Bounty and Bait: Bounty Hunters, Book One

by Tiffany Allee

  Not that he needed to. Chances were, she would flush out Ferry just fine whether she was agreeable to it or not. But it would have been easier to ensure she was on his side during the takedown if she'd bend a little.

  They ate quickly—Sophia only eating half of her burger in the time it took him to eat the whole thing plus the generous helping of fries. Then they hit the road.

  Sophia played with her air vents before snuggling low into her seat with her arms crossed. A few minutes of highway later, she snored softly, head lolling to the side.

  He frowned at her crossed arms. She looked cold. Not that he cared, really. But it was a little distracting. And turning the heat up would make him uncomfortable.

  Cursing himself for a fool, he reached into the back seat and grabbed his jacket. He laid it across her still form, and she snuggled under the lined wool and murmured something in her sleep. The jacket was practically a blanket on her, she was such a tiny thing.

  Two hours later, he pulled into the parking lot of the building where he'd rented an apartment for the month. He glanced at his sleeping passenger and suddenly wished that he'd gotten a little nicer place. But no, that was idiotic. Any nicer a place and Ferry might suspect something was up. Besides, according to her file, she'd stayed in worse places. Hell, this place wasn’t much worse than her apartment in the middle of nowhere.

  Sudden pressure on his chest made him need to move. Get out of the car. Get this fucking job over with, so he didn't have the shitty past of a little waif on his mind.

  He turned the car off and pulled the lever on his door. Sophia started at the sound. Her eyes flew open, and fear rode her features for a few seconds. She turned to look at him, her face all the paler in the sickly green of the parking lot light.

  “Hi,” he said before he could think better of it. He cleared his throat. “We're here.”

  She took a deep breath and nodded. Her chin brushed against his jacket, which she still clutched close across her chest, and she glanced down. Wordlessly, she reached out and handed him the coat.

  He took it and pushed down the urge to insist she wear it in—protection against the swiftly cooling Chicago fall. Hell, it would only be polite, but she wouldn't appreciate the offer. In fact, she'd probably see it as another bid at ingratiating himself to her, to make his job easier.

  He grabbed her bag before she could argue, and then led the way into the building with her sleepy form at his heels.

  “No elevator,” he said, keeping his voice soft to avoid waking any of their temporary neighbors. It was only eleven o'clock, but it was a Thursday.

  “I don't mind,” she replied, voice as soft as his. And sleep still rode her tongue, making her sound deliciously rough. Like she'd just rolled out of bed.

  A sudden image of Sophia in bed hit him. Her hair tousled from a night of fucking. Her lips swollen from his kisses. Her skin flushed with pleasure. He hardened in his jeans at the thought.

  What the hell was that? He shook his head as if the motion would clear the insanity from his mind. Thinking about the woman he intended to use as bait like that was pointless. For one thing, even though she acted differently than he expected didn't mean she was unlike the other women like her—most notably his ex-wife. For another, he didn't mix business with pleasure.

  Besides, she definitely wasn’t his biggest fan.

  He unlocked the door to the apartment and felt along the wall for the light switch. When the lights flickered on, he walked down the short hallway into the small living room. It was bigger than her apartment, and a two bedroom. Not at all fancy, but it would do. The rental furniture he’d ordered and paid for by the week had arrived. It looked almost lived in.

  “Home sweet home,” he said.

  “What’s that?” she asked, pointing to the suitcase he’d left there.

  “My suitcase.”

  “Wait, you’re staying here, too?”

  “How else am I supposed to protect you?” He kept his voice gentle, but panic rolled over her expression.

  “I just—I didn’t expect that you’d be staying here.” Her frown deepened. “Protect me?”

  “There’s two bedrooms. Not like you have to worry about sharing a bed.” He grinned, hoping to lighten the mood. “Unless you want to.” Dammit. That had just slipped out.

  She laughed, but the noise almost sounded like a sob. “You wish.”

