The Huntress: full-length sexy romantic suspense (14 page)

“I’ve fallen for you, Vega. I can’t think of anything else but you and me.” He started pacing again.

“And Grayson Walker,” she added for him.

“He’s the key.” Butch stopped again. This time he was too far away to grab her. “I get Grayson and collect the two hundred thousand dollars.”

“Yes?” Something in his tone didn’t sit right.

“Don’t you see? We can use that as seed money to start our own company. Polsen and Polsen we’d call it.”

“Polsen and Polsen?”

“Your mother would never bother you with one of her infernal eligible bachelors again. You’d be off the market, baby.”

“What are you saying, Butch?” He couldn’t mean what she thought he meant. What had happened to a relationship without emotional strings?

Oh, God. Was she about to get tripped up?

He sank to one knee and held out a small black box. He did what every girl dreams of happening once in her life—pried open the lid. The diamond ring nestled in the box’s velvet interior sparkled in the apartment building’s security floodlight.

“I’m saying, we should get married.”

Chapter Twelve

Vega closed the apartment door and tossed her keys onto the kitchen table. She’d refused the ring and left Butch out in the cold.

“I’ll think about it,” she’d said.

There was a dusty bottle of whiskey somewhere in the back of a cabinet. She dug around for it until her fingers curled around the bottle’s neck. Poisoning her body with alcohol was a rare occurrence. She had too much respect for her health to abuse it regularly.

But, on occasion, she made allowances. A stiff drink might wash some of those sticky emotional strings away. She still couldn’t believe what had just happened.

Butch wanted to marry her. Worse, she was tempted to accept.

Before pouring herself a glass, she dialed Fiona’s number. Although her sister may not have the instincts of a street-toughened bounty hunter, she did have a good ear. The line rang a couple of times before switching over to the same message Vega had heard earlier. Fiona’s phone was still switched off.

She left a brief message, telling Fiona to call no matter the hour.

Fiona would follow your example if you were to marry and have children
, her mother had said. The words burned in her mind. Fiona was innocent, green. If she stayed in the bounty hunting business, she’d either get hurt or be forced to transform into a different person—into someone hard and cynical, like her.

Perhaps her mother was right. Hell, even Jack had been hinting that she should marry.

Marriage—it wasn’t an ending or a curse. And it wasn’t as if she pictured herself being alone forever. She poured herself a healthy glass of whiskey and promptly drained it.

“Now children,” she said aloud and gazed at her kitchen, distorted through the crystal glass raised in her hand. “That’s a different question all together.”

The thought of spending her life—her happily-ever-after—with Butch prompted a tight shiver to run down her back. She poured herself a second serving of whiskey. It took two tries to get to the bottom of the glass that time.

“Ever after with Butch?”

She slammed the glass onto the table. The room wobbled…or perhaps she did. That was enough alcohol for the night. She screwed the top on the bottle and left it sitting on the middle of the table.

Good Lord,
she thought as she dragged herself to bed,
was she ready to accept such a life sentence? Did she really not deserve better?

Did she really not deserve to be loved?

* * * *

That night, erotic dreams of Grayson attacked her with a force she’d never felt before. She woke up feeling battered, drained, and more than a little shaken. The need to capture him and drag him back into the courts had escalated. He’d eluded her, become a black mark on her perfect record.

By Jack pulling her from the assignment, she really had no hope of wiping that mark away…unless she agreed to work with Butch.

But she would tackle one problem at a time. Her first responsibility was to rescue the beauty queen, Tyree Robinson.

She opened her eyes. A renewed sense of clarity hummed through her taut body. She rose and reached up over her head, stretching like a lazy cat. The day in front of her would be busy. She planned to find Tyree and give Butch a definite answer.

A half hour later, she took Michigan Avenue to Dearborn to talk with Tyree’s friend again. The traffic was snarled. Her jeep’s ancient engine shivered in the icy morning air.

As she drove she called Butch.

“I’m not saying no,” she said as a greeting.

“Good.” He sounded far too sure of himself.

“I’m not saying yes, either.”

“You will.”

She wasn’t sure how to respond to that. Butch probably believed that overconfidence of his was an endearing trait.

“I’m going to talk to Jack,” she said, after a long pause.

