To trust a stranger…

Sara Havens helps others. Mothers. Children. Those who seek to escape from violence. Her work with The Lemonade Stand—a unique women’s shelter—also lets her forget the loss of the child who should have been hers. And when a handsome stranger strikes up a poolside conversation, it’s no coincidence.

Bounty hunter Michael Edison is tracking a former resident of the shelter. Fearing for the missing woman’s safety, Sara joins the pursuit. But nothing is what it appears to be—including Michael. As they grow closer, Sara risks losing her carefully constructed control…

He had been putting off the inevitable…

Michael couldn’t remember ever wanting to have sex with a woman as badly as he wanted to with Sara Havens.

But they had a job to do now. Shaking out the blanket, he put both his arms around Sara, pulling her head so that her cheek touched his, and wrapped the blanket around them up to their ears. Her hand reached up to hold her side of the blanket in place.

She smelled like flowers.

The padding beneath her dress pushed at his collarbone. Their thighs touched. But that was all.

He could do this.

Thank God for baggy pants.

“You might want to get some rest,” he suggested.

He had to focus on the task at hand. Get Nicole, turn her in against the warrant he held and get home.

And do it all without anyone getting hurt…

Dear Reader,

Welcome back to The Lemonade Stand, Where Secrets are Safe!

We’re actually not at the Stand right now. We’re out on the beach, briefly in a kennel for rescue animals, in a neighboring city and generally around town. But the Stand is there, and people are looking out for us and keeping our secrets safe.

I love all of the Where Secrets are Safe books. I created a shelter that I wish was real. One that, if I ever have the means, I will open. I particularly love this book in that it looks at an issue that is close to my heart—the idea of loving someone as your own who, technically, isn’t yours.

In today’s world relationships are a lot more fluid than they used to be. They aren’t always forever. And yet when we give our hearts, we give them forever. So what happens to all of the peripheral family relationships when a couple breaks up? In particular, what happens when you love a child as your own who does not biologically belong to you?

I had a friend for many years who struggled emotionally. I took on her daughter as my own. I loved that little girl, took her into my home, my family. And when the friend moved on, when she determined that she no longer needed my help, I was left with an emptiness in my heart that I couldn’t do anything about.

That emptiness is the basis of Mother by Fate. I don’t have the answers. But I understand the pain. And believe that love really can heal whatever wounds we carry inside us.

I love to hear from readers! You can reach me at staff@tarataylorquinn.com. Or find me on Facebook or Twitter!

Tara Taylor Quinn

Mother by Fate

USA TODAY Bestselling Author

Tara Taylor Quinn

www.millsandboon.co.uk

The author of more than seventy original novels, in twenty languages, TARA TAYLOR QUINN is a USA TODAY bestselling author with over seven million copies sold. She is known for delivering deeply emotional and psychologically astute novels of suspense and romance. Tara is a recipient of the Readers’ Choice Award, a four-time finalist for the RWA RITA® Award, and a finalist for the Reviewer’s Choice Award and the Booksellers’ Best Award. She has had multiple #1 bestseller rankings on Amazon. Tara is the past president of Romance Writers of America and served eight years on that board of directors. She has appeared on national and local TV across the country, including CBS Sunday Morning, and is a frequent guest speaker. In her spare time Tara likes to travel and enjoys crafting and in-line skating. She is a supporter of the National Domestic Violence Hotline. If you or someone you know might be a victim of domestic violence in the United States, please contact 1-800-799-7233.

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For my mother, Penny Gumser.

You taught me how to love—and mother—unconditionally. My child, and others. I think that is the best part of me. I love you.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

Dear Reader

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

CHAPTER THIRTY

Extract

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

“I CAN HOLD HIM, Daddy. While you get his kennel ready.”

With the object of his six-year-old daughter’s attention held out in front of him, rescue kennel owner Michael Edison strode through the large converted barn, to a wall of empty cages in the back.

“You know the rules.” Setting the fat cat gently onto the cold metal bottom of the first cage, he withdrew his hand quickly—obtaining a scratch on the arm in the process—and closed the door.

“Yes.” The skinny little brown-eyed minx looked up at him, her long dark curls still tangled from her night’s sleep.

“So?”

“I can’t touch him until Aunt Diane has a chance to examine him.”

Examine. Michael enjoyed an inner grin at the sound of the very adult word coming from the baby voice with the little lisp. Shelley would be proud of him. And maybe, if people did become angels looking down from above when they died, she was. “That’s right” was all he said.

Mari didn’t remember her mother. But their little house in front of the kennel was filled with photos of her.

“Trouble is you said she can’t come till later...”

“That’s right, too.” His twenty-nine-year-old sister had recently graduated from veterinary school and, having just joined a practice, had to work the less-popular weekend hours.

“But can I hold him right afterward?”

Always looking on the bright side of things. Mari took after her youngest aunt, Peanut, that way. Made his life a hell of a lot easier.

“Yep. First thing.”

“You want him in isolation?” Twenty-five-year-old Ashleigh, the third sister in a line of four, asked, pulling a disposable cage liner and water bottle out of a cupboard on the opposite side of the room from the cages.

“Yeah,” he told her, raising his voice enough to be heard over the whining and barking coming from the canine end of the kennel.

While it didn’t look as if the newcomer had fleas, until he knew for certain that the cat wasn’t carrying anything the other animals in his care could catch, he couldn’t move him into the dorm area.

Mari put her hand in the treat bin and pulled out some all-natural dog treats they used for training, as he poured a little milk into a cup. Just enough to calm the cat who’d been dumped on Michael’s front porch that morning—in a box barely large enough to fit him and secured with duct tape.

While he dealt with the new cat, Mari walked with purpose to the first door in the occupied section of the kennel. “Shh, Whitehorse. Your breakfast will be here soon,” she said, tossing in a treat that quieted the white-and-gray Great Dane mix they’d rescued from an illegal dog-racing track a month ago.

The name was Mari’s. The malnourished female had come to them with the name Three. She’d been housed in the third cage in the facility she’d been born to.

Ashleigh, his only full-time kennel employee and main child-care provider, prepared a more permanent kennel for the new resident in a partitioned-off room in the back corner of the barn. She took the cup of milk from Michael as he retrieved the smaller cage he’d dropped the cat in moments before.

While Mari visited each of the eleven dogs in their care, he and Ashleigh got their newest resident settled.

“His name is Gus,” Mari announced, coming up behind them with a label for the kennel and the black marker Michael used to mark down the name of each rescue animal and the date when he or she came into their care.

“Gus?” Ashleigh looked from the little girl to the fat gray cat.

“Yes, Gus. He looks like Gus down the street, doesn’t he?” She giggled.

Ashleigh rolled her eyes.

“I see the resemblance,” Michael said with mock seriousness, moving on to start the morning’s chores with Mari right beside him.

“The reds first today,” Mari said, standing with him as he opened the main gate that would allow the dogs, once they were released from their individual runs, out into the three-acre mowed and fenced play park behind the barn. He watched as Mari opened the cages one by one, waiting for each dog to reach the park before releasing the next, just as she’d been taught.

The reds were on the right side of the kennel area, so designated because of the red paint Mari had chosen for the cement surrounding the kennels.

The five reds played outside as six blues got fed. And since Michael was there to help that morning, Ashleigh tended to the cats at the same time.

Which meant that if all went well, they’d be done in time to get to Peanut’s yard sale at the dance studio where she worked. They were raising money for the senior girls’ dance company to go to a competition.

“Don’t forget Maya’s medicine, Daddy,” Mari said as she looked at the card on the poodle’s cage and measured her food according to the color code Michael had designed to help her know what size cup to use. She’d named Maya after a dancer mentor of Peanut’s. The poodle was on antibiotics.

“Thanks for the reminder, squirt,” he said, taking the pill bottle out of his pocket as she bent to the feed bowl. He’d remembered. He always remembered. But didn’t mind a bit that his daughter had a penchant for bossing him around.

Truth was, he was proud of her ability to take control. Her desire to give rather than take. And he loved that he was still on the list of those she cared about the most.

It would change. He knew that. At least in part. He savored every single second that he had with her.

“Can we go to the beach after we stop by to see Peanut?” Mari slid her hand into his as they headed out to whistle for the reds to come in to eat so they could let the blues out.

“We’ll...” His “see” didn’t make it out. Michael’s phone vibrated and the hopeful expression faded from his daughter’s eyes as she dropped his hand and watched him while he talked.

She knew the ropes, that wise little girl of his. He was her daddy. A kennel owner. Until the phone rang and he became Michael Edison, bounty hunter.

And then, for however long it took, she had to let him go.

* * *

IT WASN’T OFTEN that Sara Havens had a moment to spend in the sun. Fact was, in the more than two years of living in the quiet, upscale condominium complex on California’s coast, that August Saturday afternoon was the first time she’d actually been to the pool during daylight hours.

Most of her days were spent counseling women and children who were victims of domestic violence. And when she had a day off, she always managed to fill it with taking care of personal business. Shopping, mostly. For food. Shampoo. Things a woman liked to buy for herself. And cleaning.

She swam late at night—when the balmy Santa Raquel air permitted her to do so without freezing. And, occasionally, she would sit in the hot tub with a glass of wine—also late at night.

The niggling pain pulling at the right side of the back of her neck that morning had driven her out to the pool. Working late, as she had the night before, wasn’t new to her. Or unwelcome. The detour from normal had come in her inability to find peace once she’d come home.

Sara wasn’t a workaholic; she’d simply answered her calling and loved what she did. And she’d found a place where she was needed.

Who didn’t want to be needed?

She had a calming effect on people. An ability to assess their internal struggles and help sort them out.

Last night’s domestic-abuse victim, Nicole Kramer, had been...different. Her genuine desperation had drawn Sara in more than most. The woman was alive only so that she could see her son to safety. Her own life didn’t seem to hold all that much value to her.

Sara valued that life. She’d brought Nicole’s situation home with her. And let it keep her up most of the night.

“You have to understand,” Nicole had said. “In Trevor’s reality, he is a god. He has hundreds of strong, armed and angry young men who will do whatever he tells them to do...”

Sara knew about victims being manipulated to the point of feeling as though their abusers were the rulers of their worlds. But she’d never come up against a victim whose abuser truly was that powerful.

Nor had she ever counseled a victim who not only had low self-esteem due to abuse, but who also valued herself less because of her cultural environment. To white supremacists, women were second-class citizens...

“He has a cop on the LA police force, a dirty cop, who supports the cause. I’m not sure, but I think there are others, too. Trevor gives them information and they protect him. Anytime I do anything that Trevor doesn’t like, there’s another trumped-up charge against me. The charges are always dropped, but only after I’m so beaten and hopeless I comply with Trevor’s demands...”

Nicole had come armed with a flash drive filled with photos that, she said, would verify everything she was telling them.

While Sara had been sitting with Nicole, Lila McDaniels, managing director of the Lemonade Stand, the shelter where they worked, had called the High Risk Team—a newly formed team of professionals who tried to bridge the gap of noncommunication between official reporting agencies in an effort to prevent domestic-violence deaths. Sara was the Stand’s representative on the team. There were police officers, medical personnel, lawyers, child-protection workers and school guidance counselors.

