The Bounty Hunter's Baby Surprise

Chapter 2

Jake leaned against the door frame as the elderly woman foraged around her living room. He could barely see over her boxes and stacks of magazines and plastic totes that were so full the lids wouldn’t even snap into place. One day he would probably see her apartment again—on the news or on an episode of Hoarders.

“I know I left her box over here,” she murmured from behind one of the stacks. “She left in a hurry and left quite a bit of stuff behind.”

Of course Lillian had left in a hurry. She had been eluding authorities. She’d had no intention of showing up for that court date. He was surprised that Seymour had been so surprised. She was a Davies. And Jake had warned him.

The landlady shuffled back with a cardboard box in her hands. She peeled back one of the tabs and peered inside. “Yes, this is Lilly’s stuff.” She reached inside and said, “Aha, that’s why you look so familiar. I found these pictures of you in her place.”

Jake took the strip of photos she held out to him. He had a strip of nearly identical photos at home. He and Lillian had taken them in one of those silly photo booths on the pier near the Lake Michigan shoreline. She was smiling up at him in every photo but the last—in that one they were kissing.

His stomach muscles clenched as he remembered leaning down and brushing his lips across hers. She’d tasted so damn sweet, like the cotton candy he’d bought her.

“Those were actually in her trash can,” the woman remarked, then shrugged.

Of course the old hoarder had gone through Lillian’s trash. But it was fortunate for Jake that she had. He noticed some other letters inside the box and, put together with that strip of photos, he realized exactly where she was hiding.

“I don’t understand why she threw them out,” the woman remarked. “You are a good-looking son of a gun. Tall, dark and handsome...” She offered him a nearly toothless smile.

He forced himself to smile back. Lillian had rented the upstairs apartment from the older woman who owned the old Victorian house near downtown River City, Michigan. Mrs. Truman—that was her name.

“You haven’t been around for a while, but I haven’t forgotten about you,” the elderly widow teased. “I’m sure Lillian hasn’t, either.”

Jake wondered if she’d thought of him as much as he had her. Of course, she hadn’t been happy that he’d brought her dad and brother into custody. Her plan must have been to make him fall in love with her so that he wouldn’t do his job. That must have been why she’d acted so sweet and innocent when she was really anything but.

She was a thief—just like the rest of her family. And she’d nearly stolen his heart all those months ago. He’d thought he was falling for her, but he hadn’t known who she was, either.

“Now, those other men...” The older woman shuddered. “I don’t remember them. They claimed to be her friends.” She shook her head, and the blond wig she wore slipped slightly, revealing the thin wisps of white hair beneath it. “But you were the only guy I ever saw come around, except for her brothers and her dad.”

Her brow furrowed. “But now that I think about it, I haven’t seen her family around for a while, either—even before Lilly gave up the apartment.”

That was because most of them were behind bars. But he didn’t share that information with the elderly woman. He was stuck instead on what else she’d shared with him.

Had Jake been the only boyfriend she’d brought home? As passionate as Lillian had been, he doubted it. The old woman was obviously going senile.

But what if she wasn’t?

“What other men?” he asked.

Damn Tuttle. The old bail bondsman wasn’t just playing Jake; he was probably also playing him off against the O’Hanigans. Those bounty hunters were ruthless when it came to tracking down a fugitive. They would go much further than Jake would in order to collect their bounty. Jake looked more closely at the older woman, making certain they hadn’t roughed her up any.

She chuckled. “Nobody for you to be jealous of, honey. They had nothing on you.”

“Did you show them any of this stuff?” he asked.

She shook her head. “Heavens no, like I said—I didn’t recognize them. I don’t think they were friends of hers at all, not like you.”

He had never been Lillian’s friend, either. For a little while, he’d hoped he could be more. But when he’d done his job and apprehended her dad and brother, she’d sworn she would never forgive him.

What would she do when he apprehended her? Because now he knew exactly where she was...