  With those words hanging in the air, she grabbed her bag off the floor and headed for the bathroom. The door clicked shut behind her, and he ran his hand over his hair.

  They'd find Darrell Ferry quickly. They had to. Because otherwise sharing a bed with the lovely little probable criminal he was now sharing the apartment with was going to become a real possibility. Even if she didn't know it yet.

  3

  The night passed slowly, as she alternated between dozing and panic-filled consciousness. The sounds were wrong, different than what she was used to now. Cars drove past her window. Sirens blared from somewhere close by. Other tenants in the old building moved about, and she could feel the vibrations of their music and chatter through the walls.

  She still couldn’t believe that she’d fallen asleep in his car. Not that she wasn’t happy for it, it was the only real sleep she’d gotten in a while. But to relax that much around a man she’d just met? She knew better than that.

  She forced herself to get up when the clock hit seven. A hot shower melted away some of her tension and exhaustion. When she emerged, the smell of coffee filled the air.

  Nick waited for her, sitting at a breakfast bar and perusing a newspaper. The coffee proved to be from a Starbucks, and he'd brought muffins with it as well. His hair was all tousled from sleep, and she gripped the countertop to suppress the sudden urge to run her fingers through it to smooth the messiness.

  “We should do some grocery shopping today,” she said, glancing inside the empty fridge. Weird, to talk to a man she barely knew about grocery shopping together.

  He made a noncommittal noise. “After you go get your job back maybe. But we can't be seen together in this neighborhood. Actually, it's best if we're not seen together at all.”

  “Scared it'll make me look like a trap?”

  “The man can be dangerous. I don't plan on you getting hurt while taking him down.”

  She popped off her coffee lid and blew on the surface of the dark liquid. “Well, plans don't always work out the way they're supposed to.”

  “This one will.”

  Nick was confident, she'd give him that. But confidence didn't necessarily mean much. She popped the muffin in the microwave and watched it spin around. “Have you done anything like this before?”

  “Never had a need to.”

  She pulled the muffin out and then turned to look at him. “Really? Do the bail-jumpers frequently fling themselves at you?”

  He grinned at that. “If only. No. But they're not usually so difficult to track down. Ferry has the benefit of having grown up in this neighborhood. He has lots of family and friends here. People who will hide him. Most criminals don't have that kind of support system.”

  “Makes sense. Most people with a good support system like that are probably less likely to turn to crime,” she mused.

  He quirked an eyebrow at her.

  She shrugged. “I'm taking an intro to criminology class. And a psychology class. Some of it is bound to rub off.” Not that they’d gotten that far in her classes, but it sounded better than saying she’d seen it over and over. Of course, Nick had probably researched her, probably knew more about her than he should. The thought made her a feel like crawling back in bed. She took a sip of her coffee, ignoring the cream and sugar packets he'd brought with him.

  “Of course, they won't help me a lot now that I can't take them anymore.” And that really sucked. Sure, she wasn't out a lot of money—just for books. The rest had been covered by a grant. But she'd really wanted to make school work. Give herself a future. Prove everyone wrong who thought she didn’t h
ave a chance at anything better than being some guy’s wife.

  “This won’t take long. You might even be able to get back into your current classes instead of dropping them,” he said, but his voice sounded doubtful.

  She shrugged as if it didn’t matter. Letting him know how important school was to her seemed like a terrible idea. No, best to keep as much of an emotional distance as she could from Nick.

  But she couldn’t completely force away her own worries. This was her shot. Her only chance at making a different—better—life for herself. But what would a man like him know about that?

  She watched him through her eyelashes.

  Nick really wasn’t traditionally pretty, but even in the early morning light, drinking coffee and reading the newspaper, he exuded a raw sexuality. The muscles that played under his T-shirt. The dark glint in his eyes. The small scars on his skin that told of a rough life. All of it rolled into a commanding presence.