Sara turned her head on the lounge chair. She had to clear her mind. To relax. Or she wasn’t going to be any good to anyone.

She gave herself up to the sun’s relaxing warmth. Mmm. The rays touched the bare skin of her back, sliding over her bikini-clad butt to her thighs. She focused on the heat, willing it to relax muscles that were determined to remain at strict attention. Ready for action.

She listened to the sound of the ocean, of waves gently washing to shore. The privacy wall between her and the vastness beyond the affluent complex in which she lived muted the sounds from the beach below.

Her upper back and shoulders weren’t nearly hot enough yet. She’d opted for the easy-to-undo pink-and-green bikini top for one reason only. The straps, both at the neck and around her back, were easy to undo. She didn’t need any more pressure on muscles already stressed beyond anything she’d ever felt.

Focus. She repeated the word. Willing her pores to open and soak in the vitamin D being offered, as best they could with the high-level SPF she’d smeared all over herself.

Accept the heat. Accept the help...

Metal scraped against cement. Sara’s eyes flew open. The small private pool boasted eight luxury pool loungers—one of which she was lying on. The other heretofore-unoccupied seven were spread out on either side of her. The one to her far right was no longer empty.

Sara closed her eyes as quickly as she’d opened them.

Damn. She’d hoped to have the pool to herself. Though she’d known it to be unlikely on a warm Saturday afternoon. Still, it was August. Beach weather. There’d been the possibility that everyone else would opt for the private beach just a few yards and a long stone staircase away.

Sara feigned sleep.

It was no good.

The nebulous peace she’d been seeking had been invaded. She’d started to relax, to give herself up to the healing energy of the sun’s heat, but every time the stranger moved, she was catapulted back to the netted fabric of her chair. When her nerves started to crawl around inside her and lying motionless was more painful than not, Sara gave up, reached behind her to fasten the straps at her back and neck, turned over and sat up.

The thirtysomething, dark-haired, bare-chested source of her irritability glanced her way. But left her alone.

He was a stranger to her, as were a good many of the owners with whom she shared common ground. She appreciated his respectful distance.

But...what was he doing? Usually when someone sunbathed they didn’t just sit straight up like that. And if that someone was a guy and he wasn’t reading, or drinking and socializing, if he didn’t have kids to watch, or women to ogle, he laid back and closed his eyes.

She knew these things. Human nature was her business.

“Have you lived here long?” The sexy tenor of his voice broke the silence.

“Two years in this complex. Three in Santa Raquel. You?” Might as well talk. It was better than sitting there thinking about Nicole. Wondering what effect she could have on a woman running from her white-supremacist husband.

Her question garnered no more than a shake of the handsome stranger’s head.

“Are you a guest?” Sara didn’t typically socialize with men at pools. In her current life—working in a secured shelter filled with damaged women—she rarely dealt with men at all.

This whole day was turning into an aberration. She couldn’t find her calm. Was lying at the pool. And encouraging a man to get to know her better.

No. He was shaking his head again.

“You’re an owner, then,” she ventured, coming to the only other conclusion available. There were only two ways to gain entrance to the pool. As an owner. Or as the guest of an owner.

Part of the exclusivity of Sara’s community was that it didn’t allow units to be rented out. Her brother, a financial guru in LA, had made certain of that stipulation before he’d reluctantly agreed to quit badgering Sara over her choice to live in a condominium complex rather than in a far too big luxury mansion like everyone else in the family did. She’d owned her place for over a year at that point—and had known without his help that property values would remain steadier if rentals weren’t allowed.

The man had fallen silent. He was clearly a man of few words.

Nice. Sometimes the best company—at least for someone like her, who spent her days, and a lot of her nights, listening to other people talk about their problems—was the silent type.

Sometimes, but not that afternoon. Sara was restless.

She needed to rest.

He wasn’t wearing a ring.

She didn’t care. Hadn’t needed to know. It was just what she did—notice all of the little things about people. They were the “tells.”

His were telling her something she wasn’t prepared to hear.

It didn’t matter that he might be available. She wasn’t looking.

Men tended to feel a bit intimidated by her job—as if they feared she’d see some sign of aggression in them, or assumed she went around assessing all men and spotting abusive tendencies. Her last date had had a problem taking a backseat to her work. But when a battered woman showed up at the shelter, you bet she was going to leave a dinner date to tend to her.

Glancing the stranger’s way, Sara tried to get a read on him. What kind of man was he? Other than quiet. Respectful of her privacy. Her space—he’d chosen the lounger farthest away from her.

He lacked nothing in the attractiveness department.

The thought made her uncomfortable, though why it should, she didn’t know. She was busy. Not dead.

How long had it been since her last date?

It had been the interrupted dinner date. They’d been on the terrace of La Mange, a coastal restaurant between Santa Raquel and Santa Monica, and it had been warm outside. Definitely summer...

So that made it, what? A year ago? At least.

Wow.

The delicious-looking stranger was still sitting there, his arms at his sides, wide-awake, glancing her way now and then. Accessible was how she translated his body language. “Are you new to the area?”

“No. I grew up in Santa Raquel.”

A native. She envied him.

“You’ve lived here all your life?”

“I left to go to college and lived in Santa Monica for several years after that.”

“And now you’re back.”

“Yep.”

No ring. Recently moved home. A breakup, she surmised.

Living in an adult-only complex. No children.

Hot and still looking at her.

Nice.

* * *

HE HAD HER INTEREST. Michael Edison allowed himself a satisfied inner smile as he relaxed back to reel in his prey. The involuntary thought bothered him.

He wasn’t reeling her in. He wasn’t like that. Studying the crystal-clean kidney-shaped pool before him, with the waterfall cascading over boulders at one end, he had a sudden vision of Mari there. She’d be climbing the boulders in no time, just to show him she could.

And then jumping off them—in spite of his admonition to get down—to make the biggest splash a sixty-pound body could make in that glistening pool.

She was who she was because he was teaching his daughter to face her fears lest she become prey to them. His mother never ceased to point out this fact to him. Each and every time Mari did something the slightest bit dangerous. Taking another year off his life while she was at it.

Several more minutes of silence passed, and Michael knew it was time for him to make his move. Lest she think that he wasn’t interested.

He did what he did—lying and conniving when necessary to get access to bail jumpers—for Mari. He was keeping the world a safer place in the hope that she’d never again come face to face with a bogeyman in the dark of the night who was as real and dangerous as any monster one could conjure up.

“There’s no ring on your finger,” he said. Because he’d seen her gaze linger rather pointedly on his hands. He already knew that she wasn’t married. That she lived alone in the upscale complex. He knew she’d owned the place for two years.

“Not anymore.” That quiet tone again. Every time she opened her mouth it struck him anew. Made him think of a meadow where breezes blew soft and cool.

“Were you married or just engaged?” He already knew that, too, but asked anyway. Because if this meet had been genuine, he’d have asked.

“Married.” The answer didn’t surprise him. The few questions he’d asked in the right places on the street the day before when he’d seen her with his mark had given him what he needed to find the rest on the internet.

“Me, too.” Number one rule in getting information out of someone. You had to give some to get some.

“But not anymore?” He liked the way she was looking at him. Kind of hopeful, as though she wanted him to be single.

Not part of the plan. Her hope. Or him feeling glad that she was hoping.

He sat there in the swim trunks he’d dug out of the laundry after his phone call that morning and quickly washed in the big sink at the kennel, contemplating his next move. The guy he’d hired to watch Sara Havens had interrupted feeding time with his call saying that she’d headed down to the pool in her complex, five miles from where he and Mari lived. Michael had one goal: to find out what he needed to know as quickly as possible. The flirtation was carefully calculated. It wasn’t real.

“Nope, I’m not married anymore,” he said lightly. But for once in his life he was tempted to say more.

He wasn’t the type to bare his soul. Most particularly when it came to talking about Shelley.

“Was the breakup recent?”

“Three years.” The same time she’d been in Santa Raquel. Chosen deliberately for that reason. To give them more in common. In reality, Shelley had been dead for four. Which was why her daughter didn’t remember her.

“Your choice or hers?”

He hated sympathy. Detested it. But wanted to be honest with this woman with her unfussy dark blond hair, no makeup and a body that tempted him like he couldn’t remember ever being tempted.

He watched her. Was she a witch? Doing some kind of voodoo on him?

The thought was preposterous.

So maybe the chance meeting by the pool hadn’t been his best move.

“It was mutual.” Mutual in that neither he nor Shelley had chosen to end their marriage. Neither of them would ever have done so. But this wasn’t about truth. It was about answers.

And it was time to get them.

With his degree in psychology, Michael knew a thing or two about human behavior, body language and how to use interpersonal communication to his favor.

Manipulation, his sisters called it. Of course, they also claimed they were immune to his skills. And were proud of the work he did. The way he used his “gift” as they’d termed it.

His sisters were nuts. Mostly.

“You happy to be back home?” She smiled. And for a brief second, no more than a breath, he wanted that smile to swallow him up.

“Yes,” he told her. The plan had always been to move home when he finished medical school. Shelley, his beautiful, funny, sexy wife, had loved Santa Raquel. She’d loved his garbage-collector father, stay-at-home mother and four younger, nosy sisters, too...

Shelley. He had a job to do.

“What about you?” he asked, determining that he’d spent enough time establishing the parameters of this seemingly chance meeting. He was there to get information. The sooner he did that, the better. “You like Santa Raquel?”

“Very much.”

“So you’ve lived here since your divorce?”

Michael was a hunter of people. Sara Havens was going to lead him to his target.

“Yes,” she said, holding his gaze. Her eyes were blue.

He allowed his eyes to express his appreciation of the woman he was just meeting. Feigning an interest that wasn’t supposed to be real.

He asked her about her favorite restaurants. Pretended that one of the three she named was his favorite, too.

“We’ll have to go sometime,” he said without thinking. What the hell? Conversations didn’t usually get away from him.

“I’d like that.”

“You free tonight?” If not, he could ask where she’d be, with whom, and possibly get what he needed so he could scram.

Her pause gave him hope. That he’d have a dinner date with the first woman who’d made him think twice about sleeping with someone who wasn’t Shelley? Or that she’d give him what he’d come to retrieve?

“Or we could do it another night,” he suggested, rescuing them both.

“Another night might be better.”

Because she was harboring a dangerous criminal? A woman on the run whom bounty hunter Michael Edison was going to catch.

“I’m...uh...possibly working tonight.” She smiled again.

She wanted him to know she wasn’t brushing him off. He wanted inside the door she’d just opened. He’d seen her on the street with his perp the day before. He’d asked around the area—at a thrift shop, a car maintenance garage, a computer repair shop—and finally found a young girl, a shop clerk, who, when he’d described his target, had replied, “Oh, you mean Sara? Sara Havens?”

He’d gotten a name. After which the girl, while still congenial, had clammed up completely in terms of giving him any pertinent information.