* * *

He knew where she was. The thought both thrilled and terrified Lillian. Even as much as she hated him, she had missed him. She’d missed seeing his handsome face with the faint stubble that always shadowed his strong jaw no matter how recently he’d shaved. She’d missed seeing his brown eyes go black with desire when they’d made love.

But that hadn’t been love.

That had been deception.

He’d deceived her. That was why she’d been furious with him—not because he’d apprehended her dad and brother but because he’d used her to do it. She didn’t approve of the things her family did, and she never would have helped or harbored any of them once they became fugitives. But when other family members had told her dad and brother Dave that she was getting serious about a man, their protective instincts had kicked in and they’d wanted to check him out—to make sure he was good enough for her.

He wasn’t, because he was a liar and a sneak. All he’d been after was the bounty for her family. The minute he’d seen them, he’d taken them into custody. And Lillian had told Jake, among several other things, that she never wanted to see him again.

She certainly didn’t want to see him now.

She knew he wasn’t looking for her to declare his undying love. Or he would have done that months ago. He would have continued to apologize and beg her forgiveness if he’d wanted to see her again. So obviously, he had never cared about her; he’d only been using her. The only reason he wanted to find her now was to bring her in and collect the bounty on her. And doing that would probably get her killed.

“Thanks for calling me, Mrs. Truman,” she told her former landlady.

The older woman’s voice crackled in the cell phone Lillian had pressed to her ear as she leaned back in the driver’s seat. “I’m sorry I showed him what you left behind, honey, but when I dug those photos out of your trash can, I knew that man was special.”

If he had truly been special, she wouldn’t have thrown the photos away. But she didn’t bother pointing that out to Mrs. Truman. However, Lillian had taken those photos out of the trash several times herself. Every time she’d tossed them, something had compelled her to fish them back out. Maybe she’d been holding out hope that he would come back and beg her forgiveness. She hadn’t been able to completely give up on him or to completely forget about him.

She touched her belly.

And now she never would. Would the baby look like Jake, with those big dark eyes, chiseled features and naturally tanned-looking skin?

The older woman cackled. “He sure got jealous when I told him about the other men looking for you.”

Lillian’s heart stopped beating for a moment before resuming at a frantic pace. “Other men?”

“They said they knew you.” She paused to inject a derisive snort. “But I never saw them around before.”

And Mrs. Truman, despite her age and cataracts, didn’t miss a thing.

So how many people were looking for Lillian? Were these guys Tom Kuipers’s men or more bounty hunters? Or police officers?

But police officers would have identified themselves. No. It had to be someone else. Someone she wouldn’t want to find her any more than she wanted Jake to find her.

“Thanks for letting me know,” she said. And she was glad that she’d given the older woman her new cell number. Mrs. Truman didn’t have any family to call if something happened to her. She and her late husband had never had children, and their extended families had already passed on, too.

Lillian didn’t need to worry about Mrs. Truman right now, though. She wasn’t the one that something was about to happen to. It was Lillian. Had she left anything behind that might have given a clue to her whereabouts? She tried to remember what she’d left and what she’d thrown out.

Since Mrs. Truman had fished out the photos, she might have taken the old letters from the trash can, too. Lillian looked through the windshield at the small cottage her maternal grandmother owned.

Gran was in a nursing home now. That was why she hadn’t gotten down to her place in Florida. But she was just in the rehabilitation part of the nursing home to recuperate from a broken hip. It was taking a little longer than expected, or maybe not since she was eighty-nine, but with as sharp and feisty as she was, she might be able to live on her own again someday.

Or with Lillian, if Lillian wasn’t in prison.

What had happened to the flash drive?

She had to find that evidence—if it hadn’t already been destroyed.

A chill raced over her skin with the thought. What if it had been destroyed? She would never be able to get into the office again, never be able to gain access to the records to prove her innocence.

She shivered. She’d shut off the ignition a while ago, since the car had been making odd clunky noises when Mrs. Truman had called. She’d wanted to be able to hear her, so she’d shut off the car and coasted to a stop on the road just a few yards away from the cottage. With the heater off, it had grown cool inside the vintage Buick.

