The Huntress: full-length sexy romantic suspense (8 page)

“She’s fine.” She heard Grayson answer. His voice sounded vaguely distant. She fought to hold onto consciousness as she watched a wad of
her
cash being pushed across the counter and disappearing into the clerk’s hands. “The bullets?”

“Might have something in the back.” The clerk slipped through a narrow door.

“I won’t let you kill me,” Vega finally managed to get out through the blurring pain. “I’m a far cry from dead.”

He answered with an emotionless stare. “I’m thirsty. Let’s go look at what they have in the cooler.” Without giving her a choice, he pulled her toward a wall of cold beverages. He tossed her up against the cooler’s frigid glass. His hand flew to her throat in a vicious hold.

“Look,” he whispered, his face nearly touching hers. “I can’t let you take me back into custody.”

When she tried to twist free, he slammed her injured shoulder against the glass. Sparks swam in her vision.

“I don’t want to make this my life against yours,” he said.

“Then what is it?” she asked through gritted teeth. “A really bad first date?”

“I’ve had worse.” He released her arm for a moment to fish around in his pocket. She watched in horror as he produced her handcuffs. With her strength still lagging, she could only manage to kick him in the shin before he locked the handcuff around her wrist and slapped the other end to the cooler door’s handle.

He rubbed his leg while hopping out of range. “Son of a bitch. Don’t dare do that again.”

The door to the back room opened. “I just happen to have one box left,” the clerk called waving the red and white box of bullets in her hand. From her angle, she couldn’t see what he’d done.

“Thanks, be right there,” he said over his shoulder. His brown eyes locked onto Vega’s for a moment. “This time, stay in the hospital. My capture isn’t worth what you seem willing to pay.”

Without warning, he pressed his body hard against her and seared his lips to hers. He took his time. She wanted to kick him again. But there was something about his kiss, the feel of his lips. Something compelling.

Who was this guy?

The tenderness of his lips—a woman could find herself trapped by such a kiss.

She ripped her mouth away from his. Damn him. Her heart pounded in her throat.

He gave her a sly smile and withdrew his hand from her pocket, taking her Glock 9 with him.

“Thanks.”

“No!” Not her
father’s gun
! Not
again
.

She lunged forward to rip the gun from his hands. He was a step faster. She’d nearly grabbed his shirt before the handcuffs jerked her back.

She shouted frantic warnings to the clerk as he made a mad dash to the counter. Vega was forced to watch helplessly as he dumped a second wad of money he’d taken from her wallet on the counter in exchange for the box of bullets and a handful of power bars. He didn’t stop running until he got to his truck. The old engine sputtered a few times before roaring to life. Wheels spun against the pavement as he gunned back onto the road.

She muttered a soundless curse.

The clerk, a rifle snug in her arms, took her time weaving through the aisles before approaching Vega amongst the cold beverages. “I’m not in the mood for funny stuff,” she growled.

Vega let her head drop back against the cooler door she was chained to. “I’m not either. Will you make that call to the police now?”

“Already did. They’re on the way.”

The clerk just stood there in the back of the store with the rifle trained on Vega’s chest. Silly really. Even if she hadn’t been bound to that stupid cooler door, she wasn’t strong enough to go anywhere. It took nearly everything she had to remain on her feet.

* * * *

“Put that rifle away, Mrs. Hugine. What you’ve got here is a real live bounty hunter. You should feel honored.”

Vega peeled her eyes open. A man dressed in a putty-colored uniform stood in front of her. He tilted his head to one side as he leaned forward to study her more closely.

“You are
the
Vega Brookes, right?” he asked.

She gave a sharp nod. Her watery vision wavered.

“Glad to meet you.” He grabbed her hand and shook it with a vengeance. Pain sliced up and down her arm as he jolted her shoulder.

“And who are you?” she asked and pulled her hand away. If he touched her again, she’d sock him.

“Sheriff Townsend, Miss Brookes. A real fan.” He swung around to the clerk, Mrs. Hugine. “I said put that rifle away. Miss Vega Brookes just happens to be the best damn bounty hunter in the country. Not once has she failed to bring in her fugitive.”

The clerk sniffed deeply and returned to her stool behind the counter, clearly not impressed.