Everyone on the block had been that way. They couldn’t have done better if they were trained. Impressive, really, that the general public of Santa Raquel was that aware. Or scary that they had to be.

“What do you do for a living?” Using her lead, Michael turned his conversation in the direction he needed it to go.

His online national reporting service told him Sara Havens was a licensed professional clinical counselor. He knew her address. Her former address. The fact that she’d once gone by the last name Stover and her phone number was unlisted.

“I’m a counselor.” She hesitated, a somewhat tentative expression on her face, as though she expected some kind of negative reaction. On another day he might have been curious.

“A therapist?” She and Nicole Kramer, an unstable and armed felon, could be old friends, he supposed. Ones who hadn’t been in touch for many years. They’d both grown up in LA.

If they were friends, did Sara Havens even know who and what Nicole had become? Sara could be in danger and not even know it.

If he showed his hand to her, and she did know what Nicole was up to, he’d lose his only real lead...

“I...counsel women,” she said slowly, clearly choosing her words.

“Only women?”

“And children.”

“But no men?” He tried for a smile. Maybe to tease her. His mind was too busy assessing what she’d just told him to pull it off. What kinds of counseling services excluded men?

She looked away and then back at him. “I counsel victims of domestic violence.”

His mind played a fast-motion visual of all the people he’d met on the street where he’d seen her the night before. There’d been men about. But a lot of women. Women who’d crossed their arms when he’d approached them, or looked over his shoulder instead of meeting his gaze. He should have noticed then. And would have, if he hadn’t been hell-bent on nabbing Nicole before she got away.

No wonder those women had been so reluctant to give out any information to strangers. They were protecting their own.

“Do you work at a shelter?” he asked.

Her pause this time told him what he needed to know. He could hardly stay still long enough for her to finish her innocuous comment about being part of a high-risk team that included police, medical personnel, parole officers and other professionals. “The team’s sole purpose is to prevent domestic-violence deaths,” she explained, deftly not answering the question he’d asked about her place of employment.

She wasn’t going to tell him where she worked. He no longer needed her to. What a perfect place for a woman on the run to go—a shelter where the personnel were trained to hide and protect.

“I run a shelter for abused animals,” he said, intent that she not become suspicious of him. If she and her people were hiding Nicole, they could all be in danger. If he said anything and they didn’t believe him, if they chose to believe, instead, whatever story Nicole had concocted to get them to take her in, they’d whisk her so far away he’d never find her.

The only way for him to keep all of them safe was to get his job done as quickly as possible. The women and children at a women’s shelter weren’t Nicole’s target. Her own two-year-old son was. But desperate people took desperate measures.

Nicole would be in need of a fix soon. And that would make her desperate.

“A rescue shelter?” she asked, leaning forward, her eyes wide.

“Yes.”

“I... Wow... That’s cool.” She’d been about to say something else.

He could, too. With very little provocation. Talking about the dogs and cats and occasional bird that ended up at the shelter came easily to him. But he was supposed to have just bought a condo in her complex. He couldn’t be living in the little house on several acres he’d bought when he’d brought Mari home to grow up surrounded by family. He stood. “I have to get back to my unpacking,” he said. “But it’s been... I’m Michael Edison, by the way.”

“Sara Havens.”

“I’ve really enjoyed speaking with you.” The truth of his words gave them the power he needed them to have. And maybe there was a bit too much warmth in his gaze to pass for playacting as he added, “About that dinner. I’ll need some way to contact you...”

“I’d give you my number, but I don’t have a pen.” She didn’t offer her unit number. Or ask for his.

“I have a good memory.”

She rattled off her phone number. It hadn’t been listed.

He thanked her.

And tried to forget the smile on her face as he strode the long way from the pool through the complex—to make it look as if he was going back to his unit—and headed to his black SUV, which was sitting in the parking lot closest to the pool.

CHAPTER TWO

SARA SPENT A couple of hours at the pool. Feeling decadent, she slathered herself with oil and enjoyed the way her skin tingled beneath the sun’s warm touch. She closed her eyes but didn’t sleep. Her mind kept jumping between Nicole Kramer and the lithe, muscled man she’d just met whose eyes held secrets.

And sadness.

She didn’t expect him to call.

But kind of hoped he would.

Like Nicole, he was different. He’d caught her attention at a time when she’d needed the distraction.

Stepping into the tiled double walk-in shower in her master bath later that afternoon, Sara pictured him there, as well. He was standing at the slightly taller showerhead next to the one she used, water sluicing over his broad chest...

Sara’s eyes flew open as her phone rang.

On the second peal she dashed for a towel, embarrassed that she’d been having such thoughts...

What if it was him calling?

Every ounce of desire fled as she recognized the number.

With her towel held up to her chest, covering her to just above the knees, she leaned back against the bathroom counter and pushed the answer button. “What do you want, Jason?”

“It’s not for me,” he said quickly. As though that made a difference. Or was any different. “It’s for Bessie.” It always was.

“How much?”

“Three hundred. The art program we sent her to this summer has an after-school program and she really wants to go.”

By “we” he better have meant the two of them. Not him and whatever stripper he had living with him.

“I’m coaching full-time this year, so she’ll have to go to an after-school program of some kind, but I can send her to the free one if you’d rather...”

“I didn’t get my July pictures.”

“I know. I...well...I thought someone had mailed them.”

“And this...someone... She can’t mail pictures but you trust her to take care of a five-year-old child?” She couldn’t say “our” daughter. Because technically, Bessie wasn’t Sara’s. She’d raised her as her own from the second she was born. Her ex-husband had said he’d do the necessary paperwork for Sara to be able to adopt his biological child so they could be a fully legal family, so Sara would have the same parental rights he did.

The adoption was just another thing he’d lied about.

“She’s...not with Bessie and me anymore.” He always spoke faster when he was saying something he knew made him look bad in her eyes. It was how she knew when he was lying to her.

Pathetic, really.

“I’m sending over scans and pics of some of her projects. And July’s photos, too, right now, as we speak,” he said. “She’s got real spatial aptitude. And you know I wouldn’t ask if I had the money to pay for this myself. But being a single father...”

He was a good father. It was the only reason Sara had spent the past three years biting her tongue and sending her money. The alimony she had no choice but to pay. She came from a wealthy family. And had made a poor marriage choice.

Bessie wasn’t at fault for that. And for the first two years of the little girl’s life, Sara had been the little girl’s only mother. She’d thought she would be her forever mother.

“I know the ropes, Jason. You don’t have to repeat your victim’s tale every time we speak.” Yes, she’d left him, drastically downsizing his lifestyle.

But only after she’d caught him cheating on her. More than once.

“It’s wrong that you don’t let me see her.”

“You’re the one who chose to leave us. I don’t want her to get confused with various mothers coming in and out of her life. Or having to choose loyalties...”

He was afraid that if Sara was in Bessie’s life the day would come when Bessie would choose to come to live with Sara.

“When she’s eighteen, she’ll be able to make her own choice,” Sara reminded him.

“She was two when you left. I hardly think she’ll remember you.” The man was stupid, hurting her while asking her for money.

Stupid and smart enough to win, too. He had her over a barrel and he knew it. Her love for Bessie was as unconditional as any mother’s love. She’d give the little girl whatever she needed.

“Just don’t be late with my pictures again,” she said. They were the only way she could watch her little girl grow up.

“I won’t. I am sorry about that,” he said. And she knew he meant it. Just as she knew that every dime she sent for Bessie’s care was spent exactly as she meant it to be spent.

Jason wasn’t going to screw up a good thing. Not for himself, and not for Bessie, either. He truly doted on the little girl.

He didn’t call Sara for the basics. The general child-care things he handled on his own. Just as, while he’d fought for alimony, he’d never asked for child support during their divorce settlement. He was savvy, the jerk she’d married. If he’d made an agreement to accept child support from Sara, she’d have had grounds to argue her right to see the girl.

“I’ll transfer the money by Monday,” she said. They banked at the same institution—Jason’s doing—so that she could make online transfers. She couldn’t take money out of his account. And he couldn’t see hers at all. But she was able to transfer funds to his account at any time.

Her alimony payments went through the court. And unless he married, they would continue to do so for another seven years.

“Thanks, Sara.” Jason’s tone was congenial now. As if they were old friends. All the tension had left his voice. As it always did. No matter how much of a scum he’d just been. Asking for money. Or having sex behind his wife’s back. He was Jason. He was entitled.

“How is she?” Sara asked. He was going to hang up.

“Good. Real good.”

“How did she do with the swimming lessons?”

“It was rough at first. You know how she hates having her head underwater...”

She had at two. That could have changed.

“But in the end, she was swimming like a fish.”

“Underwater?”

“Not as easily, but yeah.”

Sara smiled. Bessie was one determined little girl. She was proud of her.

“So, yeah, I hate to cut you off, but I gotta go, Sara, I have to...”

Sara might have forced him to talk to her a little longer—after all, she hadn’t transferred the money yet—but her phone buzzed with an incoming call.

“I do, too. Bye,” she said to her ex, and clicked over to take the other call.

“Lila, what’s up?” The managing director of the Lemonade Stand, the unique, privately funded women’s shelter where Sara worked, didn’t ever call her at home just to chat. “It’s Nicole. She’s gone.”

“What do you mean gone? She left?” Dropping her towel, Sara reached for the closest pair of cotton pants she had. With the phone propped between her shoulder and her ear, she slipped into underwear and then her pants. “It doesn’t make sense,” she said, buttoning the pants with fingers that fumbled in her haste. “Why would she go? She’s not safe and... She called someone and got word that her son was being moved, didn’t she?”

It was the sole reason the woman would leave the only place where she was safe. Where her secrets were safe.

“She made a call,” Lila confirmed. “But no, she told one of the girls that Toby hadn’t been moved yet.”

There was a neighbor in LA across the street from where Nicole had lived with her husband and son, an older woman Nicole’s ex didn’t even notice, who’d been keeping an eye on things for Nicole. Specifically on her son. Because Trevor, Toby’s father, a white-supremacist higher-up in a national neo-Nazi organization was going to run with him. Nicole knew it. Now the police knew it. And if he did run, the woman would never see her son again. Worse, the boy would have little chance but to be indoctrinated by the man who’d spawned him for one purpose only. To populate the world with white men who hated anyone who wasn’t a white man.

White men who believed that ridding the earth of nonwhites was their God-given purpose.

If Nicole didn’t get Toby away, the boy would most likely grow up to be just like his dad. As Trevor had done before him.

Sara had a bra on and was in the process of pulling a short-sleeved cotton top over her head. “She wouldn’t leave,” she said. “Not without Toby.”

Late the night before, the Santa Raquel police had promised Nicole they’d get her son out of Trevor’s house and into safe custody, after the LA Police Department had withdrawn the warrant that had been issued for her arrest. A child-welfare representative, a member of the High Risk Team, had already been briefed and was waiting for Toby to arrive in Santa Raquel.