Fortunately, it wasn’t her car, so Jake wouldn’t recognize it. Knowing that once she failed to appear in court a warrant would be issued for her arrest, she had left her vehicle at the courthouse. Then she’d had a taxi driver bring her to the lakeshore. From there, she had walked to her grandmother’s cottage. This was Gran’s car, her pride and joy. Like her cottage, she hoped to use it again someday.

“It’s good to hear your voice,” Mrs. Truman said.

Lillian felt a twinge in her heart. The older woman obviously missed her. She missed her, too. She wanted her life back—the one she’d had before the embezzlement charges. The one she’d had before Jake.

Her baby kicked, as if in protest. And Lillian ran her hand over her belly again. She was happy she was pregnant. She wanted this baby. So she didn’t regret making love with Jake. She just wished it had been love and not deception.

“It’s been good to hear your voice, too,” she told Mrs. Truman. Before her landlady hung up, Lillian thought to ask, “How long ago was he there?”

“Who? Tall, dark and handsome?”

Despite her resentment of Jake, Lillian smiled. “Yes.”

The older lady paused as if looking around for a clock. Or her TV. She judged time by her shows as much as the hands on a clock. “He was here during Wheel,” she replied, “so over an hour ago.”

Which was more than enough time for him to have made it to the cottage. Lillian glanced down the street at the little yellow structure, but she saw no other vehicles parked near it. And the inside of the cabin was as dark as it was outside. It looked as empty as it had when Lillian had arrived earlier that day.

Nobody was there.

Was he?

She felt a flutter in her belly and pressed her hand over it. Was it the baby? Or nerves?

Usually the baby kicked hard, and she had no doubt it was him or her moving around inside her—as if the baby felt trapped and was anxious to get out. He or she still had a few weeks to go, though.

No. Lillian felt sick now with nerves.

She couldn’t stay here now. Did she have enough time to go inside and grab the bag she hadn’t even bothered to unpack? The car wasn’t the only thing Gran had had to leave at the cottage. She had a gun, too. And even with her concealed weapons permit, it hadn’t been allowed in the nursing home.

Years ago, she’d taught Lillian how to shoot the gun. Maybe she should grab that, too. Lillian didn’t care who was coming after her.

She was not going to jail.

* * *

“Who the hell is he?” Tom Kuipers demanded to know. He divided his attention between the cell phone in his hand and the doors to his den. Beyond those French doors, he had a house full of people.

None of them could overhear this conversation.

None of the who’s who of River City society could know what he had done, what he really was. Not a one of them was smart enough to suspect the truth, not even his wife and father-in-law who owned the building equipment and supply company from which Tom had taken all that money. He had fooled them all—just like he’d fooled Lillian Davies.

“I don’t know,” the man replied. “I didn’t see him flash a badge at the old woman or anything.”

Would the police be looking for Lillian Davies already, though? She’d just missed the first court date. And it wasn’t as if she was being tried for murder.

Maybe he should have framed her for that, too. He had a few people he’d like to kill, but the first was Lillian Davies herself.

“So whoever the hell showed up at her old place—he’s not a lawman?” Tom asked.

A long silence was his reply.

“Well?”

“I don’t know,” the man finally answered him. “He carried himself a certain way, like ex-military or former Secret Service or something.”

Tom heard a voice from someone else talking inside the vehicle they were driving as they tailed the guy they’d seen at Lillian Davies’s apartment. But that other man speaking wasn’t close enough to the cell phone to be understood.

“What?” he asked impatiently.

He hated this, hated not knowing what the hell was going on. And most of all, he hated not knowing where the hell she was and if she had that damn flash drive with her.

Maybe she was more like her notorious family than the naive young girl he’d thought she was.

“He was armed,” the man replied. “Wilson saw a holster under his coat.”

Who the hell was this guy? Some Rambo wannabe?