“Whew, you must’ve had quite a tangle with that Grayson Walker fellow. Can’t say I’ve seen anyone look much dirtier than you do.” He tipped his sheriff’s hat back. “That pluff mud stinks to high heaven, too.”

“If you don’t mind, I’d like to get these off.” Vega rattled the handcuffs. “Do you think your key will fit?”

“Sure can try.” He fiddled with the handcuff until the lock popped open.

“There you go.” He gave her shoulder a friendly pound.

She nearly toppled to the floor from the piercing pain. “Stay…away…from…me,” she managed to grind out in between several deep gasps.

“Jeez, the best ones always seem strung too tight.” But he did back away. “Called your uncle on my way over. He should be here by now. We’ve been out searching for you ever since you gave him the slip at the hospital.”

On cue, Jack burst through the front doors and charged toward the back of the store. His complexion bloomed a blotchy pink, a disturbing color she’d never seen on him.

“It’s okay, Jack. She’s right here.”

“It’s not okay,” Jack said in a tone that warned he was just winding up. “What the hell were you thinking, Vega? Were you trying to get yourself killed?”

“Walker hasn’t gotten far yet.” She simply couldn’t accept that Grayson had escaped,
again
. She was itching to get her hands on him. Her prey had never bested her so soundly. She always captured her fugitive.
Always
. She had to go after him.

And she had to get her father’s pistol back.

“If we went right now…”

“We?” Jack’s complexion deepened into a true red. “You,
little girl
, aren’t going anywhere near that fugitive. You’re done. Finished. I’d already taken that assignment away from you.”

“I know I screwed up, Jack,” she started.

“Oh Vega, you can’t begin to imagine just how much trouble you are in. I don’t allow reckless behavior at Skip Tracers. You should know that by now. You are suspended. Indefinitely.” He grabbed her arms and gave her a little shake. “I should send you to stay with your mother. I should—”

“Jack,” she whispered. A tear found its way to her cheek. “I’m hurting real bad.”

That shut him right up.

Without much care for her comfort, he stripped her coat off her shoulders, then pulled a knife from his boot and sliced her shirt open. “No wonder you’re in pain, you’ve ripped out all your stitches.”

She glanced down at her shoulder. Thick red blood oozed from the angry wound. “There’s one stitch left.”

“And it’s not doing a damn thing.”

“I could radio for an ambulance,” Sheriff Townsend said, sounding a bit too caffeinated for Vega’s throbbing head.

“No, she’s not dying.” Jack’s color was slowly returning to a less alarming shade of red. “I’ll drive her to the hospital.”

“I’ll give you an escort.” Sheriff Townsend swaggered off toward the front of the store.

“You will be okay, right?” Jack asked, sounding much more like her Uncle Jack again.

“Yeah, I’m just peachy.”

Consciousness hung by a thin thread by the time she reached the hospital, which wasn’t exactly a bad thing. Both Jack and Dr. Kilpatrick chewed her ears off for leaving the hospital without permission or anyone’s knowledge.

“I could sedate her until she’s ready to go home, if you’d like.” Dr. Kilpatrick offered while tying a stitch in Vega’s thankfully anesthetized shoulder.

Jack considered the idea for far too long.

“What about Walker?” Vega slurred the question. Couldn’t hurt to try and change the subject. The pick-on-Vega-and-tell-her-how-stupid-she’s-acted discussion had been done to death.

“What about him? He’s not your concern. He wasn’t your assignment anymore when you chased after him from this hospital bed,” Jack barked back.

“You aren’t letting Fiona go after him? He’s too dangerous.”

Jack fell silent, which worried her more than anything else did. “Fiona’s okay,” he said at long last. “I put her on a plane to Atlanta yesterday afternoon.”

She batted Dr. Kilpatrick’s hands away from her shoulder and jolted up. “You did
what
?”

“I could still sedate her,” Dr. Kilpatrick said, struggling to force Vega back down to the metal table.

She wasn’t ready to be so easily cowed. “Fiona’s green, Jack. She can’t go after that guy. Hell, I’m lucky to have survived, and I know how to take care of myself.”

“She’s strong, I give you that,” Dr. Kilpatrick said, still straining against Vega’s immoveable chest.

