Total pages in book: 116
Estimated words: 107096 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 535(@200wpm)___ 428(@250wpm)___ 357(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 107096 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 535(@200wpm)___ 428(@250wpm)___ 357(@300wpm)
I’m six-foot-four of tattooed bounty hunter: wrangling prisoners is what I do. But I never had to deal with a gorgeous female spy with curves that don’t quit and a PhD in pushing my buttons. The rest of my team warn me that she’ll try to lie and flirt her way to freedom. I’m determined not to fall for it...not to fall for *her.*
But when the two of us wind up stranded far from civilization, it’s up to me to transport her on foot through thick, untamed forest. And with each time she escapes and I have to chase her, with each time we tussle and I pin her down, with each time she pouts and I growl threats in her ear, the attraction builds. She teases so hard, I swear she *wants* me to take her over my knee.
When things go wrong, we’re forced to go from fighting each other to fighting side by side. I begin to glimpse the broken heart she hides...and start to wonder if she’s really the enemy. If her story is true then something terrible is coming...and she’s the only one who can stop it. Can I trust a woman who lies for a living? Are her feelings for me real, or just an elaborate ruse? I’m going to have to decide because there’s only one way to help her: go on the run with her. It’ll split the team I love apart. I’ll be a fugitive hunted by my closest friends. But I’ve fallen for this woman and I’ll do anything to protect her.
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
PROLOGUE
I fell for Tanya before I ever met her.
I fell for her before we talked, before the sweet whispers in that accent and the taunts that made me want to spank her ass and rip her goddamn clothes off all at the same time.
I fell for her before we fought, before I wrestled her to the ground and felt those soft curves against me, before I hogtied her and tossed her over my shoulder.
I fell for her when there was still eight hours and a thousand miles between us, when all I had to go on was one scowling, black and white photo.
Tanya was my mission. My target. My prisoner.
But long before I captured her, she captured me.
1
COLTON
I’d spent the last year building a life in the small town of Mount Mercy: a job I loved, buddies I could count on...true, I didn’t have a woman I’d buy flowers for, as my momma used to say, but I’d had plenty of one-night stands with women from Koenig’s Bar who got all hot for beards and tattoos, and damn well soaked their panties when I told them I had plenty of handcuffs and ropes and knew how to use them. And anyway, I had a bear, and a truck that ran...mostly. What else do you need?
I had everything squared away. And Tanya was about to upend it like a burglar tipping out a dresser drawer.
The day started out great. The air was so clear, I could look out over the mountains and see halfway across Colorado and it was warm, for September, the sun baking my bare arms. It wasn’t even eight in the morning yet and I was about to turn in the prisoner I’d bounty-hunted. I figured that earned me a cup of coffee from the little café on Main Street.
Heads turned as I wrestled the guy out of my truck. Haywood Lyce was a mean SOB, a six-foot biker who’d stabbed his girlfriend and then skipped bail and fled to Vegas. But then they don’t call me when it’s an office nerd who’s stolen a stapler. I got his arm up behind his back and marched him across the street towards the police station. Doctor Kitner was coming the other way. She’s some sort of scientist from Hanagan’s Hope, the tiny little community downriver of Mount Mercy. She’s a timid mouse of a woman with gold-rimmed glasses: kind of adorable, if you like that type. She balked when she saw my prisoner. Or maybe it was me she balked at: with my beard, tattoos and band t-shirt with the sleeves torn off, I look like a biker, too.
“What are you lookin’ at, bitch?” Lyce spat.
Doc Kitner flinched and stumbled back a step. And I saw red. I jerked Lyce to a stop and then hauled his arm up between his shoulder blades, just like I used to do with drunk soldiers when I was Military Police. “Apologize to the lady!”
Lyce scowled and then leered at her. I notched his arm higher, until his fingers brushed his hair. “Ow! OW! Jesus, okay, I’m sorry!”
With a respectful nod to the doctor, I marched him the rest of the way across the street, into the police station and into a waiting cell. “I didn’t even do it!” he yelled as I slammed the door. “I didn’t stab her!”
The officer on duty, an old guy named Earl, glanced up at me as he signed off on the paperwork. “You think he did it?”
After twenty hours sharing a truck with Lyce, I knew him well enough that I was pretty sure he did do it, and probably much more. But it didn’t matter. “I don’t care who’s innocent and who’s guilty,” I told Earl. “I just bring ‘em in.”
I strolled out into the sunshine and grinned, already turning towards the café. But at that second, my phone rang. It was JD, the big Texan who leads Stormfinch Security, the private military outfit I work for. “Can you come in?” he asked. “A job just came up and it’s right up your street.”
Coffee would have to wait. “On my way, boss.”
We call our place The Factory, because that’s what it used to be. It was derelict when we bought it, with holes in the roof: I still remember sitting on crates for our first briefing. Now, there’s a proper briefing room with a big, polished table and a big screen TV. JD was sitting at the head of the table, nursing a cup of coffee, but other than him it looked like I was the first to arrive. He nodded as I walked in. “Thanks for getting here so fast.”
I gave him a solemn nod. Even if I’d been in the middle of a bounty-hunting job, I’d have dropped it in a heartbeat. Everything stops for Stormfinch. “Cody ready for the start of school?” I asked. Cody is JD’s girlfriend’s son and next week he’d be starting at the little school in Mount Mercy. We’d all helped rescue the kid in New York and we were all a little protective of him.