Bounty Hunter's Woman

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“I’ll double your fee.”

Donovan liked to think he wasn’t a fool, especially when it came to money. A job was a job. And he could handle little Miss Priss. “All right,” he said. “But you can tell her. She’s not going to be happy about it.”

“I can’t,” he said. “We’re about to take off—we’ve just been told to turn off all electronics. Tell Priscilla I love her and I’ll see her in a month. Keep her safe. I’m counting on you.”

“Wait a minute. What if—” That was as far as he got before the line went dead. Swearing, Donovan snapped the phone shut and tossed it into a cupholder. “Great! This is just great!”

Beside him, Priscilla eyed him suspiciously. “What is? What am I not going to be happy about? What did Buck say?”

“He’s pretty sure the airports are being watched,” he said bluntly, “so leaving the country, at least for now, is out of the question. He thinks you’ll be safer with me, anyway.”

“What?! Oh, no. I’m going home.”

“Not right now you’re not,” he informed her. “He just hired me to watch over you for the next month.”

“The hell he did!”

A grin propped up one side of his mouth. So the fireworks were about to begin. “He doubled my fee, sweetheart,” he chuckled. “Like it or not, it looks like you’re stuck with me.”

“For a month? You’re out of your mind. In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m not a child.”

Appreciation glinted in his eyes. “Oh, I noticed, all right.”

She gave him a withering look. “Stuff it, Mr.—” Trying to remember his name, she frowned. “What the devil is your name? Dirk? Darryl?”

“Donovan Jones,” he said with a grin. “But you can call me Mr. Jones.”

“In your dreams,” she snorted. “Keep this up and I’ll call you—”

“Wonderful…studly…Superman—”

“Irritating…obnoxious—”

“George.”

Surprised, she blinked. “George?”

“Clooney.”

Caught off guard, she laughed. “You must be joking.”

For a moment, she thought she’d insulted him. Something that looked like hurt flashed in his steely blue eyes. Then she saw his lips twitch, and alarm bells went off in her head. He was, she realized, far more dangerous than she’d first suspected. He was one of those men who was far too sure of himself, who knew how to set a woman’s heart pounding with just a smile and a twinkle in his eyes. And she had to spend a month with him? No way!

“I’m calling Buck,” she told him, snatching up his phone. “I don’t need anyone to take care of me.”

“You’d have a better argument if I hadn’t just rescued you from those two thugs,” he pointed out dryly, “but go ahead and call him. It’s not going to do you any good. He’s already on a plane back to the States.”

She didn’t believe him. Lightning quick, she punched in Buck’s cell phone, but it never rang. Instead, it went straight to voice mail. Swearing, she hung up. “How much is he paying you?” she demanded. “Whatever it is, I’ll double it.”

He grinned. “Really? What is it with you people? First your brother, now you. You do realize, don’t you, that you’re quadrupling my original fee without even knowing what it is?”

“It doesn’t matter,” she snapped. “I’ll come up with the money someway. Are you accepting my offer or not?”

“It depends on what you want me to do,” he said simply.

“Take me to Heathrow.”

“Forget it!” he said quickly. “That’s out of the question.”

“Then take me to Bristol or Liverpool.”

“Nope. It’s too dangerous.”

“You don’t know that.”

“The hell I don’t. Buck told me all about the problems your family is having in Colorado. Someone wants the ranch, sweetheart, and it sounds like they’re willing to commit murder to get it. In case you missed who their intended victim is, it’s you.”

A cold shiver skated down her spine. Hugging herself, she stared out the van’s passenger window as they raced across London in the fog at a frightening speed. “Oh, no,” she said huskily. “I knew. I was hoping they were just trying to scare me.”

“Did it work?”

Her throat dry, she nodded. “That’s why I ran when you broke in. I knew it was the only chance I was going to get.”

“And you still want me to take you to the airport? Are you crazy, girl? Buck was right—they’ll be watching the airports. You’d be running right into a trap.”

“Not if we got there before they did,” she pointed out. “They don’t know where we’re going—”

He laughed without humor. “Of course they know where we’re going! It’s the only way back to the States, sweetheart, unless you’re going to take a slow boat to China.”

“But we left them back at the flat. We’ve got a head start.”

He couldn’t believe she was serious. “Yes, we do, but how do you know the clowns I tied up back at the flat are the only ones after you? The bastard who sent them after you appears to have a hell of a long reach. Do you really think he wouldn’t have a backup in place in case you were able to escape?”

