NaturesBounty (6 page)

“Get down!” one of the men said to him. “Get your fucking
hands on top of your head.”

Lydia’s heart was drumming wildly in her chest as she lay
there, frozen. Both men wore some kind of bulletproof vests with
Bail
Enforcement
printed in yellow across the front. Both had badges around
their necks that were similar to Nate’s. More important, both had guns pointed
at her and Nate.

“I didn’t call for backup,” Nate said. “This is my arrest.
Why are you here?”

“Get your damn hands back in the air where I can see them,
Nate,” the larger and scarier man said. “I’m not going to say it again.”

Nate stiffened and gave him an odd look. He glanced down at
her, and there was something weighted in his expression when their eyes met.

He raised his hands again. “Okay, I get it. Clearly the guy
with the bigger weapon gets to be in charge. Let’s everyone just keep our heads
cool.”

She wasn’t sure how, but she knew he was going to do
something crazy about a split second before he made a move. With his foot, he
lifted the coffee table, grabbed it, and in a smooth motion, hurled it at the
two men. It hit one of them dead on, and a gunshot went off.

In a single beat of Lydia’s racing heart, Nate followed the
table across the room. The pop of the gun was so much louder than she expected,
rattling her skull and dulling the sounds of the scuffle between Nate and the
man he’d just stunned the hell out of. Her hands flew over her ears as she
fought to control the swell of panic.

Why the hell was he fighting these guys? Weren’t they all on
the same side?

Lydia pushed herself upright on her knees as the second guy,
a hard-looking blond who clearly meant business, came straight for her.

“Stay on the ground!” he shouted at her, the gun trained on
her most unnervingly. She froze, but her eyes flicked over to where Nate
flashed out with a punch that sent the other guy to the floor. He sprawled out
on his back and stayed there.

What exactly possessed her in that moment, she wasn’t sure.
Her mind was screaming at her to do exactly what the scary man with the gun
told her. But the devil inside whispered that if she let him get a hold of her,
it would be very, very bad.

“What the hell,” she whispered.

Lydia reached up and yanked her bikini cups aside, spilling
her breasts into view. The ridiculous move rewarded her with a brief halt in
his advance, and his gun hand wavered for just a second while he stared at her
tits. It was a momentary reprieve that wouldn’t have gained her a thing if not
for the man coming up quietly behind him. She glanced over in time to see Nate
swing the remaining half of the coffee table. The blond guy whipped around and
saw it as well, exactly two seconds after it was too late to react.

The table connected with the man’s upper half and sent him
reeling back into the wall, where he knocked his head hard. He slid to the
floor, clearly dazed.

“The guy with the bigger weapon,” Nate said, dropping the
remains of the table. He had a wild gleam in his eye when he turned to Lydia
and held out his hand. A gun that he’d apparently relieved the other intruder
of was in his other one.

“Come on,” he said.

“What for?”

“No time to sit around wondering how to get your security
deposit back. We’re getting out of here.”

“We are?”

She took his hand and he promptly yanked her upright. He
half dragged her to the window, and she pulled back when she realized what he
had in mind.

“Out there?”

“They might have a guy posted on the front exit. Hurry up.”

He helped her out the window onto a fire escape that seemed
rickety and utterly terrifying from the third floor. The handcuff still
fastened to her wrist dangled wildly while she grabbed the ladder and started
descending. Nate was right behind her, but they didn’t make it far before they
heard a shout.

“They went out the fire escape!”

“Double time,” Nate called down to her.

Her limbs ached, and the threatened hangover headache was
pounding in full force ahead of schedule, but she somehow made it to the ground
without either landing in a gunman’s clutches or falling and breaking her neck.
The drop from the bottom ladder jarred her a little, however, making her doubly
grateful that Nate had also managed to get her good sneakers on before their
unexpected guests had arrived.

Nate landed beside her with ease and jerked his head toward
the beach. “This way. I hope you weren’t lying about being a runner.”

“Why should I come with you?”

“I’m helping you escape, obviously.”