“She left,” Lila said, her voice unusually agitated. “She was at the thrift shop, looking for some jeans...” All they’d had in the on-campus store were women’s sizes. Nicole, who was twenty-seven years old and five foot two, barely weighed a hundred pounds. “And then she was gone. Out the side door where we empty the trash...”

The thrift shop, one of the many businesses operated by the Lemonade Stand that were open to the public and provided the shelter’s primary means of support, fronted an open city street. Residents accessed it through a back exit, and from there the only admittance to the locked grounds of the Stand was via fingerprint recognition.

A new safety measure that had been instigated over the summer as part of the work the High Risk Team was doing.

“She got spooked,” Sara said, slipping into a pair of light blue flats, then slinging her bag over her shoulder before heading out the door. “Dammit, someone was there. Someone scared her into running.”

“From what we heard last night, if Trevor gets hold of her she’s as good as dead.”

“And then he has Toby all to himself,” Sara said. “You’ve already alerted everyone...”

“Of course.”

“I’m on my way.”

“Good.”

Sara and Lila, in these jobs they worked together, had seen more ugliness than most people ever would. Lila always appeared to handle it all calmly.

With only the briefest shrug of disappointment about the fact that she wouldn’t have been able to have her dinner date with Hot Pool Guy that night, Sara drove carefully, but over the speed limit to the Lemonade Stand. There wasn’t much she could do at this point, but maybe there would be. Once she talked with some of the women. They might relax and open up to her more easily than they would with a member of law enforcement. Maybe one of them saw something that would give them a clue as to where Nicole had gone.

A direction even.

Regardless, Sara needed to be at the Stand.

Because just as Lila leaned on her, she leaned on Lila, too.

They were two strong women, caring for victims to the best of their ability.

And though they never spoke of their personal lives with each other, they both seemed to understand, without having to say as much, that they were two women with secrets of their own.

CHAPTER THREE

MICHAEL WAS GOOD at what he did. In just a few short years he’d become one of the top ten bounty hunters in the country. And while Michael had bills to pay, he didn’t hunt criminals to make a living. He hunted them strictly to save innocent lives.

He’d brought in the head of a Mexican drug cartel for a sum that would have kept him and Mari clothed and fed for more than a year if he’d chosen to stop working.

A tiny bitch of a woman wasn’t going to get away from him.

She was good, though. Her ex-husband, when he’d gone to the guy to find out what he could about the woman listed on the warrant he’d been given, told him she’d been hunted before.

Trevor Kramer had been only too happy to speak with him—relieved to know that the woman who’d posed a threat to his son’s life was soon going to be behind bars for good.

Michael had been hanging out on the street where he’d spotted her the evening before, after tracing her to a bus stop in Santa Raquel. She’d been with Sara Havens and the two had disappeared before traffic had cleared enough for him to get across the street. He was certain now that someplace close by, but not easily discernible to him, was a women’s shelter that was unknowingly harboring a criminal.

He still didn’t know where the shelter was, but less than an hour after leaving Sara Haven’s condo complex that afternoon, he’d seen Nicole, and their cat-and-mouse game had begun. She’d been inside the thrift shop he’d visited the evening before looking for information on her or Sara. From where he’d been standing out on the street, he’d seen her by a rack of pants. Moving slowly, casually, he’d drawn closer. He’d counted two doors with access to the shop—one on the side, the other in the front. Heading toward the corner of the building, he’d had both covered.

But by some divine timing for her, the woman had shot out the side door at the exact time a delivery truck had pulled into the alley. It had been turning around and she’d been standing on the far side of the bumper, clutching a ring attached to the side of the truck, catching a ride away from him before he’d had a chance to approach her.

He’d lost a precious few minutes getting back to his SUV, but he’d kept the truck in sight. Apparently he’d had a little divine intervention, as well—the big truck was having trouble maneuvering through the crowded city streets. Just as he got close, the truck stopped and the woman on the back jumped off.

He’d swerved into a parking spot and had taken off after her on foot.

They’d been running for more than an hour now. In and out of neighborhoods. Over fences. He’d lose her, and then find her again. Anytime he’d thought she was too tired to go on, she’d disappear on him again.

It didn’t take him long to figure out that she ducked under and behind thick shrubbery to rest.

The third time she tried that trick he had her. She was in a front yard in a quiet neighborhood. It didn’t look like anyone was home. Michael had her cornered.

His paperwork had her listed as armed and dangerous. She’d already taken one shot at a man. Her ex-husband. She’d broken into two homes. And had attempted to steal a baby out of his crib on two different occasions, both times while bearing a loaded gun.

She had a record that was pages long and included aiding and abetting a bombing. According to her ex she was a meth addict—which explained how skinny she was.

Drawing closer to the shrub he was almost close enough to grab the woman. Trevor Kramer had told him that unless she was in need of a fix, she was pretty good about following orders.

He’d found the comment strange, but gathered Trevor was talking about his ex-wife’s work ethic as Michael had been asking about her employment—anything that could give him a clue to where she might go to hide. So Nicole Kramer followed orders at work, did her job well, when she wasn’t jonesing.

After spending a night in a women’s shelter, where she most certainly wouldn’t have had access to illegal drugs, she was probably desperate for a fix. It was probably what had driven her out of the shelter that afternoon to begin with.

He pulled his gun. He was going to get this woman, no matter what it took.

“I have you cornered, Nicole. I’m only here to help you, to keep you safe. I know Sara.”

No response. He’d seen the shrubs move. He knew she was in there.

Too far in for him to grab her. And he couldn’t just start shooting. Not unless she shot at him first.

She had to come out at some point.

“I’ll wait as long as I have to,” he said, leaning against the corner of the house closest to the end of the line of shrubs. She’d chosen well. The bushes were so dense he still couldn’t see her.

He could hear her, though. Hear the swishing sound as she moved in the dirt. She was crawling through the line of bushes. Intending to come out on the other end around the corner of the house and get away from him while he stood there talking to the shrubs. “It won’t work, Nicole,” he said, moving with the sound of the swishing as the tops of the bushes quivered as she made her way along the house.

The sun was setting behind the house, leaving the front in shadow. Keeping his gaze honed on every little movement, he almost missed the swaying back near the original entrance to the shrubs at the front of the house. She wanted him to think that she was going around back to escape so she could slip out the front.

No, he heard rustling in the back.

But saw movement up front.

She was playing with him. Trevor had said the woman was an escape artist. She’d managed to elude not just the LAPD, but the San Diego Police Department, as well.

She wasn’t going to elude him.

Another sound from the back.

Movement in the front.

She was in one area, and using something to either create noise or movement in the other. At the corner of the house now, he watched both shrub exits. If she was as smart as Trevor had said she was, she’d go out the back. She could hop the five-foot fence into the woods. Maybe even make it to the beach.

Another swoosh, like a body sliding along in the dirt, or a shirt rubbing up against a foundation. He moved toward the sound. If he went in after her, cornered her in the dark, she’d likely shoot him.

He had to be ready to grab her the second she showed herself.

The sound came again. Ignoring the movements up front now, he prepared to jump the woman as soon as she emerged.

He heard the rustle before his brain had a chance to process what it meant. It was in front of him and she was out of the bush and across the driveway by the time he could react. As she fled, he saw the long branch she’d been using to make the sounds. She’d pulled it out with her, dropping it as she ran.

She only had a thirty-second head start. Back the way they’d come. And he knew, as she probably did, that that side of the house wasn’t fenced. She was off in the woods, heading toward the beach, and their little game continued.

Michael chased her until dark. Until after dark. The night was more friend to her than to him. But he was good at what he did.

It wasn’t until she hopped on a bus just as it was pulling away that she finally lost him.

His SUV was at least a couple of miles from where he was. He had no way to follow her.

But he took the bus number.

He had contacts. As long as he had a bus number he could find the driver and question him. Canvass the entire route if he had to. One way or another he was going to find out where she got off.

And he’d continue the hunt.

* * *

STOPPING SHORT OF wringing her hands, Sara paced her small office at the Lemonade Stand. The sound of her heels on the hard plastic chair runner jarred her as she crossed around the back of the armchair she most usually sat in, to the desk, over to the front of her chair, around the walnut coffee table to the floral-pattern couch and back.

She adjusted the box of lotion-filled tissues on the table. And listened for the sound of footsteps outside.

Lynn Duncan Bishop, the Stand’s full-time nurse practitioner and chief medical officer, had said they’d only be a minute.

But with Maddie, Lynn’s live-in sister-in-law and a former victim of domestic abuse, one could never quite predict how things would go. In her thirties, Maddie had the emotional and mental capacity of a child.

Yet in spite of her mental handicap, Maddie was a superb child-care worker. She lived on campus full-time.

A short rap and the office door opened. Lynn stood on the other side, her thick strawberry blonde hair mussed as though she’d been in bed when Lila had called. It wasn’t even late—nine o’clock or so. But Lynn was on call 24/7.

“Sorry it took us so long,” she said.

“It’s my fault, Sara.” Maddie entered the room behind Lynn, dressed identically to her sister-in-law, in jeans and a Lemonade Stand polo shirt. “Darin and I were in bed together and Lynn said I could have sex again and Greta was asleep so we were copulating.” Her thick-tongued diatribe was issued with as much haste as Maddie could manage.

Deprived of oxygen at birth, and then locked up and beaten for over a decade by a man who’d married her straight out of high school, Maddie couldn’t discern what to say and what to keep to herself. But her word was always 100 percent the truth.

“It’s okay, Maddie.” Sara slipped instinctively into the role that Maddie would expect. With all the calm in the world, she asked Maddie and Lynn to have a seat.

“Lynn said that you need to know about Nicole, the new woman that talked to me, and I will tell you everything because I do not want her to be hurt, but I have to get back home, Sara. Greta will be awake in thirty-eight minutes and I will have to be there to feed her. Lynn says that as long as I am there to feed her and she gets full I am allowed to breast-feed her. I really think that’s important because kids have less childhood illnesses if they are breast-fed, isn’t that right, Lynn?”

“Statistically, that does appear to be the case,” Lynn said, with a look of urgent apology directed at Sara.

Smiling, Sara bent forward until she was looking Maddie in the eye. “I want you to be home to feed Greta,” she said. “You know we all understand how important that is.”

Maddie nodded. “I know, Sara. Thank you.” The almost thirty-seven-year-old new wife and mother was usually a bundle of happiness, and Sara knew that if Maddie became upset, she’d be of less use to Nicole. And right now, Maddie wanted to help Nicole.

It was up to Sara to assist her. Those roles were clearly understood.

“So are you ready to think about Nicole for a moment?” The afternoon clerk at the thrift store, a former resident, had been out to dinner with her adult children and they’d been unable to reach her until just half an hour ago. She was the one who’d told them that Maddie had been with Nicole in the store. Other than that, she hadn’t been able to tell them anything. She hadn’t seen Nicole leave. Or Maddie, either. She’d assumed, perfectly understandably, that the two women had made their way back to the Stand through the rear exit.

“Yes, I am ready.” Eyes wide, Maddie nodded. “I like Nicole. She hurts and needs her baby boy and I will do whatever you need me to do to help her get him.” Her eyes clouded and her head swung toward Lynn. “If I can help,” she said.