“Jack?” Butch grumbled. “You’ll just be wasting your time with Jack. He won’t want to lose you and will tell you a thousand times why this thing between us is a bad idea.”

Perhaps that was exactly why she was going to Jack.

“Jack won’t let you go after Walker. I’ll make it possible for you to track him down. I’ll make it possible for you to show Jack just how capable you are.” And that was exactly why she had called Butch. The opportunity was just too tempting.

“Perhaps we can form and partnership, find Grayson, and discuss marriage afterwards?”

“Of course, baby. Anything you want.”

“Let me talk to Jack first. I’ll call you in a couple of hours.” She hung up before Butch could say anything to make her change her mind. Besides, she had a teenage kid in trouble that reached way over the girl’s head, still to find.

* * * *

“Jack!” Vega called down the hall at Skip Tracers.

He waited for her to catch up but looked pretty impatient about it. His briefcase was tucked under his arm and a stack of files filled his hands. “I’ve got appointments with three bonding companies this morning. I don’t have time to hear how you’ve managed to turn a beauty queen assignment into something deadly.”

“I haven’t…I mean I won’t.” Candice, the beauty queen’s best friend, had reluctantly given over where Tyree’s boyfriend, the drug dealer, might be found that afternoon. Seemed he’d been the one to convince Tyree to run away from home. There should be no problem with the pick-up. “I’ll have the girl home before dinner.”

“Good.” He started for the door again.

Vega caught his arm. “Butch made a proposal last night that I’m seriously considering accepting.”

His expression fell. “What kind of—wait, I don’t want to talk about this in the hall.”

She followed him to his office and took her regular chair. Jack chose to stand. He crossed his arms and scowled.

“I suppose Butch wants you to help him go after Walker.”

She propped a leg across her knee. “As a matter of fact, he does. I’ve got quite a reputation, Jack…and some charm. I could easily lure the contract away.” Not that she really wanted to. That was one reason she wanted to talk with Jack first.

“Butch has been itching to go into business for himself for several years now. He’s money-hungry, you know.”

“I know.” She felt like she knew Butch inside and out.

Jack leaned forward, his gaze trying to pin her to the chair. “And unpredictable.”

“You don’t need to tell me.” She gave him a little smile. “It’s all Mom’s doing, you know. She’s the one who wants to see me married.”

“Married?” He threw his hands in the air. “And I thought you were running away from Skip Tracers because I was keeping you from Walker.” He settled down long enough to catch his breath. “I can’t believe you’d turn your back on your family and go work for Butch just to escape your mother’s lectures. Leaving won’t make her give up on you.”

She just had to tell him right out, though the thought of marriage to Butch still put a sour lump in her throat. “You don’t understand, Jack. Butch has asked me to marry him—to be his partner in business and in life.”

“Oh.” He actually paled.

“I haven’t agreed…yet. I’m tempted.”

“Do you love him?” Jack asked in a whisper-soft voice.

The question propelled her to her feet. “That’s really not important,” she said, and started for the door. A good bounty hunter always knew when to retreat.

“I’m not asking as your supervisor, Vega. But as your uncle who loves you like a daughter. Do you love Butch?”

She shrugged.

The buzzing of the florescence light in the ceiling was the only sound in the room for several minutes. She was not about to dig herself into a hole by talking too much.

“Your father wouldn’t approve,” he said at last.

She smiled at that. “Mom won’t either. Guess there’s no chance you’d hand me Grayson Walker as a bribe to keep me at Skip Tracers?”

He didn’t even pretend to consider the idea. “Not with you less than one hundred percent, Vega. I won’t be the one to get you killed.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.” Just like her father, his lack of faith in her ripped her up inside. Maybe Butch couldn’t give her love. But he could offer her the kind of acceptance she’d been searching for. She opened the office door. “I’ll let you know what I decide.”

She was halfway out of the office when Jack’s intercom buzzed. “Jack, you’ve got an urgent call from Atlanta,” his secretary said, not sounding at all flirty, which was enough to make Vega step back in and close the door behind her.

“Fiona?” she asked as the blood drain away from her head.

Jack picked up the receiver. He didn’t speak a word, which was even more distressing than his secretary’s flat tone.

