On the Lam

by SUE FINEMAN

“Well, then, why don’t you stop by tomorrow and take a look? See what you think.”

  Dave flashed a smile. “I’ll do that.” He produced a pen and she wrote the address on her napkin and handed it to him.

  It was the first time he’d seen Mia without her brother Greg around. She was a beauty, rather exotic looking, with a dancer’s lithe body. Her long hair hung loose and draped seductively over one shoulder. Maybe this assignment wasn’t such a dog after all. Seeing Mia opened all kinds of possibilities. She wasn’t a blonde, but she was gorgeous.

  Mia watched Dave talk with one of the men. His bright blue eyes took in everything, and she wondered why he came to Clover Hills. There must be something going on here or he wouldn’t wear that scruffy disguise. The Dave Montgomery she knew wouldn’t be caught dead in an outfit like that. His worn jeans bagged on him, and his elbows poked through the holes in his faded flannel shirt. Dave always dressed well, had his hair neatly trimmed, and he usually wore Italian loafers. Although she couldn’t see his feet at that moment, she somehow knew he wasn’t wearing Italian loafers tonight. And the shaggy beard looked just awful.

  Mia stood to leave, and one of the men asked, “You aren’t walking home by yourself, are you?”

  With a smile, Mia said, “I don’t need a chaperone, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “Haven’t you heard about them three girls that come up missing?”

  Her cop’s instincts kicked in and her smile slid away. “No. What girls?”

  “The first was Tonya Ayers. Her poor mama’s going crazy trying to find her.”

  “Ayers?” The name sounded familiar.

  “Yep, over on Rainier Street.”

  She nodded. “I know the family. Who else?”

  “Meredith Cooper and Nadine Lynderman,” said the other man. “They disappeared during the summer, Tonya a few weeks before school let out.”

  Mia had met Tonya Ayers, but not the other two girls.

  “I’ll walk you home,” said Dave. “I need some fresh air.”

  Mia nodded her thanks and said goodbye to their dinner companions. This would give her a chance to speak with Dave alone and ask about the missing girls.

  Dave ran upstairs to get his coat and she waited by the door, remembering the Christmas her youngest brother brought his college roommate home for Christmas. Dave, bright and funny and sexy as hell, had kept his distance from her back then. She didn’t know if it was because she was two years older or because he already had a girlfriend. In those days, Greg and Dave went through girlfriends like pizza, but they had a rule about dating the same women. She wondered if they also had a rule about dating each other’s siblings.

  A minute later, Dave galloped down the stairs and they walked out of the restaurant together. The sky would soon be dark, and Mia worried about him walking back to the hotel. “Maybe we should drive over, David. You’ll never find your way back in the dark.”

  A low chuckle came from deep inside him. “You mean you’re not going to invite me to stay the night?”

  “In your dreams,” she muttered, and he laughed again.

  “I brought a flashlight, and I’d prefer to walk, if that’s all right with you.”

  She shrugged. “Fine. I’d planned to walk anyway.”

  They walked the two short blocks to her aunt’s house, two blocks of small, run-down homes that must have been built nearly a century ago. Rooftops sagged under thick layers of moss and weedy lawns were covered with needles from the fir trees. Smoke curled out the stone chimneys and hung in the cool, crisp air, mingling with the hint of rain. If the temperature fell a few degrees tonight, they could wake up to snow. Living in Denver, Dave was accustomed to snow, but the city snowplows kept the roads cleared. He wondered if this tiny town even had a snow plow.

  He looked down at Mia. She was about five-four and slender. He was six-two. Without thinking, he said, “You’re smaller than I remember.”

  She looked up and smiled. “The last time I saw you, you wore lipstick.”

  “I remember.” He’d been playing a trick on Greg when Mia and her mother walked in. “As I recall, you wore some of my lipstick that night, too.” The kiss started out as fun and ended with his heart thumping wildly, although he’d never had a chance to take it to the next level with most of her family there at the time. Mia wasn’t his type anyway. He preferred leggy blondes.

  “I heard what happened in Tacoma. How long before you have to go back?”