“All we need you to do is tell us what you remember about Nicole,” Sara said, keeping her tone soft. Maddie had come a long way since her ex-husband had kept her locked alone in a room for weeks on end, since he’d punished her so cruelly, for possessing a brain that would never progress beyond the preteen level. He’d married her fully aware of the situation. And then spent about twelve of the next fourteen years brutalizing her for it. In Sara’s professional opinion, Maddie would probably never completely get over her fear of disappointing those she cared about. Or her fear of getting in trouble for it.

“I remember that she’s really skinny,” Maddie said. “And she has blond hair and she’s very white. She doesn’t let her skin get tanned at all.”

Maddie had to do the telling in her own way.

Sara bit back the impatience that was bubbling so close to the surface. Every second that it took them to find the endangered woman was another second Nicole’s husband got closer to his goal.

“She asked me to come with her to get the jeans at the thrift shop because I don’t know why.” Maddie wrung her hands.

“Because she likes being around you,” Lynn said. “She told you so.”

“Yes, she did say that, but sometimes people say things just to be nice.”

“They do.” Lynn nodded and took a hold of Maddie’s hand. “But this time I think she said it because she meant it.”

Maddie’s glance was intent as she turned back to Sara. “Okay, then, she likes to be around me because I am genuine,” Maddie said. “She trusts me because I am genuine. That’s what she said.”

“Good.” Sara smiled, liking the missing woman even more, though this wasn’t about liking. It was about saving a high-risk victim from probable death.

“She didn’t want to go alone.” Maddie’s tongue seemed to trip over her teeth more than usual.

The minutes were ticking by and Sara’s nerves were ready to split. “It was very nice of you to go with her, Maddie. That helped her. But you already know that.”

“Yes,” Maddie said, frowning. “I do know that I was helping her. Greta was asleep and Darin was there if she woke up and he always texts me as soon as she does so I can feed her after he changes her diaper. We’re using disposables because they’re easier for us to fasten.”

“Everyone uses disposable diapers these days.” Lynn sent Sara another apologetic glance as she spoke.

“Not everyone.” Maddie’s reply was unusually staunch. “Nicole’s husband won’t let her use them. He says that a woman’s job is to keep up with her child’s laundry and every man deserves fresh soft cotton protecting his genitals.”

“What else did Nicole tell you?”

Lila was waiting to hear from Sara. She had an officer from the High Risk Team in her office. The LAPD had also been notified and a team had been dispatched to Trevor Kramer’s current residence.

“She told me about Toby.” Maddie frowned again. “And that she was pregnant before him, too. With a girl, like Greta. And her husband hit her until she couldn’t keep the baby inside her so that she wouldn’t have a girl. He said he told her that he was only going to be a dad to boy babies.”

Shaking inside, Sara used all of the skills at her disposal to keep a noncommittal, kind expression. Anything else Maddie would take personally and be waylaid.

“He’s not a nice man,” Lynn said. The nurse practitioner continued to hold her sister-in-law’s hand.

Nicole was out there in the dark. At Trevor’s mercy. “What was the last thing she said to you?” Sara asked Maddie. “You said you went with her to the thrift store...”

“I said she asked me to go,” Maddie corrected quite seriously. “I didn’t say yet that I did go.”

Leaning forward, Sara tried to hold Maddie’s gaze for more than the two or three seconds the other woman usually allowed. “Did you go?”

“Yes, I did.”

“And what was the last thing that she said to you? Do you remember?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Can you tell me?”

“She said, ‘I have to go.’”

“Go where? Why? Did she say why?”

Maddie’s face started to crumble and Sara gave herself an inner shake. She’d confused the slow-witted woman, and that was the last thing she’d ever want to do—whether someone else was in danger or not.

“Maddie,” she said, sliding to her knees in front of her. “I’m sorry. I’m scared for Nicole and it’s not your fault. It’s just...I need you right now. Okay?”

Sitting up straight, puffing out her chest, Maddie reached out a hand and patted Sara on the head. “Of course, Sara. You know I will do anything for you.”

Tears pricked the backs of her eyelids, a testament to her weakened state. “I know. So...if you could just tell me what happened at the thrift store to make Nicole have to leave...”

“It wasn’t at the thrift store, exactly...”

“Okay, was it before you went to the store with her that something happened?”

“No. We were in the thrift store, but he wasn’t.”

“He? Who’s he?”

Lynn’s gaze darted to Sara, but she didn’t interrupt.

“I didn’t see him. But she did. She said he was staring at us. And she said we should go to another part of the store and when we did she said that he moved, too, so he could see us. And then she said she had to go. But she didn’t go right away. She stood at the side door for a while and then she jumped on the side of a truck and rode away like in a movie.”

Sara had to get to Lila. To the police officer waiting for her.

“Did she say anything else to you?” she asked as she stood and glanced at Lynn, apologizing silently for running out and possibly upsetting Maddie, but she had to go.

“Just that I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone or her baby would get hurt, but then Lynn said that Nicole was confused and I had to tell to save her baby and...”

Sara lost Maddie’s words as she ran down the hall.

CHAPTER FOUR

THE DRIVER OF bus twelve didn’t notice when a skinny blonde white woman got off his bus. Michael showed the guy a picture. He couldn’t remember her. He drove the beach route. Skinny blondes were a dime a dozen to him.

Michael didn’t know if Nicole had managed to convince the guy that she was a victim, to play the innocent female needing protection—as she’d obviously managed to do at the women’s shelter—or if she’d merely been that unremarkable. Perhaps the bus driver really was as oblivious as he’d said after driving the same route day in and day out, letting people on and off the bus.

Either way, he couldn’t do a damn thing about the man’s statement. It was what it was.

Neither could he rest with Nicole Kramer so close by. And on the run.

Hailing a cab to get him back to his car, he hit the first number on his speed dial.

“Don’t worry, she’s already had dinner and her bath and is reading a story to the dogs before bedtime,” Ashleigh drawled over the line.

“I wasn’t worried,” he said. His mom would have checked in by now, too. They knew he was on a job. “I just want to tell her good-night.”

“Mar?” Ashleigh’s tone was soft.

“Tell him I’m busy.” He heard the little-girl voice, complete with the lisp.

Not waiting for his sister to relay the message, he said, “Tell her I said to come to the phone.” There wasn’t time for games that night.

He heard his sister’s voice... More important, her tone of voice. A quick scramble sounded, and then Mari said, “Hi, Daddy. I guess it’s not done yet, huh?”

She knew he caught bad guys—like the one who’d killed her mother. She didn’t need to know anything else. Their deal was he’d tell her when it was over. And that any time he could, he’d call to tell her good-night.

“Nope, not yet.”

“It’s dark.”

“I know.”

But her daddy was like Superman. He had special powers. And men with special powers had to get the bad guys so little girls and their mothers could sleep safely in their beds at night.

Reality was a part of Mari’s life.

Because reality was that Mari’s mother had been raped and murdered in their home while Mari had been sleeping in her bed down the hall. Not that the little girl knew any of the details. Only that Mommy had been killed. Not where. Or when.

“Hurry up and get done so you can come home,” she said now. The vulnerability in her voice only meant she was tired.

“I will. I love you, punkin.”

“I know. I love you, too, Daddy.”

“’Kay—” He was ready to tell her goodbye when she interrupted.

“Daddy?”

“Yeah?”

“Did you eat your supper?”

Did he lie to her? Or make her worry? Life was filled with hard choices.

“Yep.” He had eaten it. The night before. And the night before that.

“I love you, Daddy. Please come home for breakfast if you’re done.”

As if he’d be anyplace else.

Michael hung up just as the cab was turning onto the street with the thrift shop. Was it only a few hours since he’d been there? Seemed like days to him.

And he was no closer to catching his perp.

She was out there someplace. Desperate enough to break into someone’s home? To hurt them in order to get money for drugs?

Or would she head straight back to LA and the little boy she’d tried twice now to steal away from the father who loved him? Who worked as a shift manager at a reputable company and could provide a stable and loving home for the boy.

A father who didn’t do drugs.

Standing at the door to the SUV, he glanced over to the thrift shop. There had to be access to the women’s shelter somewhere on that street. It made sense. But he couldn’t find it.

Nor did he know a thing about women’s shelters. Except that they were hidden in ordinary neighborhoods. Hidden where no one would expect to find them.

Sara Haven had been outside the thrift shop the day before.

Sara, who worked with victims of domestic violence.

She’d know where the shelter was.

More than that, she knew Nicole. Sara was a counselor. The wanted woman had obviously talked to her. And probably to others, too, all of whom Sara could put in touch with him.

It meant that he was going to have to come clean with her.

He’d have to confess that their chance meeting had been a ruse. That he’d only been using her to get information.

But when she heard why, when she heard that the woman she’d been protecting was a dangerous criminal who’d probably smuggled a gun into the women’s shelter with her, she’d help him.

She wasn’t going to like him anymore, though.

It couldn’t be helped. Regret was a wasted emotion that he shrugged off as best he could.

Sliding his cell phone out of its holster, Michael dialed the number he’d told himself to forget.

* * *

SARA’S TENSION HAD not dissipated one bit. There was no encouraging news. A frustrating lack of it, as a matter of fact. Trevor Kramer, and his infant son, Toby, were both at home where they belonged. Trevor had been sitting alone watching the Food Network on television when the detectives had knocked on his door. Toby, asleep on a blanket on the couch next to him, appeared to be healthy, rosy cheeked and content.

The three-bedroom rental was clean. No sign of drugs or booze. It had smelled slightly of bacon. Trevor said he’d made an omelet for dinner.

He’d asked if there was any news on his wife.

The detectives had asked if he’d sent someone after her.

His adamant reply to the negative had convinced the LAPD that he was on the up and up.

Which made no sense to Sara or any of the other members of the High Risk Team, who were gathered in Lila McDaniel’s office just after ten that Saturday night.

They’d just received a call from the Santa Raquel police with a follow-up report on the truck that Nicole had reportedly ridden away on. The driver had never known she’d been aboard. Officers were canvassing the neighborhood but didn’t want to alert the public at large, or show Nicole’s picture in case her husband didn’t know she’d been in the area.

“I’m going to be off, then,” Officer Sanchez, one of the members of the High Risk Team, said as he reached out to shake Sara’s hand, and then Lila’s. “You two should get some rest, too. There’s not a lot more we can do tonight.” He looked toward Bethany, Nicole’s new victim witness advocate. “She has your cell number. My guess is that’s the one she’ll use if she wants to get in touch with us.”

“She has mine, too,” Sara said. They did things on a case-by-case basis at the Lemonade Stand. If she wanted to hand out her private cell number to residents, that was her business.

“And mine,” Lila added.

“Security’s all been alerted here,” Tammy Severnson, the most senior of the four full-time security agents at the Stand, said as she moved toward the door. “If she shows up, they know to get her to safety ASAP and be on guard for anyone following her.”

They all knew that. And that an APB had been sent, alerting officers in surrounding areas to be on the lookout for the woman.