  He looked up from his paper and their gazes locked. What would it be like to be with a man like him? Dangerous? Just a little scary. Mouth suddenly dry, she licked her lips.

  His eyes followed the motion of her tongue, and something else slipped into his gaze. A heat. A desire. It pulled at her.

  She turned away from the counter, taking her coffee with her and sloshing it on the floor. What the hell was she doing? Playing with fire, that’s what.

  “Crap!” She grabbed some napkins out of the bag the muffin had come in and wiped up the floor.

  “You okay?” he asked, and his deep voice rolled through the room and over her skin, leaving her with a pleasant shiver.

  “I’m fine,” she replied quickly—too quickly. But he didn’t argue the point with her.

  “I’m going to get a shower, then we’ll head out to get your job back.”

  She tossed the wet napkins into the sink. A trash can would help. She needed to make a list of everything they needed from the store. He’s the one who dragged her back here, he could damn well buy some reasonable supplies.

  “I thought we couldn’t be seen together.”

  “Don’t worry.” A small grin lifted his face from merely attractive and interesting to something that made her stomach clench. “No one will see me.”

  He seemed confident, but she wasn’t so sure.

  Panic hit her the second she stepped out of the building, and she had to fight the instinct to turn on her heel and run back to the apartment. But Nick waited there, giving her a few minutes to get away from the building before he followed. The damn bounty hunter would probably just send her right back out again.

  Besides, running back there with a full-on panic attack would only make her look weak. And weakness got you killed.

  Not that she really thought Nick would hurt her, or even intended her harm, but it would give him an in. A little piece of herself. That wasn’t something she could afford to give to anyone. Least of all a man who she found far too attractive, and who radiated danger.

  She took a few deep breaths, steeling herself. And she walked with her head held high.

  The video store where she’d worked since high school was only half a mile away from the apartment Nick had rented for them. An easy trek in the early fall air.

  But the walk itself proved surreal. The apartment was on the west side of her work when she'd always lived east. The roads were achingly familiar.

  Rain had fallen sometime during the night, and she avoided small puddles as she walked. A crisp breeze—not yet cold—whipped through the street, carrying with it the smells of the city. A mixture of trash and exhaust, of food and wet concrete.

  And then it was there, rock-solid and perfect. To most, the innocuous little video store would look just a bit trashy and old. Not to mention outdated in the days of streaming video. But to her, the storefront looked like home.

  A memory flashed as she paused at the crosswalk, waiting for the little, lit-up man to tell her it was her turn. Her first day of work, when she was only sixteen years old. A man who was checking out an adult video leered at her. Old Al, the owner and her trainer for the evening, sent the man packing with an earful of information on Al's standard of manners, and without his video.

  The place had been a haven for her after that. Safety by way of an old run-down store ran by a kind man from a different era. She’d never forgotten it, and Al had never made her regret coming to his store for that first job.

  The bell dinged over the door when she shoved it open, just as it always had. The sole man in the store looked up from where he was shelving new releases.

  “Sophia?” He pushed up his glasses, light frames a stark contrast against his dark skin.

  “Hey, Al.”

  He didn’t move from his spot, but a flash of emotion crossed his face before he turned back to the shelf. “Didn’t figure on seeing you again so soon.”

  The subtext was clear—he’d heard what had happened with her and Darrell—rumors, anyway. And he’d hoped she’d gotten herself gone permanently.

  “You know how it is.” Her voice came out falsely light, but Al didn’t call her on it.

  “You lookin’ for work?”

  She swallowed the lump that had formed like a heavy rock in her throat. “Yeah.”

  “Can use you at noon tomorrow.”

  “Thanks, Al,” she said, and then stopped, unable to speak anymore without revealing how much his easy acceptance meant to her.

  “You okay?” His voice was mild, and he continued to work as if the question were casual, but she wasn't fooled. The old man would help her in a heartbeat if she said she needed him. But she couldn't drag him into her problems any more than she already was by coming here, by asking for her job back. If anything ever happened to him because of her… She couldn’t live with herself. She just couldn’t.

