Bounty Hunter’s Woman

by Linda Turner

“Yes, and I appreciate it,” she sniffed, “but we’re not any safer here than we were in London. Look—we haven’t even been here twenty-four hours and they’ve already found us. And we don’t even know how. They couldn’t have followed us all the way from England, could they?”

  “No way in hell,” he retorted.

  “Then how…”

  “I’ve been asking myself the same question,” he said, grimacing. “It makes no sense. Whoever’s after the ranch can’t possibly have enough power to watch every single flight out of England or into the United States. So how could they have found us? No one even knew where we were except Buck.”

  “And he wouldn’t have told anyone except the family.”

  “I’ve got my share of enemies,” he said, “but most of them are locked up. And the ones who aren’t wouldn’t have knocked on the door—they’d have busted it down and burst in with guns blazing before we even knew they were here. No, this wasn’t about me,” he continued with a frown. “What I can’t figure out is how anyone even knew we were here. I’ve been gone for months, and suddenly, the day I come home, some yo-yo shows up with a gun. What are the odds? It’s not like Buck took out an ad and told the world he’d hired me. No one knew except the two of us.”

  The truth hit him then like a slap in the face. “Damn!”

  Priscilla paled. “You’ve thought of something.”

  He nodded. “The only explanation that makes sense is Buck’s phone is tapped.”

  “What?! It can’t be.”

  “Think about it,” he said. “We escape from your kidnappers, go halfway around the world and within twenty-four hours, someone tries to kill you. They didn’t follow you. They don’t know me, but they show up at my apartment.”

  “And Buck is the one who hired you and the only one you told where we are,” she added. Hearing her own words, she paled as the pieces of the puzzle fell into place. “Oh, God, you’re right!” she told him, stricken. “There’s no other way anyone else could have known we were here. And Buck doesn’t have a clue! We’ve got to warn him, but how can we call him? Whoever’s tapping the phone will know that we’re on to them.”

  “Good,” he responded, reaching for his phone. “The bastard needs to know he’s not going to get away with this garbage. And Buck needs to know that he can’t say anything on the phone that he doesn’t want whoever’s after the ranch to know.”

  Quickly punching in the number, he waited impatiently for the call to go through. If he got Buck’s damn voice mail—

  “Hello?”

  “Buck? Thank God! We were attacked at my apartment—”

  “What?!”

  “Priscilla’s fine,” he assured him quickly, “but I think your cell phone’s being tapped.”

  “What?”

  “It’s the only explanation. No one knew where we were until I called you.”

  Buck swore roundly. “I don’t know why I’m surprised. They’ve done everything else. This is just one more thing to break us.”

  “There can’t be any further contact between us unless there’s a serious emergency and Priscilla has to be there,” Donovan said urgently. “If that happens, whoever’s listening in on this conversation needs to know that I’ll move heaven and hell to make sure Priscilla gets there so you don’t lose the ranch.”

  “We owe you,” Buck told him. “Keep her safe, and we’ll see you at the end of the month.”

  When he hung up, Donovan tossed the phone into the console. If they were lucky, they wouldn’t need to use it again until the Broken Arrow belonged to the Wyatts.

  “Now what?” Priscilla asked quietly.

  His mouth compressed into a flat line of determination. “We’re on our own.”

  Something in his tone had dread pooling in the pit of her stomach. “Why don’t I like the sound of that?”

  His expression grave, he said, “Whoever is the mastermind behind the attacks on the ranch and your family has a hell of a lot of power. And now that he knows who I am and where I live, it won’t take him long to shut me down.”

  “Shut you down? How? He can’t do anything to you if he can’t catch you.”

  “Sure he can,” he said. “If he’s as smart as he appears to be, it won’t be long before he knows everything about me…credit card numbers, bank accounts, everything. All he has to do is put a freeze on everything and wait for us to run out of money. Then we’ll be dead in the water.”