“No, you’re not. You’re making sure you’re the one who gets
the bounty for my capture.”

“We don’t have time to argue. And I have a gun now, by the
way.” He pointed to his waistband, which had the gun tucked into it.

She let out a grunt of frustration. “Damn it.”

He grabbed her hand and they took off at a full jog along
the boardwalk, dodging startled tourists, hippies and dog walkers who were all
out for an evening stroll along the beach. Her breasts were still exposed and
bouncing crazily as she ran like hell, and she frantically tried to stuff them
back where they belonged while Nate pulled her along.

He suddenly veered off the boardwalk through the grass,
cutting up between two buildings and heading for the street.

“Where are we going?” she asked, out of breath. Her legs
burned, and so did her chest. Sure, she went for a morning jog a few times a
week, but not at a dead run with no warmup.

“My car.”

They darted through evening traffic as they crossed Pacific
and headed up a side street.

“Where the hell did you park, back in Colorado Springs?”

By the time they made it to a parking garage and ducked
inside, her legs were ready to give out. When they finally stopped beside a
blue Ford with Colorado tags, she slumped hard against the trunk and fought to
catch her breath.

Nate stood by the driver’s door, constantly checking behind
him while he pulled out his cell phone and started fiddling with the buttons.

She eyed him warily. “Don’t you think you should get us out
of here before calling your mother to tell her you’ll be late for curfew?”

“My fucking keys are back at your place,” he said, swiping
his finger across the phone screen. “They’re in the duffel bag.”

“And I’m supposed to stand around while you call a cab?”

He shot her a quick glance and then pointed the phone at the
car door. The lock clicked, and he tugged the door open with a smug grin.

Lydia’s jaw fell open. “How did you do that?”

“I have an app that unlocks the door.” He fished in his
pants pocket for a moment and came up with a key that he did happen to have.
“Turn around and let me deal with those cuffs.”

Her brain was so fried that she didn’t stop to think why she
had to turn around for him to take them off. It didn’t dawn on her until she
found both wrists behind her again with the cuffs locked back in place.

“What the fuck are you doing?” she shouted, her voice
bouncing off the concrete walls. “I thought we were on the same team now?”

Nate took her by the upper arm and led her around the car,
where he pulled open the passenger door. “Get in. Watch your head.”

Since he pushed her down by the head, she had little choice
as she got in the front seat. He did the knee-on-legs, ponytail-grab maneuver
while he buckled her into the seat belt. Then he held up some kind of nylon
strap that he fished out from near her lower legs.

“This is in case you’re thinking of getting creative with
your feet,” he said, and he buckled it firmly across her lower legs. “So sit
still and enjoy the ride.”

He shut her in while she sat there, fuming and tugging at
the cuffs behind her. When he leaned into the driver’s side, she shot him a
vicious glare.

“What, you’re not stuffing me in the backseat with a cage
between us? That’s what the cops did when they arrested me. Wrongfully, I might
add.”

He reached in to flip a switch, and she heard the trunk pop
open. “And have you behind me where I can’t see what you’re up to? I’d rather
not get kicked in the head, thanks.”

Then he disappeared again. After a minute of rooting around,
the trunk slammed and he climbed in beside her.

When he stuck a key in the ignition, she frowned. “I thought
you said you left your keys behind?”

“I keep a spare set in the trunk.”

The engine fired up, and he wasted no time putting the car in
reverse and executing a rapid get-the-hell-out maneuver.

“You
lock
up your spare keys?” she asked while he
whipped around the corner. “Do you not see the flaw in that plan?”

“Did you not see how easily I got around it?”

He glanced nervously into the rearview mirror, and she took
a peek at her side mirror as well. No one was running after them, yelling and
pointing, and there were no suspicious cars behind them, either. Maybe they
were home free.

She glanced at his profile while he focused on traffic. “And
what if you’d lost your cell phone too, Einstein? What then?”

“I have a lock pick set in my wallet. Or I could break the
window and hotwire the car.” He turned and gave her a quick, annoyingly sexy
grin. “I’m a man of many talents.”