  “I don’t think I’m going back, Dave. If my partner hadn’t shot the kid, I would’ve been stabbed, because I couldn’t pull the trigger. The boy’s family claimed the shooting was racially motivated because the officer was white and the kid he shot was black.” She kicked a stone. “I guess no one looked at the color of my skin.”

  “It’s a typical reaction, Mia. They’re looking for someone to blame.”

  “I suppose, but the only color I saw was the red blood dripping off the knife. It didn’t matter to me what color he was. He didn’t look a day over twelve, and I couldn’t shoot a kid.”

  “I hear ya. The first time I had to use my service revolver was in Philly. I worked there as a police officer for about a minute and a half. The kid was seventeen, high on I don’t remember what, and fearless. He fired at everything that moved, including an old man standing on his front porch. He refused to drop the gun, and I had to shoot him. He was Latino, but I didn’t realize that until later. All I saw was the kid’s erratic behavior and that damn gun. He missed the old man’s head by a whisker.”

  “I hate it when people play the race card.”

  “So do I,” said Dave. Mia’s skin was darker than anyone else in her family, her eyes were slightly slanted, and her long, straight, black hair hung to her waist. All four of the kids in their family had been adopted. The only ones related by blood were Greg and Bo, who lived in Texas now. Chance was half Korean, and Mia a mixture of African American, Japanese, and Northern European. Greg used to tease her about being a gypsy because of her appearance and the way she loved to dance, but according to Greg, her ballroom dancing competition days were over. So was her career as a police officer. If one of Dave’s people had frozen up like that, he wouldn’t want them working for him.

  Porch lights came on as the afternoon light disappeared. Dave and Mia walked up the porch steps of a run-down little house. It might have been cute at one time, but now it looked neglected, with green-streaked brown siding and a sagging porch.

  Light spilled out of the window next door as an old woman looked around the drapes. Dave motioned with his head. “Your neighbor is watching us.”

  “Mrs. Snyder. Snoopy Snyder we used to call her. She called the police on me today. She’s always been strange, but I couldn’t believe she called the cops. I was running the vacuum cleaner, and the stupid cop pulled his gun on me.” She cocked her head. “Have you ever known an intruder to vacuum the carpets and leave the door open?”

  “Why don’t we give her something to think about?” he said in a low voice. He wrapped his hands around her tiny waist and leaned in for a kiss. As he tasted her soft, full lips, he grew hungry for more than a kiss. A little sound came from deep inside her and she parted her lips slightly, inviting more. And he took more. Pulling her tightly against his aroused body, he kissed her slowly and thoroughly, a kiss she returned with passion. For a minute, he forgot they were doing this to rattle her neighbor. He was the one rattled, and from the way Mia breathed, she was, too. “Should we try it again?” Gazing into her eyes, he whispered, “Please?”

  She stepped back. “I thought you had a thing for blondes.”

  “I did. I do, but the last one I saw looked like a linebacker.”

  She smiled and shook her head. “If you close your eyes, you can pretend I’m a green-eyed blonde?”

  “You don’t have to pretend to be anyone, Mia. You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever known.”

  “What a nice thing to say.”

  Mia walked into the cabin
, flipped on a light, and glanced around. Holding up her hand, she touched her lips. Had someone been here? Were they still here?

  Dave had the small gun strapped to his leg out in a flash. Motioning for her to stay back, he checked out both bedrooms and the bathroom. Mia had climbed the ladder to a loft over the bedrooms. The loft had an open rail overlooking the living room. Standing on the ladder, peering into the loft, she shook her head.

  They hadn’t spoken since they’d come inside, and for good reason. If the intruder hadn’t come inside to do harm to Mia, if he hadn’t come to steal or tear up the place, he must have had another purpose.

  Dave spotted the bug on the lamp by the sofa, just below the bulb. He pointed to it and she nodded.

  “David, would you like to go hiking with me in the morning?”

  He’d rather question the woman next door and spend the night in Mia’s bed, but if he did, it would blow his cover and end their relationship before it began. Greg wasn’t here to interfere, and it was the perfect time to explore the possibilities. If that kiss was any indication, she seemed willing enough. “Sure, hiking sounds good. That’s one reason I came up here. Shall we make a day of it?”