  “I’m good. Thanks, Al.”

  “Mmhmm.”

  She walked out of the store so shaky that she wished she’d kept smoking past her teenage years. Anything to calm her suddenly raw nerves. But there was nothing.

  A sign across the street caught her eye, and before she could change her mind, she'd made her purchase and was headed back to the apartment.

  The door opened almost silently and clicked open again only a few minutes after she entered, and she waved a beer bottle at Nick when he came into the kitchen.

  “Way to enter all sneaky-like. If I were a nervous person I might have shot you,” she said.

  “That’s a big-ass pile of chocolate.”

  “Be happy I bypassed the whiskey and bought chocolate.” But oh, how she'd thought about it. Something to dull the pain, and push back the panic.

  But that was her mom's drink. Even the terror she felt at confronting Darrell didn't compare to the fear that the idea of relying on alcohol gave her. A drink now and then was one thing, but not alone, like she’d wanted when she saw that sign. And not because she felt desperate for some sort of relief.

  She took a big bite of a Crunch bar and glared at him. “What?”

  “Are you all right? I followed—only a couple of minutes behind you—but not in your line of sight. Did something happen in the video store?”

  She snorted. “Nothing happened.” And it hadn’t. It was just her fucking life.

  “How the hell do you stay so thin when you eat,” he waved at the chocolate, “like a five-year-old.”

  “Just lucky I guess.” She wasn't that lucky. Oh, she had a good constitution, but her nervous stomach kept her from eating as often as she should. Gorging when she could was quickly countered by days where she could barely make herself eat enough to keep from getting dizzy. “You got a cell phone?”

  “Did you get your job back?”

  “Yeah.”

  He eyed her warily. “Who do you want to call?”

  “What? Am I a fucking prisoner here?” She slammed down the half of the Crunch bar that remained, stomach churning again and appetite gone.

  He ran his hand through his hair and cursed. “No. Bu
t it's a reasonable question given our situation here. I don't want you calling some old friend and blowing our chances by talking too much.”

  She quirked an eyebrow at that. “Do I strike you as a person who talks too much?”

  He cursed again and dug into his pocket. The phone landed in her chocolate pile and sent a few choice items to the floor.

  “I’m going to get us some stuff for the house. Stay put.” With that, he turned and headed for the door.

  She stared at the phone for a beat as what he’d done sunk in. He trusted her with his phone alone? “Wait! I have a list started.”

  He stopped and looked over his shoulder.

  “It’s a mental list.”

  A short laugh escaped him, and he shook his head. “Make your call and meet me downstairs. We’ll sneak out to a grocery store across town. Bring your mental list.”

  4

  Rain drizzled its way along the sides of the tall buildings to gather in the gutters, and a brisk wind blew down the streets. Not a real rain, but just enough to make a person miserable if they stayed out in it for too long.

  Nick followed behind Sophia, staying at a distance, but always keeping her in sight. She clutched her light jacket close to her body, and a pang of guilt hit him. But he couldn’t drive her to work, it would be far too easy for someone to see them together.

  He thought it unlikely that Ferry could have heard she was back in town after her short jaunt to get her job back the day before, but it was possible. He couldn’t risk her getting nabbed off the street. So, they both suffered together in the rain.

  A short walk later, Sophia disappeared into the store where she worked, and Nick settled into a bus stop situated across the street. It wasn't as good as being indoors, but it was covered, and the walls blocked much of the wind. He'd waited in far worse storms. Maybe the weather would improve before he had to move to remain unnoticed.

  The large windows in the video and game store—probably the last one of its kind in the city—allowed him a comfortable view of Sophia when she was behind the counter, and a good portion of the rest of the store, too. She shelved videos and DVDs and chatted with the older man who supervised her progress. Even at this distance, she looked at ease, or more so than she did elsewhere.