“So...” Lila also moved toward the door. “We’re repeating ourselves here,” she said, stating the obvious. “Let’s all say an extra prayer that the night brings Nicole safely back to us and then try to get some rest.”

Sara wasn’t going to be sleeping well that night. And, she suspected, neither would Lila. But they had to go through the motions. Sara’s phone rang and everyone froze. She glanced from the screen to her teammates. “I don’t recognize the number,” she said, just before pushing the talk button.

“Sara?” She recognized the voice, though. Strange, considering that she’d only met him once. Maybe because he’d been the only bright spot in an otherwise difficult day.

Something had to account for the fact that he was still in the back of her mind.

“Yes, this is Sara.” The others were listening.

“You home?”

“No...” Everyone was watching her expectantly. She shook her head. Turned her back. She told him she’d been called into work. He wanted to meet. And as she agreed to meet her new neighbor at the condo’s pool in thirty minutes, she was aware of Tammy, Bethany and Officer Sanchez leaving the room.

She’d been thinking she’d stay for a while. Sit with Lila until the older woman was ready to retire for the night. The managing director had already said that she was going to be staying in her small apartment at the Stand that night rather than traveling the short distance to the home she owned and lived in alone.

Instead, she finished her phone call and said good-night to Lila right behind the rest of the High Risk Team members who’d been present that night. Feeling selfish. And leaving anyway.

She needed relief. Distance. She was in deep with this one, and Nicole needed her to be alert and professional.

If the police were successful in doing their jobs that night, if they were able to bring Nicole back safely, Sara was going to have to be refreshed enough in the morning to tend to the woman’s psyche.

And in the meantime, for the first time in a very long while, she was romantically...intrigued. Maybe this was fate’s way of telling her it was time for a little change in her life.

* * *

HE’D HAVE LIKED to have gone home and changed, but Michael didn’t want to risk waking Mari and getting her hopes up that he’d be sitting at the breakfast table with her in the morning. It was shaping up to be a long night.

And at the moment he wasn’t feeling all that hopeful that he’d have the case closed by morning.

When Sara Havens had told him she’d been called into work, he’d offered to meet her there. Sitting in his car across from the thrift shop, he figured she couldn’t be all that far away. She’d opted for the pool at the condo instead, and he hadn’t hated the idea.

He’d find out where she worked as soon as he came clean. If all went well. And Michael was a man who, when he was working, counted on things going well. A moment of doubt could cost him his life. Or his prey.

There was no doubt in his mind that his deception was going to anger Ms. Havens. But surely if she cared half as much about her job as she’d seemed to, she’d agree to help him. What reasonable person wouldn’t?

He was equally confident that he’d never get another personal invite from her again as long as he lived. And couldn’t be distracted by the regret that tried to surface yet again.

Confidence didn’t stop Michael from having a backup plan. He waited long enough for Sara to say the good-nights she’d told him she had to say and then called her back. He watched for her as he did so, on the street outside the thrift shop. Would she be walking or in a vehicle?

“It hasn’t been half an hour yet,” she answered on the first ring.

“I know. I just wanted to let you know that I’m not home, either, so if I’m a minute or two late, don’t think I’m standing you up.” Translation—“I want to know when you’re at your car so I can try to figure out where you’re coming from.”

“I don’t take you for a man who’d call and then not show. I’d have waited.” There was a chuckle in her tone that got to him. He shifted in his seat, pretending not to notice.

“It’s late,” he said. “I didn’t want you out in the dark alone, putting yourself at risk on my count.” Probably a stupid statement based on her understanding of what was transpiring. But not stupid at all. An armed and dangerous woman was on the loose. Because he’d spooked her.

And she knew Sara.

“No need to worry, Michael. I’m used to taking care of myself.”

But how often did she deal with women who’d kill to get their way?

She’d called him Michael. Only Shelley had ever done that. And then she’d stopped. He’d become Mike. Just like he was to everyone else he’d ever known. Mike. Just Mike. Simply Mike...

He’d told Sara his name was Michael.

“So have you left work yet?” He was doing a job. And had to do it to the best of his ability. And when he saw no one in his rearview mirror, he turned in his seat, doing a visual three-sixty.

“Not yet. I’m just getting to my car.”

There were a few cars parked on the street. Vacant cars. Most of the businesses were shut down. An occasional cop drove by. A convenience store on the next block hogged what little traffic there was.

She wasn’t on his street. He didn’t hear any cars starting.

And then he did.

Michael started his SUV. Drove to the corner, keeping an eye in his rearview mirror, as well. He could cover, at most, four streets. Thinking that his range wasn’t going to be good enough, Michael saw a car turn the corner onto a main street one block to his left.

The streetlight showed him a glimpse of light hair that wasn’t blond. The color of honey. Bingo.

Waiting long enough to not become conspicuous on the mostly deserted road, Michael told her he’d see her soon and slowly pulled out. He didn’t follow her, though. He didn’t have to. He knew where she lived.

What he needed to know was where she’d come from.

CHAPTER FIVE

HER CONDO WAS in a gated community. They had twenty-four-hour security. And Sara swam at night regularly enough to be comfortable walking off from her balcony over the small piece of manicured grass to the shrubbery that lined the enclosed pool area. One of the reasons she’d chosen the condo over a single-family home was because it had been poolside.

The comforts of home without the responsibility and maintenance.

She wasn’t disappointed—or surprised—to find that she’d beaten Michael to the pool. He hadn’t said whether he’d intended to swim. But she was in the black one-piece suit she wore at night when she didn’t have to worry about tan lines.

And wondering if he’d been out on a date. Or to dinner with friends. She shook her head. Absolutely none of her business.

Tonight was about taking care of her so that she’d be ready and able to take care of others in the morning. To take care of Nicole. Pray to God she got that chance.

She couldn’t think about Nicole right now. She was off work. Had to have downtime if she was going to be any good to those who relied so heavily upon her.

She knew the drill. Just as she knew it was going to take something pretty substantial to keep her mind off the hunted woman. The new mother whose husband had ripped her child away from her.

Yes, she saw the connection. Knew that she was, in a small way, relating to Nicole heart-to-heart.

Which was another reason she’d come home. Draping her thin black cover-up and towel over a chair near the hot tub, Sara turned on the jets and slowly stepped down into the small steaming pool. The water stung her skin as the heat sent delicious chills over her body.

She was separating herself from the job. From the victims. She wasn’t one of them. Their journeys were not hers. Hers was to be present to help them whenever she could and then to come home and live a full and rewarding life of her own.

Theoretically.

Lila didn’t. Neither did Lynn, for that matter. The nurse practitioner lived right at the Stand with her husband and four-year-old daughter and infant son. And her husband’s mentally disabled brother who was married to Maddie.

Maddie had had a baby the previous January. And Lynn’s son had been born in April.

She worked as many hours as Sara did.

But she had a full and rewarding life...

The gate clicked.

Sara ducked down, sliding her butt onto a cement seat so that she was covered by water up to her neck.

It wasn’t as if he hadn’t seen her nearly naked before. The black tank she had on was far less revealing than the bikini she’d worn that afternoon.

Still, it was night. Late. And she was worried about Nicole. Needing to forget for a little while...

* * *

GETTING PAST THE security at Sara’s condo complex hadn’t been as hard as Michael would have liked. He’d simply waited around the corner for someone to turn in and then followed right behind them through the electronically operated gate. Sure, he was on a surveillance camera, but what reason would anyone have for searching the tape?

He was there for a good cause. Hopefully, after he was done here, Sara would vouch for him.

Nodding at a security guard riding quietly through the complex on a golf cart, he stepped inside the pool area. The suit he’d just changed into in the front seat of his vehicle was a little musty smelling, probably from being sweated in and then locked up in a hot SUV all afternoon. He’d forgotten to provide himself with the luxury of a towel when he’d grabbed the suit out of the laundry that morning.

He heard the rumble of the hot-tub jets before he saw her. Pulling off the short-sleeved shirt he’d worn to scramble under bushes that evening, he dropped it to a chair and sauntered up to the tub, lowering himself to the first step.

“Hi.”

“Hi.” She gave him a glance, almost shyly, like a woman who was entertaining the idea of getting to know a man better. And then smiled.

Did that mean if he wanted to take this to a more personal level, she was interested?

He was tempted. More than he’d been in a very, very long time.

Stepping into the water, Michael cursed his timing. Why now, when he was on a critical hunt, would he suddenly start feeling a hint of potential life again after Shelley?

Steam rose between them and the sound of the water bubbling from the jets blocked out everything else.

She didn’t say anything more. Just watched him. Leaving the next move up to him.

Michael considered the seat across the small pool from her. Considered the fact that she didn’t know they were there on business. He looked at the seat right next to her. Where, beneath the cover of bubbles, he could bump into her. Skin to skin.

And just that quickly he was thrown into an inner battle. A fierce battle. Newly awakening man versus bounty hunter.

Who the ultimate winner would be was nonnegotiable. But Michael took the seat next to her. He closed his eyes. Absorbed the scent of chlorine mixed with woman. The warmth encasing him inside and out. The balmy night air on his face.

He wanted to kiss her.

He was egged on by the idea that she might let him. That his time was best served relaxing, getting some rest before dawn when, at the first ray of light, his search would begin anew. He hoped with new leads from Sara. Direction.

He was acting on the assumption that Nicole Kramer was down for the night. She would know she’d lost him. And she’d take the chance to rest.

“How was your evening?”

Her question came across to him as sounding intimate. And he remembered that she thought they were both home, enjoying a late dip in their mutually owned hot tub.

“Good,” he lied. For someone who believed so much in the truth, he seemed to have become better at fabricating than anything else.

Sara rolled her head sideways from its resting point on the edge of the tub. “What did you do?”

He met her gaze. “Worked.”

“Me, too.” Her sigh seemed to caress his skin.

They had a dangerous woman on the loose. He had to stay focused.

“Tough night?” he asked her. She’d given him the opening. He could find out things about his prey before he came totally clean. Before he had to watch the desire in her eyes turn to dislike.

No woman liked to be duped. Even for a good cause.

“Tough job,” she said. “Not that I’m complaining, mind you. I love my work. I’m just...tired, you know?”

She aimed that look straight at him again. It hit its mark.

“Why do I get the feeling you aren’t talking about a physical fatigue?”

“Maybe because I’m not.” Her honesty disarmed him.

Hit him where only his closest friends and family had ever been.

“You want to talk about it?” He wasn’t there to care if she had troubles.

Or to do anything about them.

“I can’t.”

Filled with an uncomfortable urge to help her—this stranger who was nothing to Mari or him—he said, “Anything I can do to help get you through the night? I’d offer you a glass of wine, but I don’t have any.”

He knew why he’d asked for this meeting—but had no real idea why she’d agreed.

Except as a woman who had interest in a man. That was how things got started. You met someone. Found something attractive during the meeting. Asked her out and pursued it from there.

“I have wine, but I don’t want it badly enough to go get it.”

He couldn’t drink. He was working.

“Besides,” she said, before he could get straight to business, “I think the combination of exhaustion, hot water, wine and you would be dangerous.”