Tom cursed. Who else was looking for Lillian Davies and why? Maybe the authorities were already involved and looking for her. After all, when she hadn’t shown up in court, she had jumped bail.

So maybe this guy was a bounty hunter.

“We don’t have time for this,” he said. Especially now. Voices rose behind the door as his guests milled around the estate that also belonged to his wife and father-in-law. Tom was pretty much just a damn guest, too. But he’d started to turn that around when he’d taken all that money.

Pretty soon he would have more than they had. And he would no longer need either of them.

Laughter rang out. People were close. His wife was probably showing guests around the house. She wouldn’t hesitate to barge into his den, even though it was the one part of the house that was supposed to be his alone.

He lowered his voice and spoke quickly but succinctly into the phone. “Lillian Davies needs to be found and eliminated. Now.”

Before she could turn over that flash drive—if it actually existed—to the authorities.

“What about the big guy?” his man asked, and there was a faint crackle of nerves in his voice. Or maybe it had just been the phone.

There were seven or eight of them. They couldn’t be afraid of one man. And if they were, Tom needed to hire tougher guys. At least these weren’t the only men he had working on this special assignment.

“If he gets in the way,” Tom said, “eliminate him, too.” He didn’t care who the hell he was. Tom had come too far to go back now. He was too close to pulling off the plan.

Chapter 3

Jake was so close. He dragged in a deep breath and could smell her scent yet inside the cottage. It was like flowers and grass after a summer rain—fresh and new. She had been here recently, maybe just moments ago.

How the hell had he missed her?

He’d parked down the block at the empty lot for the beach access. But it was after dark, so nobody else had been there. Nobody was here, either.

After seeing those old letters from her grandmother, he’d realized this was where she’d be. And he’d found the little yellow cottage easily because he’d been here before, that day they’d taken those photos in the booth on the beach. He’d been pressing her to introduce him to her family. So she’d brought him to meet her elderly grandmother.

It hadn’t been what he’d had in mind, but he’d certainly enjoyed meeting her grandmother more than he had any of the rest of her family. Gran wasn’t a Davies and had had less use for the family her now-deceased daughter had married into than even Jake had. While she loved her grandsons, too, the only one she trusted and respected was her granddaughter.

Where was Gran?

He couldn’t believe the octogenarian would have willingly left her house. Maybe finding out that her precious granddaughter was no different than the other Davies had killed her, because the old woman had told him the only way she’d leave this place was in a pine box.

And he hadn’t blamed her. The cottage had access to and a breathtaking view of Lake Michigan with its gorgeous sunsets.

Was that where Lillian had gone? Down to the beach? He started toward the door when he heard the knob rattle. He’d turned on no lights so he wouldn’t alert her to his presence. He had also locked the door behind him for the same reason.

Of course, he’d remembered where the hide-a-key was kept, too—in the little birdhouse, which was an exact replica of the yellow cottage her grandfather had made for her grandmother. Lillian had wistfully remarked how she envied their love and wanted one like that for herself someday. Then she’d looked at him—with those ocean-blue eyes of hers—and something had shifted inside his chest.

It must have been fear—because he felt it now when the door blasted open and gunfire erupted. He ducked and drew his weapon.

What the hell?

Where had they come from? There was more than one shooter. Glass shattered as the windows were shot out. Wood chipped off the bead-board cabinets and the shabby-chic furniture. Jake raised his weapon and returned fire.

Unless they’d gotten a hell of a lot more zealous than they’d been before, these were not the O’Hanigans. Even they wouldn’t have gone to these extremes to bring back a jumper for a bounty.

Lillian wasn’t wanted dead or alive, at least not by the law. So who the hell else was after her? And why were they so willing to take him out along with her?

* * *

The gunfire erupted, shattering the silence of the summer night. Lillian could see the flashes of the shots inside the dark cabin. She could also see glass exploding from the windows and bullets ripping through the walls. She gasped in shock and horror.

Gran’s little haven was being destroyed. Because of Lillian...

They had to be after her. Had they gone inside and just started shooting up the place?