Jack nudged the doctor out of the way and glared at Vega using the same angry look her father had perfected years ago as a way to control his spirited daughters. Seeing her father’s expression appear so suddenly on Jack’s face was like bumping into a ghost.

“Lie back down and stop giving the doctor a hard time.” Like an echo from the past, her father might have well appeared in the room.

“Yes sir,” she answered, automatically. She’d been too well-trained by her police chief father to do anything but obey.

Jack winked at Dr. Kilpatrick.

“Atlanta?” Vega mumbled.

“Fiona’s better trained than you think. Don’t worry. I haven’t given her the authority to do anything other than field research. She’s on a simple job of reconnaissance, questioning every person who’d ever had contact with Walker. She doesn’t have authorization to apprehend anyone.”

“Pig-headed Fiona who is dying to prove herself to you, Jack?”

Jack mumbled something under his breath about pots and black kettles. “Don’t worry about Fiona. I can generally handle my employees. Besides, Walker wouldn’t dare go anywhere near Atlanta.”

Chapter Seven

Vega woke up panting and completely entangled in her sheets. She’d had the dream again.

Two and a half weeks since Jack ordered her home to Detroit to heal and Grayson’s searing kiss still hadn’t melted into an unpleasant memory. Something about it had made him seem so…vulnerable. Damn.

Her mind was wrapped around Grayson as tightly as her sheets had cinched up between her overheated legs. Her nipples puckered as she imagined just what kind of lover he would make.

She had to be out of her mind. Sex with him would be dangerous—crazy. Even so, the air in her dark, lonely bedroom was so heavy with lust it threatened to suffocate her.

She should call Butch.

During the day, she worried about Fiona traipsing through Atlanta in search of a murderer. At night, Grayson slipped into her dreams like a thief, caressing her with his gentle hands until he provoked her into a distressing pique of frustration.

She always woke up overheated.

She definitely should call Butch.

She punched her pillow a couple of times as if wounding a stuffed fabric square could solve anything. What she needed was satisfaction.

Not even Butch’s skillful attentions could help her with this one, damn it. If she were to ask a shrink, he’d tell her she was frustrated over losing to Grayson. Her dreams were no more than a manifestation of that frustration. She knew all that.

She untangled herself from the sheets and climbed out of bed. Four-twenty, the clock read. Sleep wouldn’t return again for a while and the dojo opened at five. She might as well get up.

Besides, some extra time spent training might help chase away her demons.

* * * *

“Let me get back on that horse, Jack.” Vega planted herself in middle of her uncle’s office, refusing to budge until he said the words she wanted to hear.

The low afternoon sun blared through his windows. The weeklong arctic blast had finally blown itself out, but not even the return of daylight lightened her cagey nerves.

Spending the entire day in the dojo, getting her butt kicked by the master, only added to her frustration. She needed to get back to work. She needed to prove to everyone, herself included, that failing to apprehend Grayson didn’t necessarily brand her a failure. Hell, bounty hunters were lucky to have a fifty-percent success rate. Her determination had led her to an unprecedented one hundred percent capture rate. Her perfect record could survive one blemish. Couldn’t it?

“You were supposed to spend the day with your mother.” Jack leaned back in his chair and gave her a chilling glare. “Gillie called five times looking for you. Five times I had to listen to how I nearly got you killed.”

Damn. She’d forgotten all about her mother’s plans to drag her to every fashionable-clothing store in Detroit. Her mother called it “Step One” in reforming Vega’s wardrobe. “I’ll call her tonight and apologize.”

“You do that.” Jack flipped open a file folder on his desk and began reading.

She refused to take the hint and leave. “An assignment, Jack. I’m crawling out of my mind from boredom.”

“No.” His eyes stayed glued to that file in front of him.

“Why?”

“You’re not giving yourself time to heal. How many hours a day are you spending training?” Jack picked up a pen and tapped an angry beat on the top of his desk. “How many, Vega?”

“No more than four.”

Jack raised a brow.

“Five at the most.” Her doctors were amazed at the progress of her recovery. Her training partner complained she was holding back, taking too long. She tended to agree with her training partner. Her mind wasn’t injured—just a couple of body parts. Though devilish pains still wracked her shoulder and bothered her head; that was no excuse for losing her edge.

“Throw me a bone, Jack. I can’t rest.”