Bound to the Bounty Hunter

by Hayson Manning

  An uncomfortable knot tightened in Sophie’s chest. Her fingers went to rub the ache away.

  Beth cocked her head. “You think you’ll have this one day?”

  Sophie automatically shook her head and pressed a manufactured smile onto her face.

  That would mean letting someone in and allowing him to see the real me.

  Beth stared out the window. “I couldn’t imagine not having Hannah in my life. I could never up and leave her. I know this sounds weird, but I often wondered if my mom left because of me. It’s kind of haunted me. My dad never got over my mother leaving. He always said he hit the Vegas jackpot when Suzie came into his life.” She pushed a long strand of dark hair behind her ear. “He never moved on. I kind of always thought it was my fault.”

  Beth stretched. Her daughter wailed and, on cue, a stain formed on her shirt. She hurried from the room and returned with her daughter, whose mouth turned toward her mom’s chest.

  “Boobs are a go.” Beth settled in a rocking chair and started feeding her daughter, rocking back and forth, humming quietly. She closed her eyes and a spasm rolled across her face. She opened her eyes and grimaced. “Letdown. Gets me every time.” A small fist rested on her mother’s breast as if in triumph. Dark eyes held her mother’s, her face almost fierce until her little features softened as her belly filled.

  Beth looked at Sophie and smiled, and realized with a start she’d been staring.

  “I’ve got a bit to go on.” Sophie gathered up the files, her face hot, and placed the papers in a folder.

  Beth sung softly to her daughter.

  Both mother and daughter looked entranced.

  Wistfulness and longing filtered through her in a warm wash.

  Did my mom sing Hush Little Baby to me?

  She shrugged off the loneliness that swirled around her like a mist of talc.

  “I’ll be in contact in the next few days and let you know what I find.” Sophie hoisted her bag higher on her shoulder.

  Beth looked up. Hannah’s chubby fingers wrapped around her mother’s thumb. “I know you need a retainer up front. I’ve saved two hundred dollars, which is in my purse. It’s on the kitchen counter, if you could bring it over.”

  Two hundred would stock her freezer with some legs of lamb, Titus’s favorite expensive stinky cheese, and Sally’s favorite triple-churned, salted caramel ice cream and pay back another person from her father’s list. Sophie eyed the stack of bills on the counter that rivaled her own and the nearly empty box of generic-brand diapers sitting under a changing table.

  “Don’t worry about the retainer, I’m good,” she lied. “I’ll send you the bill later.”

  Beth closed her eyes and, when she opened them, they glistened. “Thank you,” she whispered.

  Sophie cleared her throat. “I’ll do everything in my power to find out what happened to your mom.”

  “I know you won’t let me down.”

  …

  Harlan wiped his plate clean.

  Sophie could cook.

  The lamb had been tender, the potatoes with crispy skins and fluffy innards. Carrots that didn’t make him want to barf as they usually did. Buttery corn sweeter than he’d ever tasted. Earlier he’d quietly gone through Titus’s cupboards and noted the empty shelves. Groceries would be delivered tomorrow.

  The four of them sat at a small table, which fitted them snugly. Sophie’s warm thigh pressed against his. A thick white tablecloth with square creases covered aged wood. A framed black-and-white photo of teenaged Titus and Sally, their cheeks pressed together laughing at something off-camera, dominated the wall. A polished mahogany cabinet that held the same china as on the table sat underneath the photo.

  With a smile and a twinkle in his eye, Titus turned out to be a master interrogator. He’d hire the bastard tomorrow. Harlan had deflected questions about his youth and his parents. He’d then tried to steer the conversation to neutral topics, to no avail.

  Sally, who called Harlan by the name of Pat, was convinced he was her long-lost cousin who’d come for a visit but had neglected to bring his sister, Wednesday. Sally had pressed her powdery cheek to his, reminiscing about the time they’d visited Yosemite and he’d eaten a whole container of Cool Whip. The next minute she’d shrunk from him, tears in her silver eyes. Titus had excused himself and guided her out of the room, a nod in Harlan’s direction. Getting old blowed, but getting older and not having a clue who you were sucked.