  The dread in her stomach turned over, nauseating her. “You think he has that kind of power?”

  “Yes.”

  “But didn’t Buck give you some money?”

  “It’s getting damn thin. I had to use most of it to get from England to here.”

  Priscilla had been afraid before but not like she was now. And that infuriated her. “Who is this monster? How can he do all these things and no one know who he is?”

  “Oh, someone knows,” he assured her. “They’re just not coming forward.”

  “Why? What he’s doing is criminal!”

  “The bad guys don’t always get punished, sweetheart. From what Buck told me about Hilda Wyatt’s will, a hell of a lot of people in Willow Bend seem to think they’re the unnamed heir.” His steel-blue gaze hardened. “So no one has a vested interest in protecting you or your family…or stopping anyone who wants to terrorize you into leaving the ranch. By standing back and doing nothing, they could end up with the ranch.”

  “That’ll never happen,” she vowed coldly. “We’ll fight them every step of the way, and when this is all over and the ranch is ours, everyone involved in this damn conspiracy is going to pay for what they’ve done.”

  “They will if I have anything to do with it,” he promised her, “but if they manage to shut down the credit cards, we’ve got to have jobs lined up.”

  “Jobs?! How can we? We’ll have to stay in one place—”

  “Not necessarily, but we can work out the details when we know a little bit more about the money situation.” Pulling into the parking lot of his bank, he parked and cut the motor. “And we’re about to find out what that is right now. C’mon.”

  Ten minutes later, when they walked out of the bank with five thousand dollars in cash, Donovan knew they were damn lucky. He didn’t doubt that before the day was over, his credit cards, checking account and God knew what else would be shut down. From now on, they’d have to live by their wits.

  “Now we’ve got to get rid of the truck,” he said as they climbed back into the truck and headed north. “But first we have to make sure we’re not being followed. Hang on.”

  Priscilla soon discovered that he meant that literally. With no more warning than that, he took a sharp right at the next corner, then an immediate left, then another right. If she hadn’t grabbed onto the door, she would have been thrown out of her seat. Then three blocks later, he made a quick U-turn right in front of a speeding dump truck.

  “Oh, God!”

  “It’s okay,” Donovan reassured her. “I’ve got plenty of time.”

  Priscilla wasn’t so sure of that. She would have sworn she felt the heat of the dump truck kiss the back bumper of the pickup as Donovan completed the U-turn. “If you get me killed, I’ll never forgive you.”

  “Wah,” he mocked. “What a baby. Think of the stories you’ll be able to tell your grandchildren.”

  “If I live to have any,” she said dryly.

  “You’ll die in your bed at ninety-six, surrounded by your children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. You’re that kind of woman.”

  Surprised, she studied him consideringly. “What does that mean?”

  “You’re the marrying kind,” he said simply. “The kind who wants the whole nine yards—the husband, kids, the white picket fence and the minivan.”

  She was, but that particular dream wasn’t something she allowed herself to think about. Not yet, not until her career was off the ground. So how had he known?

  “It’s in your eyes,” he said, reading her mind. Turn
ing his attention back to his driving, he said, “Bingo—just what I was looking for,” and shot across three lanes of traffic to a car dealership on the opposite side of the street.

  The sign on the front of the building boasted that Tom Lincoln Ford bought and sold cars, trucks and RVs, and Priscilla didn’t doubt it. She’d never seen so many vehicles on a car lot in her life.

  “I need to sell my truck,” Donovan told the salesman who came forward to greet them. “Who do we need to talk to?”

  “I can take care of that for you,” the man said easily. “Let me call the service manager and have it checked out. Then I’ll run some numbers and see what kind of price we can come up with. Did you just want to sell it or trade it in on something else? We’re having a great sale right now.”

  “No, we can’t afford anything else right now,” Donovan replied. “I’ve been sick lately and lost my job. If we don’t get some money today, we’re going to lose our house.”