Horrified, Priscilla felt her heart drop into her stomach. “You mean we’re being followed? Oh, God! Where—”

He checked the rearview mirror for the tenth time in two minutes, but the fog that surrounded them was all encompassing. “Relax,” he told her. “Nothing short of a bloodhound’s following us in this fog. By the time it lifts, we’ll have left London far behind. Not that anyone needs to follow us,” he added. “All your kidnappers have to do is watch the airports…and the Paris tunnel. Those are the only two ways to get off this island, which is why we’re avoiding them.”

“Then where are we going?”

“I’m still working on that. Buck caught me off guard,” he admitted. “But don’t worry. I’ll take care of everything.”

After everything she’d been through, trust was no longer something she gave easily. Eyeing him warily in the dim glow of the dash lights, she lifted a delicately arched brow. “Really? I’m supposed to trust you, just like that? How do I know you’re not working with my kidnappers and taking me back to them?”

“You talked to Buck,” he reminded her. “He told you himself that he hired me.”

“But how did he get your name? You’re a bounty hunter. Why didn’t he hire a private investigator instead? Who recommended you to him?”

He shrugged. “That’s something you’ll have to ask him.”

“I can’t. He’s on a plane for the next ten hours.”

Not the least disturbed, he said, “That’s your problem, Miss Priss. Some things you just have to take on faith.”

“No, I don’t,” she said sharply. “Not when my life is on the line.

“Your life won’t be on the line as long as you do what I say,” he reminded her. “So from now on, you don’t ask questions, you don’t hesitate, you don’t argue. Understood?”

Lifting her chin, she gave him a cool look. “Not in a million years. I’m not one of the low-life criminals you make your living catching, so save your little speech for someone who needs a keeper. Believe it or not, I have a brain under all this strawberry-blond hair, and I don’t need you to tell me I’m in danger. I was the one who was kidnapped, remember?”

“And the one who opened the door to your kidnapper,” he reminded her mockingly. “So tell me again about the brain under all that blond hair.”

“Go to hell.”

He only grinned. “I’ve already been there and back, sweetheart. I’m not going anywhere without you.”

Fuming, she was tempted to smack him, but she wasn’t that kind of woman. “He told me he was a cop,” she said stiffly. “He had a badge—”

“I can’t believe you fell for that,” he groaned, rolling his eyes. “That’s one of the oldest tricks in the book. I’ve used it myself.”

“Trust me—I won’t make that mistake again. I felt like a fool.”

“Good. There’s hope for you yet. Don’t trust anyone—I don’t care what badge they’re flashing or what story they tell you. As far as you’re concerned, everyone you see and talk to is after you.”

She lifted a delicately arched brow at him. “Including you?”

He grinned. “I don’t go after the chicks in my custody. Afterward…” He shrugged. “Give me a call, sweetheart. We’ll talk about it.”

“In your dreams,” she sniffed.

When she lifted her pert little nose in the air, Donovan laughed. So he wasn’t good enough for her, huh? They’d see about that. The day would come when he would make the lady purr just to prove he could. But not now. Not when they were practically shackled and stuck with each other for the next month. For now, he had to come up with a plan to keep her safe.

His phone rang then, shattering the silence that had fallen between then. Looking at the caller ID, he swore. Tim Elliot. He was a snitch with a taste for scotch who knew more about what was going on in the back alleys of London than just about anyone Donovan knew. And he didn’t call unless he had a lead he knew Donovan was willing to pay for.

His timing couldn’t have been worse, but Donovan knew he couldn’t afford to ignore the call. If Tim was in need of a drink, he’d go to the perp himself and give Donovan up without a thought for a bottle of scotch.

Snatching up the phone, he barked, “What?”

“I just had a drink with Leo Guardino.”

Donovan clenched his teeth. Leo Guardino was one of the biggest prizes out there—wanted for murder and drug smuggling, he had a 20,000 quid price on his head. Rumors had floated around for the last year that he was dead, but Donovan knew better. There’d been times when he’d been so close to the bastard that he could smell him, but he’d always managed to disappear like smoke in the wind. How the devil had Tim found him?

“Where?”

“The Pirate’s Cove.”

Donovan knew the pub well. It was a dive on a dark, ancient street in the heart of London where no decent person would step foot. The patrons there dealt in drugs and weapons and every kind of contraband known to man, and few, if any of them, remembered what it was like to have a soul. Even the cops didn’t go there if they could avoid it, and Donovan couldn’t blame them. It was a sinister place.

“You didn’t give me up, did you, Tim? You wouldn’t do that to a friend, would you?”

“No. No! No way, man! You know me better than that. I work with you all the time. You can trust me.”

Donovan could practically feel him sweating through the phone. Trust him? Not in a million years. “I’m glad to hear it,” he said coolly. “I would hate like hell to think you would betray me after everything I’ve been through with you. You know, like that incident at The Royal Arms, when you—”