  Sophie excused herself to clean the dishes and headed into the kitchen. Harlan checked his watch. In another forty minutes Sophie would be heading for Pipe’s, leaving him to search her place. Then he had a videoconference with Petrov, followed by a surveillance job with Arabella. He had depressingly little in the way of facts to tell Petrov, except that Sophie was being followed, and he genuinely felt in his gut that they meant to do her harm. Zeb still ran angles on her father. All they had was a small string of people scattered around the country who’d come forward after the prayer for cash failed. They’d stayed on the move and the law couldn’t touch O’Connor—who didn’t actually promise rain, cures, or finding true love. O’Connor took donations rather than charging for his services—even if they had caught up to them. Prayer was what it was, the power of hope.

  Sophie’s terrible singing cut through his thoughts.

  How she’d grown up to be a warm, thoughtful, and kind woman when she was raised by a bastard like O’Connor intrigued him. No, it flat-out, fucking amazed him.

  Sure, Sophie kept her guard up—with her upbringing it wasn’t surprising—but he’d made inroads with her, gained an inch of ground, and he wasn’t giving back that inch. He wanted to know Sophie, the real Sophie, with a vulnerability about her he wanted to protect, not the one who walked out her door in the morning with balls bigger than Atlanta.

  Titus tapped him on the shoulder.

  “What are your intentions with Sophie?”

  Harlan bit back a grin. Titus had to be closing in on his nineties. His face a roadmap, worn but proud. Tonight he stood puffed up like a dad on prom night, releasing his virgin daughter to the hornbag quarterback with a pocket full of condoms.

  “There’s stuff going down with her. I’m keeping her safe until the threat has been dealt with.”

  Titus tapped him in the chest. “She comes across as hard, but she’s not. Don’t break her. If you don’t want her, leave her for a man who does. A man who will cherish every breath she takes.”

  Harlan’s hands formed into involuntary fists.

  Titus chuckled. “I’m guessing you don’t like the thought of Sophie with another man.”

  “About as much as I loved living in Compton,” he muttered.

  The idea of another man looking at her all sleepy and soft in the morning, his hand in hers, and his tongue in her mouth made the ache in his clenched jaw throb.

  I’ll snap the fucker’s head off.

  Titus said in a quiet voice, “If you had someone like Sophie in your life, you’d be thanking the stars every day. Like I do. She’s a good woman. You’d be a fool to let her go.” Titus patted Harlan’s hand. He’d had the “touch her and you die” speech and now they were back to being friends.

  Sophie walked into the room wiping her hands down her standard uniform of jeans and polo. She sat across from him and started humming along to a scratched Sinatra record on an ancient turntable. Her eyes sparkled.

  “Did you know, Miss Sophie, that Harlan grew up in Compton?”

  “Where?” she said in a verse of “Fly me to the Moon.” She took a sip of wine. Her tongue snaked out and licked a drop at the corner of her mouth.

  “Compton,” Titus said, as if this would mean something.

  A soft light from a lamp highlighted chocolate and caramel strands in her hair. “Is it nice?”

  He bit back a fake laugh. He’d gone from a small town outside of the Catskills, to his aunt’s place in LA when his mom died, then to a group home in Compton where you either grew up fast or y
ou didn’t grow up at all. He got smart, had a great homeroom teacher who sat with him after school, helping him improve his grades so he could apply for community college. He’d worked security to pay the bills until he realized he liked it, was good at it, and could make a career out of it.

  “It’s a neighborhood that makes or breaks you.” He paused. “Was there a place in Cali you liked?”

  She shrugged. “I’ve never been. My father had a thing about California. He never said why.”

  Whoa.

  He kept his face neutral while his mind pounced on the fact O’Connor had never been to California.

  “What do you mean, a neighborhood that breaks you?”

  “Gangs, drugs. Your skin color dictated which side you ran. Either you joined the flow of salmon to the slaughter or you got out. I got out.”

  Titus excused himself and said he’d be back in a minute.

  Harlan looked up to find Sophie studying him.

  “Who is Miss Devine to Clarence?” she asked in a quiet voice.

  A cold boulder dropped heavily in his stomach. Only Zeb knew about his soup kitchen. It was deeply personal and important to him that it stayed that way.