  “Not all day, David. I have things to do to get this place in shape to sell. Do you think your brother would be interested in purchasing the property?”

  “Maybe. I’ll give him a call when I get back to the hotel.” He walked to the door, apprehensive about leaving her there alone. He wanted to ask if she knew anything about the missing girls, but that would have to wait until morning.

  She walked him out to the porch. Dave saw a flash of light as Mrs. Snyder pulled the drape back to watch them. He turned back to look at Mia’s full, soft lips, knowing he didn’t need this kind of distraction, not with a missing persons case to solve. Still … “I wonder what she’d do if I stayed.”

  ** I hope you enjoyed this preview of On the Hunt. Look for it soon on Kindle and Nook. **

  THE GREGORY FAMILY SERIES

  by Sue Fineman

  ON THE RUN – the macho brother

  Former DEA agent Adam Gregory tried to get Neen Summers out of the drug lord’s house before the raid three years ago, but he was stabbed in the back by one of his own people. Neen has been on the run since the raid, staying one step ahead of the drug lord’s hired killers. Greg is desperate to find the dirty agent who stabbed him and protect Neen from the killers. He finally finds her in the cemetery, visiting her mother’s grave, but the killers have spotted her, too.

  Greg takes Neen on a wild ride across the country, protecting her from the killers, but not from his love. Neen tries to keep her distance, but the macho cop is hard to resist, and he's determined to make her love him again.

  ON THE LAM – the wounded brother

  With his shattered elbow, a reminder of the war in Iraq, Bo Gregory has enough on his hands without getting involved in someone else’s problems. He doesn’t need a battered wife and her kid living over the bar, especially when he and his brother are trying to renovate the building.

  Callie Caldwell left her abusive husband, the big, bad sheriff of Caledonia County, Texas, and filed for divorce, but the sheriff has stolen her ranch and tricked a judge into giving him custody of her son. Broke and scared, she desperately needs Bo's help. Bo wants to know why the sheriff wants Callie's ranch so much he'd force her to stay in a loveless marriage. Unable to fight his growing love for Callie and her little boy, Bo searches for answers.

  ON THE HUNT – the rejected sister

  Mia Gregory walks away from her job as a police officer in Tacoma and unknowingly steps into more danger in Clover Hills. She knows FBI Special Agent Dave Montgomery, her brother's best friend, wouldn't be in disguise in the little mountain town without good reason.

  Three girls are missing, and the local police refuse to get involved. One girl turns up dead and one is found alive, and the search for the third girl intensifies. But someone not only wants the FBI out of Clover Hills, they want Mia dead.

  Years ago, Mia had a huge crush on Dave and he still has the power to stir her senses. It would be so easy to fall in love with him, but she can't allow it to happen. With a killer on the loose and lives in jeopardy, it would be foolish to go beyond friendship.

  ON THE EDGE – the troubled brother

  Chance Gregory is still mourning the loss of his ex-wife, the mother of his children, when her killer kills again and leaves an explicit message written in blood in Chance’s law office. The killer also left a knife in Baylee Patterson’s pillow. She’s a local newspaper reporter who wrote some not-so-nice things about the killer. Chance had a one-night affair with Baylee after his divorce became final, and he’s determined to protect her as he wasn’t able to protect his ex-wife.

  When the detective in charge of the murder cases advises them to leave town, they go together, hoping the police find the killer before he finds them. The more time Baylee spends with Chance, the more she wants the one thing she knows she can’t have. Chance Gregory.

  About the Author

  Sue’s Website

  Sue Fineman is a grumpy old lady who lives with an even grumpier old man in a small town in Washington state. She writes romance, romantic suspense, women’s fiction and light paranormal romance novels about the people who live in her warped mind.

  Although she doesn’t write comedy, there’s a little humor in everything she writes. It helps balance out the grumpiness in her life.

  The Mitchell Money will be available in April, 2011, from The Wild Rose Press. By romance standards, the characters are older, but not too old to enjoy each other in every way. Gary’s old blue truck is on the book cover. Find out why Rachel calls the beat-up pickup “lovely” and won’t let him talk on his cell phone when he’s driving.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  On the Hunt ~ Excerpt

  The Gregory Family Series ~ Blurbs

  About the Author