  “Oh, man, I’m sorry to hear that,” the salesman said sincerely. “Let me see what I can do.”

  Priscilla couldn’t believe Donovan’s audacity. He was telling tales to a salesman who not only heard his fair share of bad luck stories on a daily basis but, no doubt, told a few whoppers of his own. “You’ve been sick lately?” she asked with a delicately arched brow as soon as the salesman excused himself to work on a bid for them. “You do know that you don’t look like you’ve missed a day of work in your life, don’t you?”

  He only grinned. “Hey, whatever helps the cause. I figured that was a better story than the truth. And who knows? It may work.”

  Priscilla doubted it, but she was willing to be proven wrong. And she didn’t have long to wait. Less than fifteen minutes later, the salesman found them in the waiting area. “Okay,” he said cheerfully, “everything checked out with service. Now it’s just a question of making the deal. You do realize that we can only offer you wholesale?”

  “Yes, of course,” Donovan said. “You’ve got to make a profit, too.”

  “Exactly. And we do have to discount for wear and tear—”

  “We understand how the business works,” Donovan said wryly. “Just give us a figure.”

  The salesman gave them each a printed estimate of the value of the truck, which was based on everything from the extras on the truck and camper to the negative condition of the tires and the quarter-size dot of rust on the rear bumper. And the offer was fifteen hundred dollars more than Donovan had expected.

  “I wish we could go higher,” the salesman said, “but this is the best we can do. And the offer’s good for three days if you want to think about it—”

  “No, that’s okay,” Donovan assured him. “We’ll take it.”

  Aware of the salesman listening to every word, Priscilla pulled him aside, “Are you sure you want to do this? There must be another way—”

  Slipping his arm around her waist, Donovan turned to the salesman with a rueful smile. “Isn’t she the greatest? We’re losing our home and she’s worried about me. It’s all right, sweetheart,” he assured her. “I haven’t been camping in a year and a half. I can get another camper when our finances improve. Right now, this is the right move.”

  Just that easily, the decision was made. Without blinking an eye, he sold his pickup and camper for her.

  Chapter 8

  Even though Donovan had told the salesman they couldn’t afford to buy a car at this time, Priscilla hadn’t really believed him. But as they walked out of the dealership with the check in hand, he didn’t even glance at the other cars on the lot. Surprised, she said, “Now what?”

  “We walk,” he replied.

  “Walk? But—”

  “Not here, sweetheart,” he said as her startled exclamation drew the eye of several other customers on the lot. “C’mon. Let’s get out of here.”

  Hurrying to keep pace with him, she frowned. “And where, exactly, are we going? Wherever it is, we’re not going to get there very fast if we have to walk.”

  “You’d be surprised,” he said with a grin, and paused at a bus stop just as a bus braked to a halt at the curb to let off some passengers. His blue eyes twinkling, he motioned for her to precede him. “Ladies first.”

  “You don’t even know where it’s going!”

  Unperturbed, he chuckled. “Doesn’t matter. We’ve got no particular destination in mind.”

  She knew he spoke nothing less than the truth. Maybe letting the whims of fate decide where they went was safer than having a plan. But for a woman who’d always been the kind to map things out, flitting around the world like a tumbleweed being pushed around by the wind was more than a little unsettling.

  Donovan paid the fare for both of them, and they found seats near the front. When the bus headed across town, Donovan looked like he didn’t have a care in the world, but Priscilla wasn’t fooled. His eyes missed nothing. He might not know where they were going until they got there, but he was ready for whatever surprises popped up along the way. Reassured, she relaxed and waited for his next move.

  She didn’t have to wait long. Fifteen minutes later, he nudged her. “This is where we get off,” he said quietly, rising to his feet.

  What had he seen that she hadn’t? Stepping off the bus, she looked around. There was a grocery store across the street and several strip malls farther down the road that had stores that sold everything from musical instruments to computers. Confused, she turned to him and said dryly, “I think I can safely assume you’re not going to buy a saxophone or a computer, so we must be going to the grocery store.”