She rolled her eyes at him. “Stripping apparently not being
one.”

“Why, are you disappointed that you missed that part of the
show?”

“You wish. You made a terrible stripper, just so you know.”

“Good enough for you to let me in the door. Among other
things.”

“I should have tied those balloons to your nuts and floated
you off over the ocean.” The cuffs dug into her skin, and she tried shifting in
her seat to take the pressure off. “Putting on handcuffs isn’t among your
talents, either. These are breaking my wrist.”

“Just be happy I don’t use the zip-tie kind,” he said,
craning his neck as they approached a line of businesses up ahead. “I don’t
like them. They get damn tight and can’t be adjusted once they’re on. I’d have
to cut you out of them and hope your skin didn’t come off as well.”

“I know,” she said, staring out the window. “I was recently
treated to the fab new age of plastic police restraints.”

“Some things are better old school.” He nodded up ahead. “Is
there an ATM in that shopping center?”

“How should I know? Do I look like Google Maps?”

“You live here now.”

“I was
hiding
here now. I didn’t exactly get out
much.”

They turned into a line of chain stores and small
restaurants, and Nate cruised through the parking lot until he found what he
sought. He managed to use the walk-up cash machine without taking his eyes off
Lydia, who made faces at him until he came back.

“I’ll say this much for you,” he said when he pulled out of
their spot. “I can’t say I’ve had a skip who was more entertaining.”

“Why, don’t you always do a fuck-’em-and-suck-’em before
dragging helpless captives down the fire escape?”

“Helpless, my ass.”

“You never did answer me about why you fought those guys.
They’re bounty hunters too, right? Isn’t there honor among thieves and all
that?”

The look he gave her sent a chill through her, and not the
good kind she’d felt when she’d thought he was her birthday present.

“That’s the problem,” he said. “I don’t think they were
bounty hunters. Not at all.”

Nate pulled out his phone while he felt Lydia’s eyes burning
through him. “What do you mean, they weren’t bounty hunters? They had on all
that gear that said so.”

“I’m not the only guy who can put on a costume. Now be quiet
a minute.”

He ran through the whole scenario again, from the minute
they kicked in her door to the way they had targeted
him
. As though he,
not the bond jumper, were the actual threat.

He dialed Asa’s number and waited for him to pick up.

“There’s a whole lot of something fucked going on,” Nate
said. “This was supposed to be a cake job. Go out easy with a decent severance,
you told me.” He glanced at Lydia in time to catch the look of disgust.
“Instead it’s turned into a clusterfuck. I should raise my fee.”

“What do you mean?” Asa asked. “You didn’t get her?”

“What I got was a pair of wannabe cowboys rammed up my ass.
What the hell’s going on, Ace? Who were those assholes who just crashed my
farewell tour?”

“You’re not making any sense. What assholes?”

“A couple phony bond agents just broke down the door where
the jumper was holed up. They tried to put a bullet in my parade.”

He heard Asa swear. “They showed up there?”

“Yeah. And who’s ‘they’? Do you know those guys?”

“I’m sorry, man. It wasn’t supposed to go down like that.
They must have followed you there.”

Nate, who was still staring at Lydia, frowned. She frowned
back, even though he was reasonably certain she couldn’t hear the other end of
the conversation.

“What wasn’t supposed to go down like that?” he asked.

Asa paused for a moment.

“God damn it, Ace.”

“They were going to do it nice and clean and quiet once you
got back over the state line. They swore it.”

An ugly tingle crawled up Nate’s spine. “Do what? You better
tell me exactly what the fuck is going on.”

“Did they take the girl?”

“No.” He paused. “I have her.” As soon as he said it, he
wondered whether he should have. He’d known Asa for years and worked for him
almost as long. It never would have occurred to him not to trust the man.

“Where are you now?”

Nate shook his head. “Uh-uh. First, you tell me who the
freak jobs were and why they’re here.”

“I can’t, not over the phone.” Asa sighed. “Look, just get
here as fast as you can. I’ll tell you everything then. I promise.”

“No deal. Tell me now.”