Were they that determined to kill her?

Lillian needed to get the hell out of there. Her hands shaking, she reached for the keys dangling from the ignition. She turned them but the ignition just clicked. The engine didn’t turn over; it didn’t even rumble. And she remembered that it had sounded funny before she’d heard her cell ringing. She’d shut it off and coasted to a stop on the road just a few yards from the cottage.

The gas gauge proclaimed it had half of a tank. But it had been stuck there since she’d started using it, and she’d driven it all the way into the city to her lawyer’s office building. Oh, no, the gauge was probably broken. She had no gas. No way of escaping.

While she’d been working up the nerve to go inside the cottage and retrieve Gran’s gun and her clothes, she’d seen a van pull in to the short driveway. At least half a dozen men, maybe more, had jumped out and headed for the cottage. She should have run then.

She needed to run now. She threw open the door and headed toward the lot down at the beach. Someone might have left a vehicle there. Sometimes people walked the beach at night, despite it being closed after dark. Tools clanged inside her big purse. She didn’t have the gun. But she had other weapons she could use.

She blew out a breath of relief when she found an older truck parked in the lot. Hopefully, it didn’t have an alarm system. She pulled a slim jim from her bag and, slipping it between the window and the door, unlocked the door. Then she pulled it open and reached under the dash for the wires.

She hadn’t been old enough to drive when her oldest brother, Dave, had taught her how to hot-wire a car. He’d insisted she would need to know how someday. She hadn’t—until today. Could she remember what he’d shown her?

She reached into her bag for the flashlight she’d also stashed in there. She needed to know what color the wires were to remember which ones to splice together. But before she could turn on the flashlight, she heard someone coming—footsteps pounding across the asphalt as they ran—straight toward her.

Had he seen her get out of the Buick and run down here? Was he chasing her? Since she hadn’t heard those footsteps until now, she didn’t think he’d seen her yet.

So she jumped into the truck and pulled the door shut. Maybe she could hide in there. But before she could lock it, he pulled open the door and jumped in beside her, his broad shoulder and hip bumping against her side with such force that he slid her across the long bench seat. She turned away to protect her belly.

“What the hell?” he exclaimed between pants for breath. Then he must have recognized her because he exclaimed, “Lillian!”

Her heart slammed against her ribs with shock at Jake’s sudden appearance. He had definitely found her. Or maybe she had inadvertently found him.

“Were you stealing my truck?” he asked, as he noticed the wires dangling below the dash.

Before she could reply, the back window shattered with another blast of gunfire. He pushed her off the seat and onto the floor as he jammed a key in the ignition and started the engine. Tires squealing and gravel flying, he steered the pickup out of the parking lot.

“Friends of yours?” he asked. “Or family?”

“I don’t know who they are,” she replied. But she had a very good idea who had sent them. Tom Kuipers.

“Did they hit you?” she asked with concern. He must have been inside that cottage with them—with all those bullets flying.

“No,” he said, “which probably disappoints you to no end.”

She’d once considered shooting him herself not that long ago. But she couldn’t imagine actually hurting him or wanting him hurt. There had already been enough pain between them. Unfortunately, all that pain had been hers when he had shattered her trust and broken her heart.

She flinched as the baby kicked her ribs. Her last ultrasound hadn’t been able to determine the sex, but the baby had to be a boy. He was already causing her pain, too, just like his father. Crouched on the floor, she hid her belly behind her raised knees. She didn’t want Jake to see that she was pregnant and it was easier to hide in the dark. She had never wanted him to know—unless he came to her of his own accord. Not to take her to jail, but to apologize for what he’d done. She didn’t think he’d shown up tonight to apologize. But unless she jumped out of the speeding truck, she didn’t know how she was going to get away from him now.

More gunshots rang out, pinging off the metal of the truck. The side mirror broke, sending bits of glass and plastic flying. She gasped in fear.

She didn’t have to worry about getting away from Jake right now. She had to worry about staying alive.