  “Nope,” he said as he took her hand. “C’mon.”

  When he started back the way they had come, she stopped in her tracks. “We just came this way on the bus. Why are we going back?”

  “Ye of little faith,” he teased. “I thought you trusted me.”

  If he hadn’t had a twinkle in his eye, she might have. “I do,” she said. “Sometimes.”

  He only laughed. “Well, that’s a start, anyway. Look down the street, sweetheart, and tell me where we’re going.”

  Walking at his side, her hand still in his, she studied the businesses lining the street for at least a mile in the distance. Signs of varying size and height littered the airspace, vying for attention and making it almost impossible to read any individual sign. Then the tallest one caught her attention, and she wondered why she hadn’t guessed sooner.

  “You’re buying a car.”

  “Yeah. So what’s so funny?” he asked when he saw her lips twitch into a half smile.

  “I’m learning how your mind works. That’s a scary thought.”

  He lifted a dark brow at her. “Really, Miss Smarty Pants. So tell me what I’m thinking.”

  “You didn’t buy a car at the dealership where you sold your truck because you were covering your bases in case my kidnappers find a way to trace the sale. This way, they won’t know what kind of car we’re switching to.”

  “Smart girl,” he said, pleased. “Never broadcast your personal business. The less you tell people, the less they can repeat. If your kidnappers do find the camper, the only thing the dealership can tell them is that we walked away.”

  “For all they know, we could have had a taxi waiting around the corner,” she pointed out.

  “True,” he agreed. “If I were tracking us, I’d call all the taxi services in town to see if any of their drivers picked up a couple anywhere near Tom Lincoln Ford. If they didn’t, I’d check out the transit system.”

  “That could take a while,” she said. “You have to discover the closest bus stops to Tom Lincoln Ford, then check out all the routes the buses run from this area.” She sighed. “In a city the size of San Diego, how many people does a bus driver see in a day? How can he possibly remember a man and woman who quietly ride the bus and do nothing to draw attention to themselves?”

  “He doesn’t have to,” he replied, “if the buses have video cameras in them.”

  Surprised, she
felt her heart sink. “Do they?”

  “You didn’t notice?”

  She had to admit she hadn’t. “Did you?”

  He nodded. “There was a camera. It looked like it was out of commission, but we can’t count on that.”

  “So that’s why you didn’t take the stop by the dealership,” she said, understanding. “They may eventually discover which stop we got off at, but they won’t know where we went from there.”

  “And even if they make their way back to the dealership, they’ll never know we were there because we’re going to come in separately and leave the same way. I’ll pick you up down the street, and no one will even suspect we were together. Okay?”

  It was a good plan, one she had no complaints with…except when they split up. Her common sense told her nothing was going to happen at the dealership, and if it did, Donovan would be within screaming distance if she needed him. There was nothing to worry about. So why was her heart racing just at the thought of walking away from him? What was wrong with her?

  “Hello?” When she looked up at him and blinked, he smiled crookedly. “Where did I lose you?”

  Heat burned her cheeks. “Sorry,” she said with a grimace. “I heard you. I was just thinking.”

  “About what?”

  You. The single word almost popped out before she could stop it. Had she lost her mind? she wondered. One slip of the tongue and he would take that and run with it. She didn’t even want to think about how he would tease her.

  “Actually,” she murmured, “I was wondering how we’re going to do this. If you don’t mind, I’ll go in first and get one of the salesmen to show me around while you find a car. Then when it looks like you’re about to leave, I’ll make an excuse to my salesman and leave. You can pick me up around the corner.”

  He smirked. “You’re getting pretty damn good at this. Who knows? By the time this is all over with, we could go into business together.”

  “Not unless you’re going to model my designs,” she retorted. “That would certainly earn some looks in the industry, but that wasn’t exactly the market I was striving for.”