“Don’t hurt her,” he said after listening to the person on the other end of the line for far too long. It wasn’t a plea but an order carrying the threat of death behind it.

Vega reached over the desk and switched on the phone’s speaker.

“Bring the cash to the men’s bathroom just outside the Atlanta Cyclorama.” She recognized Grayson’s voice immediately. “Come alone or she’s dead.”

“Let me talk to her,” Vega said.

There was a long pause. She thought he might have disconnected. “Vega.” There was a grin in his voice. “Your sister doesn’t hold a candle to you.”

“Bastard, if you touch her—”

“I would worry instead how she fell into my clutches.”

The line went dead.

“I’m going with you,” she said.

Jack ignored her. He’d dialed the phone and was waiting for an answer.

“I’m going with you to Atlanta, Jack. I know this guy. I know we can trap him.”

“Run a trace on the last call to come to this number,” he said, still ignoring her.

She couldn’t stand it. She felt close to jumping out of her skin. No matter what Jack said, she’d be on the next plane to Atlanta. She planned to tear Grayson into little pieces and toss the mess to the local cops.
No one touched her sister.

Jack dialed a second number. Vega, too wound up to sit, paced his office while cursing Grayson under her breath.

He had the chance to kill you twice, but he didn’t
. The intruding thought did nothing to settle her nerves. She wanted her anger. Wrapping herself up in the raw emotion empowered her.

She caught no more than snatches of the conversation Jack was having with the Atlanta PD. Her complete focus had shifted to the future, to her confrontation with Grayson.

Jack finally hung up the phone. “You’re not going to Atlanta with me,” he said. His tone was calm and sounded terribly final.

“The hell I’m not! He’s got my sister.”

Jack sighed. “Yes, and he said if you came to Atlanta, he’d kill her. You’re not coming.”

Oh God
. She could picture far too clearly Fiona’s body lying lifeless in a casket. And Fiona’s death would be entirely her fault. “What does he want?”

She sank into the closest chair, focused on a spot on the rug, and tried to calm her racing thoughts.

“He doesn’t give us much time. I have to be in Atlanta this evening with fifty thousand in cash. I can do it, no problem. And the police will be there to scoop up Walker once Fiona is safely out of the way.”

“What do you need me to do?” she asked.

“Do you consider yourself still employed here?” he asked, still using that dangerously calm tone.

Vega gave a quick nod.

“Good. I need you to find Tyree Robinson. Have that assignment wrapped up with a nice bow by the time I get back tomorrow.”

Chapter Thirteen

“How is asking for a ransom going to get our hands on her sister?” Matt asked. “This one looks much sweeter than money.” He lunged forward and managed to poke Fiona in the side with his finger before Grayson pulled him back.

Still holding onto Matt’s collar, Grayson led Matt into the other room. There were some things he wanted Fiona to hear, like the phone call to Jack setting the terms for the trade. There were other things he didn’t want her to know, such as what he really had planned.

“I’m not going to kidnap Vega. After what happens today, that bounty hunter will be all over Atlanta asking more questions than a curious four-year-old.”

“Never liked kids,” Matt grumbled. “I don’t recommend you kidnap any. Too much trouble, kids.”

“Try to focus, Matt. My plan doesn’t involve kidnapping anyone right now. I just want to play with Vega’s mind.”

Matt grinned at that. “Torture is a kind of mind game.”

“Matt, not now. I need your help with this. You have to hold it together for the next couple of hours—that’s an order.”

* * * *

Vega left Jack’s office and went straight to the arsenal room, a small locked closet at the end of the hall where Jack kept an assortment of handguns and Jack’s new toys, a pair of advanced air gun Tasers, a new kind of stun gun guaranteed to disable a man from a distance of fifteen feet.

She rarely ventured into the arsenal room, preferring to purchase her own equipment. But she’d been unwilling to buy a new pistol, not when she planned on getting her father’s Glock back. She weighed a light Beretta M9 in her hand. The balance felt adequate. It would do.

She signed out the Beretta and took it back to her office to take apart, clean, and load. Though chasing after a stock broker on the run without packing any heat hadn’t bothered her, she sure as hell wouldn’t step foot into a drug pusher’s domain without some fire power behind her as a backup. Martial arts could only get her so far.