Michael found himself fighting the overpowering sense that he had to have this woman. Had to sink himself all the way to her core. To know what that felt like, meeting her at her deepest level.

But his interactions with her thus far had been nothing but lies. As soon as she found out the truth, all the invitation he saw in her eyes would be gone.

“Am I being too forward for you?”

“No! Hell no.” He sat frozen in place, while his penis bounced with the bubbles, reminding him that it was there and had gone without attention for a painfully long time.

“You’ve probably already figured out that I have no idea what I’m doing.” The woman made his situation more difficult with every word she uttered.

She was beautiful. And from what he’d seen, completely unpretentious. None of which mattered.

The fact that he was interested in her, feeling things like regret and concern mixed with the sexual attraction, was what had him off his game.

“Don’t worry. I won’t take advantage of your low moment,” he said, trying desperately to keep them on course.

Or get them there.

“That’s not what I meant.” Her gaze was knowing and clear as she looked at him. “I don’t have as much experience as you would probably expect when it comes to relationships with men.”

He’d never met anyone like her. Innocence and knowing all mixed up together. He had to stop this.

“I don’t have any preconceived notions about your experience.” Not that he’d be opposed to finding out just how experienced she might be. She’d been married after all.

But he had to expose his lies and get on with the job.

“I haven’t been on a date in over a year.”

“I find that hard, if not impossible, to believe.”

“I know, right? I just realized how long it had been this afternoon, and I don’t know if that makes me more pathetic or less.”

“So I’m your first attempt to fix your pathetic dating state based on newly realized self-knowledge?”

“No. I don’t need a man in my life. I just need...”

Sex? Something more? He needed her to finish the sentence.

He hadn’t had a date since Shelley’s murder.

Which made them two thirtysomething adults who had both been...without...for an unnaturally long time.

Making them mutually needy?

“You need a little...diversion?” His voice was low. Rough. It was man-turned-on-in-spite-of-knowing-better.

“Maybe...”

Her eyes were slumberous as she turned her head. And for a split second, he was on this date with her—not a liar manipulating her so he could get what he wanted.

He let the water move him just slightly. His lips met hers. And he felt her moan.

* * *

HIS LIPS DIDN’T just touch hers. They were getting to know her. And Sara wanted more.

She was a woman spending her life alone. By choice now.

But there had to be more to life than women who were afraid of the men they loved. More than men hurting the women who loved them.

Logically she knew there was.

But she’d been separated for so long from the part of life where men loved and honored their women.

“Mmm.” She heard herself. The sound embarrassed her. And she wanted more.

His lips were thicker than hers. Harder, and compelling in their differentness. Her nipples tingled against the tight spandex of her suit.

She needed to escape reality, to know that being with a man still felt good, and he was giving her a way.

He hadn’t touched her other than with his lips. And was turning her on, making her not care about anything but the moment, like never before.

Sara’s breath bubbled in unison with the water holding them.

“Oh, God, what have I done?” The searing, pain-filled tone reached her first. His words filtered in with the realization that rather than pulling her closer, he’d pushed away from her instead.

It was a new experience for her—having sex stop once it had begun. Not that she’d ever gone in for a one-night stand before. Or for having sex before dating for a while first. But...

The pulse in her private area wasn’t gone. Her nipples still yearned for his touch. And the wounded cry spoke straight to her heart.

“It’s okay, Michael. Whatever it is, it’s okay. Nothing happened here.”

He was sitting across the pool from her. The jets were on a timer and would be shutting down soon.

“It’s not okay.”

She should go. Take care of herself so she’d be ready to face tomorrow. But right now, all she wanted was to sit with a man she’d only known a few hours. Sit with him until he felt better.

What did she know about Michael Edison? That he ran a kennel for rescue animals. And lived in her complex. Certainly not enough to have had such a strong reaction to him.

“Do you want to talk?”

His gaze as he sought hers was raw. Intense. “No. I want to move inside you until neither one of us can form a thought, let alone talk.”

She should have been embarrassed. Maybe offended. Instead, his honesty turned her on.

“But that’s not okay,” she said, repeating his words back to him.

“No.”

By his tone of voice, the strength of it, she’d guess whatever his problem was, it was a big one.

“You said you’re no longer married.”

“I’m not.”

“Is there someone else?”

Just because he was divorced didn’t mean he didn’t have a significant other. He’d been single for three years, he’d said. Plenty enough time to develop something with someone else.

Not enough of something to be living with her, though, she surmised. Michael didn’t strike her as the type of man who’d ever step out on his woman. But then, what did she really know about him?

Other than an instantaneous reaction that was unlike anything she’d ever experienced before.

“No. I’m not involved with anyone.” Calmer now, he sat with arms spread out on either side of him, resting on the edge of the tub. “I wouldn’t... I haven’t had a real date since...”

“It’s been three years?”

“More or less.”

They were avoiding the issue. Sara was trained to keep the conversation on track. As curious as she was about Michael’s love life, her only business with him was to set this night straight so that it didn’t add to that which was already bound to keep her up into the wee hours of the morning.

And then she needed to get home. To plug in her lavender potpourri, drink some chamomile tea, turn on some soothing music and rest.

The jets turned off. Neither one of them stood.

“I have to talk to you.”

Ominous words. Confusing, too, coming as they were from someone she’d just met.

“So talk.” Feeling exposed in the still water, Sara longed for her towel and wrap but didn’t want to step out of the water, exposing more nakedness, while he sat so close.

Her nipples weren’t screaming anymore.

“I lied to you.”

Fine. At least he’d come clean before anything had happened between them. There was integrity in that. “You’re married, aren’t you?”

“What?” His shock had to be genuine. “Hell no, I’m not married.”

No reason at this point to be glad about that. She’d been lied to.

But she was glad he wasn’t married.

“I lied about living here. I was here this afternoon strictly to meet you.”

A rush of pleasure was followed by caution.

“Don’t worry, the security golf cart just passed again. And besides, if I was out to harm you, I’d have continued with...” He motioned toward her.

She didn’t really think she’d have let things get that far, but as strung out as she was, she might have invited him back to her place. Or thought about going to his.

Suffused with heat again, Sara nodded.

“I’m a bounty hunter.”

Sara jerked upright. “I’m not wanted for anything!”

“I know that.”

She nodded again. What was it with this guy? No one threw her off-kilter so easily.

She was worried sick about Nicole. She’d done her job. But sometimes the job just wasn’t enough. She’d never been face-to-face with the radicalness of Nicole’s situation. It was like something out of the movies.

Sara knew that the only way they were going to be able to have a breakthrough with Nicole—who’d been living her life in an invisible cage—was to give her a safe place to spread her wings. Safe being the operative word.

That safe place had been the Lemonade Stand.

But how did you help a woman like Nicole feel safe?

The desperately determined woman had needed a good night’s rest far more than Sara had.

But the truth was, Nicole wasn’t ever going to rest while Toby was in the hands of a man who’d kill another man based solely on the color of his skin. And then hold his son at a family barbecue and teach him to pray.

There was no actual proof that Trevor had actually committed murder. Not yet. The LAPD was working on that. Based on testimony Nicole had given them the day before.

Neither could the other woman save her son if she was dead. That was the key point that Sara had thought she and Nicole understood together. Nicole hadn’t been able to save her son on her own. She needed their help.

Had their help.

So why had she run?

“I’m after a runner.” As he had at the pool earlier that day, Michael paused for long moments between speaking. And then gave her short sentences.

Because he was choosing his words carefully. She understood that now.

“And you think I know him? Why not just say so?”

“I didn’t know who you were, what you did or how you might be associated.” He was meeting her gaze head-on still.

Sara dissected his words anyway. His actions were driven by a motivation known only to him. The man had a goal. And he’d admitted he’d lied to reach that goal.

“I’m guessing that since you’re back, I didn’t lead you to him.” Had to be one of their victim’s abusers. Nothing else made sense. Outside those she knew through the Lemonade Stand, and her family, Sara didn’t “associate” much.

Clearly. As evidenced by this little disaster.

“Yes and no.”

She sat up again. Protective radar on alert. “I did lead you to him?” She couldn’t fathom how, but... “Is one of my clients in danger?”

No matter, at the moment, how he knew any of her clients were her clients...

She might have made a fool of herself this day, but she absolutely had not led this man to the Lemonade Stand.

Unless he’d hung around all afternoon...followed her to work...

Climbing over the edge of the hot tub rather than wasting time on the stairs, Sara grabbed her towel and wrap, putting the latter on without drying first. “I need you to tell me who’s in danger.”

“Hold on.” One hand up, Michael stepped out of the pool as well, dripping in his wet trunks. “No one’s in immediate danger. I hope. At least not one of your clients. Not from anything I’m involved in. You can rest assured about that. If you’ll just give me a few minutes of your time, I’ll explain everything. You have my word on that.”

His look was direct, as always.

“Forgive me if your word doesn’t carry a whole lot of weight with me at the moment.” She said the words, even though she wasn’t sure they were completely true. They should be true. She wanted them to be true. Nothing else made sense.

He acknowledged her statement with a nod.

“You’re sure none of my clients are in immediate danger?” She spoke carefully now, ensuring that she didn’t give him anything that might inadvertently tell him something he’d come back to find.

“I’m sure.”

She’d hear him out, because not to do so would be stupid. She didn’t even know who they were talking about. Or what, if anything, he really knew.

And then she would call Sanchez. And Tammy. And Lila, too, just because she always kept the managing director informed. The members of the High Risk Team were there for anyone who might be in danger. This was their job. It was what they did.

“Let me see your bounty hunter’s license.”

“It’s in my car. In my wallet. In the back pocket of my jeans.”

“Go get it. And get dressed while you’re at it. I’m going to do the same and I’ll meet you back here.”

“How long do you need?”

“Five minutes.”

She wasn’t giving him any more time than it took for him to tell her who he was after. And then she wanted him gone.

Before she did something stupid like start remembering that, for a few short hours, she’d had a bit of a crush.

CHAPTER SIX

HE’D LOST HER TRUST. Her good regard. He’d lost any hope of making love with the beautiful counselor. Michael’s goal was in sight.

And he felt like shit.

Worse than shit.

He could sleep with shit.

He couldn’t sleep if he knew a desperate runner was on the loose in his hometown.

Sara was already at the pool when he made it back. She was sitting by a security light at a table looking all business in a short-sleeved white button-up shirt and dark-colored jeans. Her honey-colored hair was pulled up in some kind of bun.

If she’d hoped to make herself appear less sexy with that stern expression, no makeup and sloppy hair, she’d failed miserably.

Her smartphone lay on the table less than an inch from her fingers. She held her back straight, her shoulders stiff.

Pushing back the inappropriate urge to bend down and kiss her exposed neck, to take in a healing whiff of her scent, Michael dropped his license in front of her.

She picked it up. Studied it. And set it back on the table as opposed to handing it to him. Michael returned it to his wallet.

She was the boss here. They’d play it her way.