  He’d done a complete scan of the park and hadn’t clocked her. Had she been there? He’d quiz Zeb later.

  “It’s personal.”

  She held his gaze and nodded.

  “Miss Devine died ten years ago,” he said finally. “When she died, Clarence couldn’t go back to the house they’d shared for forty-six years. He’s drifted ever since. In his mind, Miss Devine is going to come back, and he’s going to be ready.”

  “That’s heartbreaking and beautiful,” she said more to herself than to him, some sort of emotion moving across her beautiful face.

  The real soft-centered Sophie stared at him.

  Gorgeous.

  He held his breath, wanting to hold the moment for as long as he could.

  “How do you figure that?”

  “That he so loved Miss Devine that he can’t move on is heartbreaking. That he found his soul mate is beautiful,” she said, her dark brown eyes misty.

  “Do you want that?” he asked quietly, hearing his heartbeat in his head.

  She shrugged.

  He stood, something unpleasant stabbing him in the gut.

  “Are you about ready to go?”

  Titus shuffled in and hugged Sophie, his eyes on Harlan. “Keep her safe.”

  “That’s the plan,” he said.

  Titus released Sophie and the old man’s hands grasped his, the bones barely covered by his skin. “Could use some company when the fishing channel’s running. I’ll crack some of the good stuff.”

  Harlan nodded without committing.

  Harlan held Sophie back at the front door, ignoring her sharp intake of breath, and scanned the area. Satisfied, he grabbed her hand, shielding her with his body, and he tucked her into his side, ignoring her scent, her curves, how well she fit under his chin. Women usually reached his shoulder wearing heels. Having Sophie tucked completely into him, plastered to him, felt good.

  Real good.

  Too good.

  She moved forward. His fingers flexed to deactivate the alarm, but wanting to avoid a ten-minute fight out in the open, he relented.

  Sophie threw her purse on the dining table along with her keys. With deliberate slowness he hooked her keys on the key rack he’d screwed into her wall.

  Harlan counted to twenty when Sophie stiffened beside him, unhooked the keys, and threw them in a fruit bowl next to a dying lemon and a liver-spotted banana.

  His blood pressure spiked, but he said nothing. He walked to his makeshift bedroom and sat on the rainbow quilt. He pulled his phone from his pocket. No update from Zeb, but he did send his partner a questioning text about Sophie being at the soup kitchen.

  Harlan headed to the empty living room, hit the remote, and started channel-surfing. Pongo landed by his side and then crawled onto his lap. He’d given up arguing. He’d move the dog out of his lap, but it would make no difference. If history played out, the dog would sidle back up. If he moved him again he’d be rewarded by a fart that could be used as a nerve agent.

  Sophie walked into the room adjusting an earring. His mouth watered at her long legs in sheer black stockings. She had on a jacket that came to her knees. The boots on her feet somehow made her hotter. Her hair pulled back. No makeup. Stunning.

  The thought of the patrons at Pipe’s gawking at her fused his back molars. He knew Pipe wouldn’t let a hand land on her. He’d seen Sophie in action and knew she’d snap off a guy’s dick if he tried.

  His cock strained against thick denim. There should be a hole burrowed into his jeans by now. By rights he should put in a claim for blue balls on his insurance. Every time Sophie walked into the room, his brain dropped into a coma, leaving his cock in charge, and that only had a one-way thought pattern.

  She looked at his arm flung around her dog’s neck, and her face softened.

  Damn, it would be nice to have her look at him that way more often.

  At the knock on the door, he went to stand, but Sophie moved to the door, checked the peephole, and then opened the door with a sigh.

  “Hey Zeb,” she said when his second in command walked into the room. “This isn’t necessary.” She looked like she wanted to rip off Harlan’s head, and shrink-wrap it.

  Zeb squeezed her shoulder and walked toward him. “Looking domestic there, Harlan. Is that Happy Days?” A smile lit his face. “Gotta say man, it suits.”

  “Fuck off.” Harlan shot off the couch, Pongo in his arms. He resettled the dog back on the couch with a pat to his head.

  He didn’t do cozy, but fuck it felt kind of good kicking back with her dog, knowing Sophie was safe.

