the hell away from him. Distance. She n
eeded that. Not just tonight. She needed to end this whole thing. Help him arrest Darrell or whatever the heck bounty hunters did and go back to her new life.

  Because getting romantically—or heck, even just sexually—entangled with Nick would leave her different. Different how she wasn't sure, but she was certain it wouldn’t be easy to recover from if—when—it ended. And she wasn't willing to risk breaking something necessary inside of herself finding out.

  His eyes narrowed. “Or option number three, I stop you from going.”

  “I thought you were the kind of man who took pride in the fact that he never laid hands on a woman. And believe me, to stop me you're going to have to get physical.” It was the kind of dare she wouldn't usually utter—not toward of man so apparently strong, and well-controlled, certainly violent. Not a dare she would ever lay on any other man she'd been around, not that she could think of. But even though he frustrated her, and scared the shit out of her in a lot of ways, her gut told her that he would never hurt her.

  Not physically, at least.

  Nick was silent for a long moment, and her urge to get away made her want to fidget. She pushed her hands into her pockets.

  “Are you coming or not?” she asked when she couldn't stand the silence any longer.

  “Sophia, you’re a pain in my ass.”

  Palpable anger coated his tone, but she smiled. She'd won.

  7

  Sophia approached Brooke’s door, full of trepidation.

  Nick had watched her silently when she put on her makeup, more of a mask on than she'd worn in months. He'd been even more annoyed when she'd made him stop at a discount shoe store on their way, so she could pick up a pair of strappy heels. She had to look like she fit in. He hadn't been able to argue that.

  The music reached Sophia’s ears while she walked up her old friend’s sidewalk. She knocked as she opened the door, and sure enough, people were already filling the space.Couples on the couch, chairs alongside occupied by guys playing Grand Theft Auto on the midsize TV against the wall. The smell of smoke was thick in the room, both cigarette, and pot. The familiarity of it struck her, like a blow to the stomach. And just like that, she was transported to her life before.