“I saw you with my runner yesterday,” he said, coming straight to the point now that there was no reason not to. They’d both need to get some sleep.

He had to be ready to go at dawn.

“I tracked down what bus she took and was checking every stop from LA to Santa Raquel, showing her picture around, when suddenly I saw her outside a store with you.”

Sara’s frown appeared genuine as she shook her head. “I wasn’t shopping yesterday.”

For a second Michael had to wonder if she was harboring a known criminal. If, in fact, Sara wasn’t Nicole’s counselor, wasn’t being duped, but was, instead, someone from Nicole’s past.

Not a sister. He’d run a check on Sara’s family. One older brother. No sisters. Parents still married. Ungodly rich.

All in LA. Beverly Hills. Ten miles from where Trevor Kramer lived in fear of losing his son.

“You said her.”

“That’s right.”

“Your runner is female.”

“Yes.”

“You have an open warrant?”

“That’s right.”

“You’re sure.”

She’d changed. Become the pursuer.

She knew something.

“A bounty hunter’s first duty is to check the current status of all warrants. We could end up in jail for kidnapping if we cuffed someone and hauled them in without a warrant.”

She seemed to ponder that.

“When was the last time you checked the warrant?”

“This afternoon. I check daily, just to be on the safe side.”

With her lips pursed, she studied him.

Michael felt like scum.

“Look, so maybe the way I went about this wasn’t my brightest moment, but lives are in danger here.”

“Whose lives?”

“A baby’s. His father’s. Others. This woman is dangerous. And armed.”

“I was with an armed woman.”

“That’s right.”

“You saw me.”

“Yes.”

“You’re sure it was me.”

“Yes.”

He was a fish on her hook. And wasn’t sure how they’d exchanged places.

“Look, I’m not in this for the money,” he said, out of water and babbling. “I need you to understand. I’ve got my doctorate degree in psychology. I just put it to use in a different way than most.” Far different. “I only go after dangerous warrant jumpers. They, more than most criminals, are a threat to society because they’re desperate. You know the runner mentality... They’re in survival mode. Every one appears to be an enemy. They’ll do whatever it takes...”

“And you think this woman I was supposedly with is in that mode.”

“I know she is. I’ve talked to the police. I visited her husband. I met her son.”

“Who did you talk to from the police?”

“Detective Miller with the LAPD. He was the arresting officer. He issued the warrant when she jumped bail, too.”

“Did you talk to anyone else?”

She was very clearly squeezing him. If he hadn’t been so good at it himself, he might not have noticed.

She might be playing him, but he needed her. And the answer to her question wouldn’t hurt anything.

“Yes. I’ve spoken with other officers about this case, as well. I know a lot of them. I’ve been at this gig, full-time, for three years.”

“And you’ll do anything to get your man. Or woman.”

“Within the law, yes.”

“Including lie to me.”

He’d already admitted to doing so.

“So how do I know you aren’t lying now?”

“You don’t.”

Sara leaned forward then. “Tell me, Mr. Bounty Hunter, what do you want from me?”

He missed the woman he’d sat with in the hot tub. The one he’d met at the pool. He knew she was the real Sara Havens. And that it was his fault she was no longer present in his company.

The job was more important than he was.

“I guess we both know we’re talking about Nicole Kramer.”

Her face gave away nothing. “If I had a client named Nicole, I wouldn’t be at liberty to speak about her.”

He leaned forward. “This woman doesn’t deserve your protection.”

She didn’t say a word.

“Do you have any idea what she’s done?”

“I don’t have any idea who you’re talking about, but I guess you’re about to tell me what this woman you’re after has done.”

She looked at her phone. For the second time.

She might know. She might not. He couldn’t take the chance. “This warrant is for jumping bail on two counts of attempted kidnapping with a loaded gun. Two armed B and Es. And attempted assault with a deadly weapon. She shot at a man.”

“If she’s as dangerous as you say she is, she’d have shot him, rather than just shooting at him, wouldn’t you think?”

Was she telling him something? Because she knew something? Or was she humoring him?

“Nicole weighs about a hundred pounds,” he said. “She’s a meth addict. She was high when she took the shot.”

“Why didn’t the warrant include use of an illegal substance?”

“She wasn’t tested.”

“So there’s no proof that she was under the influence.”

More statements. More fishing?

“No.”

She nodded.

“Her previous record is pages long,” he blurted. If nothing else, Sara Havens had to see that she was associating with an incredibly dangerous person.

He cared, only because he needed Sara to see the danger so that she’d help him. At least that was what he told himself. He had no jurisdiction over Sara’s private life.

Though, for a few brief minutes, he’d thought he did. Those minutes had made him want things he hadn’t thought about in a long time.

It was possible that if Sara had known Nicole in the past, then maybe the runner had changed a lot. If she’d just met Nicole, he’d give the fugitive marks for her acting skills. His instincts were telling him that Sara Havens was a decent person.

She didn’t deserve to die because some jumper got desperate.

She also wasn’t going to trust anything he had to say at the moment. That much was clear.

Glancing at her phone again, Sara appeared to come to some kind of decision.

“Did you follow me to work?”

“No.”

“Do you know where I work?”

“No.”

But he knew the vicinity. He was certain of that. Someplace behind a huge forest of trees. He’d found a private drive off the road she’d traveled. The drive had been secured with a ten-foot-high iron gate, surveillance cameras and what appeared to be a fingerprint recognition pad, and led back to what appeared to be some kind of plush resort.

“Were you on that street this afternoon? The one you say you saw me on yesterday?”

“Yes.”

She sat back, chewing on her lower lip. Glancing at her phone.

“Will you excuse me for a minute?”

His instincts shouted a resounding “no!”

She was going to alert someone. Nicole?

Was she going to let the other woman know that he was sitting at the pool with her, allowing Nicole the time to jump on a ship and sail away?

“Are you going to call Nicole?”

“No.” Her gaze was straightforward.

She wasn’t the liar here.

“Then take what time you need.”

What choice did he have? Keeping her happy was the only way he’d have a snowball’s chance in hell of getting her to cooperate with him.

He’d made a second error in judgment on this case. Telling Sara the truth hadn’t been enough to win her understanding. Sara Havens was more trusting of a fugitive woman than she was of a licensed bounty hunter who’d lied to her.

* * *

“HI, IT’S SARA.” Standing on the other side of the pool, with the hot-tub jets she’d just turned on rumbling in the background, Sara spoke softly to ensure that she wasn’t overheard.

“I know.”

“I’m sorry to bother you so late, but...” She glanced toward Michael. He waved.

“I wasn’t asleep, as I’m sure you guessed. What’s up?”

It wasn’t all that unusual for her and Lila to have these kinds of midnight conversations. They had difficult jobs that led to isolated lives.

“I’ve only got a couple of seconds,” Sara half whispered. “I’ve got someone waiting for me.”

“Are you okay?” Lila’s tone was suddenly sharp. “Where are you? Home? Should I send someone?”

“No!” Though there was always that possibility that an abuser would make an attempt on the life of the woman perceived to be leading his victim away from him. “I’m fine. But I need to talk to you. I know why Nicole left this afternoon. And I think I know the quickest way to get her back. Safely. I just need your buy-in before I do this.”

“What are you doing? Of course you have my buy-in, whatever it is, but I won’t have you risking your life, Sara. We need you.”

It came down to that sometimes. Most particularly with Lila. She made decisions that affected the entire Lemonade Stand complex, including the two blocks of small businesses the Stand owned and ran. She had to think about all of the women they currently served, had served and would serve in the future. She couldn’t put all of them at risk to save one.

“Someone in the LAPD put a bounty hunter on her,” Sara said now, still watching Michael. He didn’t wave again, but he was watching her, too. Sitting back laconically, his elbows on the arms of the chair, his fingers steepled at his mouth, he wasn’t going anywhere.

And she had to wonder why.

What more did he want from her?

Unless he thought she still had contact with Nicole. Which made her of use to him.

She needed him to think she was of use to him for her plan to work.

“It’s probably from the dismissed warrant.”

“That’s what I thought, too, at first. I asked him the last time he verified his paperwork. It was this afternoon. He was in touch with that Miller cop...”

“The one Nicole said was dirty and working with the Ivory Nation.” The nationally known white-supremacist organization that had named Trevor Kramer president of the California coalition.

“I know Sanchez’s report says that Kramer claims he left all of that behind, but it’s clear he didn’t. It’s also clear to me that this Miller guy is as crooked as Nicole feared he was. He probably issued a second warrant today. You know how Nicole said that anytime she acted contrary to Trevor’s wishes, another warrant was issued.” Anytime Nicole tried to get away from Kramer, or stand up to him, Miller would show up at the door with another warrant for her arrest. The charges were always dropped, but there was a record of them. They were taking away her freedom one doubt at a time.

“I agree. There’s obviously a new warrant.”

“But until the LAPD has a chance to follow up on everything Nicole gave them, he’s free to brutalize her.”

“She should have gone into protective custody like they wanted her to.”

“And risk never seeing her son again? Would you do that?”

The question was superfluous—Lila didn’t have a son. Or any children that Sara knew of. “No, I wouldn’t.”

“I don’t know what this bounty hunter guy thinks I can do for him, but I want to offer to go with him, to help him hunt for Nicole. I’ll tell him that once he finds her, I’ll go in and bring her out. She trusts me.”

“I don’t like it.”

“This guy’s determined, Lila. He’s going to find her. And when he does, she’s as good as dead.”

“Do you think he’s one of them?”

“I don’t know. It’s possible.”

“What’s your gut instinct?”

“I think he’s doing his job and might be caught up in their game. But I’m not clear either way.”

“I don’t like it. You’re usually clear.”

“I know. But this has been one hell of a weird day.” And Lila only knew half of it. “Whether he’s with them or not, my instincts tell me that he won’t hurt me, Lila. And I don’t want this guy finding Nicole without someone on the team there to help her,” she said. “He thinks he can convince me that Nicole’s not what we think she is. I’m going to go along with that.”

“He obviously thinks you can help or he wouldn’t be there.”

“Exactly.”

“I don’t like it,” Lila said again.

“She needs this, Lila. She deserves it.”

“I know.”

“It doesn’t put the Stand at risk.”

“It puts you at risk, and you are a huge part of the Stand.”

“There are other counselors who would be equally as good at coaching victims.”

“You’re part of our family.”

“I have to do this, Lila.” There, she’d said it. “There’s something about Nicole. I...need to do this.”

“I think I knew that.”

“So you’ll give me whatever support you can?”

“I’ll do more than that. I’m alerting the team and I’ll make sure that wherever you are, Sanchez or someone from his department will be right behind you.”

“Thank you.”

Lila took a couple more seconds to issue severe warnings. To extract promises that they both knew Sara might not be able to keep.

And then Sara hung up.

She was sure-footed as she crossed the cool decking on her way back to Michael Edison. She was doing the right thing. The only thing.

Her biggest doubt was the little extra spring she felt in her step at the prospect of having a few more hours with the handsome bounty hunter.

It made no sense. She’d been married to a liar once. It wasn’t a road she was going to travel again.

Ever.

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