  Sophie and Zeb walked out the door. Sophie without a backward glance in his direction. Zeb shot him a grin. The door closed with a click.

  Two hours later, he’d searched every part of her small house.

  Nothing.

  An hour after that, he sat in his office in Denver after a short, static-filled phone call with Petrov, who was in the Ukraine checking up on a problem with a shipping route.

  Petrov had told Harlan that he wanted him to check in with Babic, as communication was going to be difficult. If an emergency came up, Babic had ways of contacting him. Ways Petrov wasn’t willing to share. Harlan had expressed concern, but Petrov was insistent and reminded him firmly that as the client he issued the instructions. The call ended, and Harlan sat staring at the wall, unable to shake the feeling that something was off, but he couldn’t figure out what it was.

  Harlan’s phone pinged.

  Tonight he and Arabella were yet again playing a couple who’d be sitting in a darkened booth in a bar filming a man.

  He closed his eyes, and Sophie drifted into his head. Her sparkly smile. Her hand on her hip, eyes shooting daggers in his direction. In the morning, all sleepy, soft, and cute.

  Jesus, it had happened again. Sophie had wandered into his thoughts, plonked her sweet butt down, and smiled at him.

  He had to get his game on and get her out of his head.

  There was too much riding on tonight to let anything or anyone get in the way of his work, including one luscious, tempting, and giant pain in his ass, Sophie Callaghan.

  Chapter Nine

  “I may have died and gone to heaven.”

  Sophie turned at Annie’s whisper.

  Zeb lounged against the entrance to the bar. He gave Sophie a slight chin raise, his eyebrows hitting his hairline when his gaze slid down the length of her. She blushed and pulled on her skirt. Zeb’s gaze drifted around the room before locking on Annie.

  “He’s with me.” Sophie turned to Annie, rolling her shoulders, a ripple of knots moving with them. Where were Harlan’s fingers when she needed them? She grabbed her tray.

  Scrap that.

  “So…that long lick of chocolate over there is your man?”

  “No.” She
turned to Annie, beer sloshing over the sides of a couple of glasses. “I don’t have a man.”

  Annie’s head swung between her and Zeb.

  “He’s my ride,” she clarified, her face getting hotter. “But he’s…ah…half an hour early.”

  “Something wrong with your car?” Gemma arrived at her side and rapid-fired off her orders to Cope. “I can give you a lift. You’re not that much out of my way.”

  She smiled at Gemma. It was a forty-minute round trip out of her way. The engine needed more persuasion to start lately, but it relented, eventually. “Thanks, I’ve got it covered.”

  He’s here because there were dudes trailing me, and I have a badass bounty hunter whose only concern for me is that I’ll get whacked, and he’ll feel guilty if he didn’t do anything about it.

  Annie’s narrowed gaze zoned in on Sophie, who squirmed under the intensity. “Wait. Holy hotness over there is your ride, but he’s not your man?”

  Gemma’s golden eyes got wider, and she opened her mouth. Her gaze slid to Zeb. She’d rather make a voodoo doll of herself and stick pins in tender places than explain her situation.

  She’d phoned Titus earlier to check in on him and Sally. All he’d talked about was how wonderful Harlan was and did she think he’d come over and maybe catch a game with him. Her heart went out to him. Titus would be so disappointed when this was over and Harlan stopped showing up.

  At Annie’s skeptical look, she turned away and headed back into the bar.

  The pool table area had been busy up until midnight, but now only a few tables were active.

  “Hey, Sophie.”

  She jumped when her name was said in a soft purr.

  “Hey, Dug.”

  Dug leaned against a pool table, a warm smile on his face, hazel green eyes trained on her. Tonight he didn’t have a mostly naked girl draped on him. Over six-foot, with dark brown messy hair, a killer smile, and heart-stopping eyes. Tall, ripped, with a body made for sin, the man oozed sex.

  From the moment he stepped into the bar until he left, whenever she turned around, his eyes would be on her.

  Supposedly, Dug had earned the nickname when he’d sat back while two girls fought over him. The winner digging a hole and burying the other woman up to her neck. Considering he came dressed in layers of girls, Sophie figured there must be holes all around Denver.