“I know I’ve asked you ninety-nine times before...” he said.
“Thirty-two,” Elle corrected.
He chuckled and kissed the back of her neck. “And each time you’ve turned me down because it was ‘too soon,’ as you put it.”
“Marrying someone after knowing them for one day is too soon by anyone’s standards,” she pointed out.
“So you say.”
“So I know.”
“Fine. But you still have to listen to my spiel.”
“I did say I was listening,” Elle teased.
“Okay. I’ve made a little list.” He shifted again, this time so she had a view of his fingers as he counted off. “One. Your paperwork for Katie came through.”
“Yes, it did.”
“Two. Sentencing came down for James Stanley.”
“Also true.”
“Three. The government lawyers finally went through Trey’s stuff, and you’re more or less sorted for life.”
“I still don’t like it. But yes.”
“All of that’s led me to the only thing that makes sense.”
Elle fought a smile. “Which is?”
“You can pay me back what you owe me,” he announced.
“Noah, you know I’m—Wait. What?”
“You owe me twenty grand.”
She waited for the punchline, and when he said nothing else, she turned to look at him. “Seriously?”
He nodded. “Yep.”
“Okay, putting aside everything else...twenty grand? I thought I was at thirteen-thousand and something.”
“Yeah, well. Our time apart added a doctor’s bill, a cab ride...some stolen property. Oh. And some serious heartache.”
“I paid for this trip!” she protested.
“The trip came post-relationship,” he pointed out.
With a weird stab of disappointment pricking at her, Elle swiveled to face Katie again. Noah swept her hair away from her shoulder and gave her ear a little nip.
“But lucky for you,” he said, “I’ve come up with a solution. Open the box.”
She wrinkled her nose, but did as she was told, noticing for the first time that the box was different than the one he’d pressed into her hands thirty-two times before.
“Did you pick a new ring?” she asked.
“Only one way to find out.”
Her heart fluttered. She was inexplicably more nervous than she’d been with his clockwork proposals. But when she lifted the velvet lid, all she found was emptiness.
“I don’t get it,” she confessed.
Noah laughed against her skin. “That’s because this time, the ring wasn’t for you.”
“Who was it...” Elle trailed off, and her eyes found Katie.
She realized abruptly that the little girl had been unusually quiet all morning. And that she’d spent an awfully long amount of time out of chatting distance, too. And now, Elle could swear she saw a sparkly flash on Katie’s finger. And it pleased her immensely.
“What did you tell her?” she asked.
“The same thing I tell you every day,” he replied easily. “That I love her. That each day, I love her more. That I want to keep loving her for the rest of my life.”
“And what did she say?”
“That I should probably marry her momma.”
“And?”
His mouth made a pleasant heated path from her ear to her chin. “I said I’d ask. Again.”
“And?” Elle repeated, keeping her eyes on her daughter, but leaning into Noah at the same time.
A second little box plopped into her lap—the same one she’d seen thirty-two times before. “Please, Elle. I’m pretty sure I’ve loved you since the second I saw you there in that park. Be my wife?”
“All right, Noah. I guess thirty-three is your lucky number.”
“Yeah?”
“Yes.”
There was this briefest pause, and then Noah added, “Well. This takes care of the money you owe me. But I think it’s going to create some more paperwork.”
“What? Why?”
“All the legal stuff it’ll take to make Katie my daughter, too.”
Elle’s mouth opened, but whatever she was about to say was cut off by Noah’s lips. They pressed to hers in an unhurried kiss. Tender and slow. Familiar and wondrous. A touch that let her know that she was his, and he was hers. Then he pulled away, touched her cheek, and jumped to his feet. He cast her a quick, sexy wink before loping off toward Katie. And as Elle watched him go, she couldn’t help but think how good it was to be thinking about a beginning instead of an ending.
* * *
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Prologue
January Colton hurried across the restaurant’s main dining area. By her watch, she was only five minutes late, but her sisters would make a big deal out of it since she was always running late. Usually just by a little bit, but never through her own fault. She just didn’t have a job that could easily be wrapped up at day’s end. Being a social worker just wasn’t that sort of work.
“Sorry I’m late,” she said to the two women who were already seated at the cozy round table.
Simone, the oldest sister and the only one of the three who had medium brown hair worn in a chin-length bob, raised her eyes to January’s face. “Second verse, same as the first,” she murmured with a patient smile.
“I’ll have you know I was briefing the woman who’s going to be taking my place for the next couple of weeks,” January informed her as she set down her bag.
Centering herself, she looked around the table. There was a plate of appetizers in the middle and three glasses of champagne, one by each of their place settings.
“Everything looks lovely, as always, Tatum,” January, the tallest sister despite the fact that she was the youngest, said, complimenting the middle Colton sister. After all, the restaurant, True, was Tatum’s baby. It had been for the last two years. The blonde, wavy haired Tatum had worked night and day to pull the farm-to-table restaurant together, turning it into the success it was today.
January’s excuse was not lost on either of her siblings. “You actually have someone taking your place next week?” Simone asked.
“I do,” January said proudly, picking up the menu and glancing at it.
“So this is really on the level?” Tatum questioned January. They were all workaholics, but of the three of them, January was the most notoriously dedicated. They had lost count of the vacations that had been planned and then hadn’t materialized.
“Absolutely,” January replied.
They had made plans for this joint getaway, booking a flight as well as reservations at a spa, but Simone was still skeptical about its taking place. “You’re really going to do this?”
“Yes,” January answered with emphasis. “I’m really going to do this.”
Simone pinned their baby sister with a look. “You’re not going to back out at the last minute?”
January frowned. “No.”
“Or say that something ‘just came up’?” Tatum pressed the issue, knowing that those were excuses that January had used to beg off before.
Exasperated, January put down her menu and looked from one of her sisters to the other. “What is it going
to take to convince you two that I am really going to go on this way overdue spa vacation with you?”
“Way, way overdue,” Tatum pointedly emphasized.
“Give it a rest, Tatum,” January requested. “Now, what is it going to take to get the two of you to drop this and just move on?”
“You could try signing a statement in blood,” Simone, a psychology professor with a PhD from the University of Chicago, suggested with an innocent smile. “We all know how quickly you can change your mind.”
“Very funny coming from someone who just broke up with yet another lame guy,” January commented, deciding to go on the offensive for a change. “Tell me, did you minor in having notoriously bad taste in men, or is that something that just comes naturally to you?”
The dark-haired thirty-two-year-old professor drew her shoulders back. “At least I’m trying, which is more than I can say for you.”
January decided to retreat. She wasn’t here to fight, she was here to mark the beginning of their mutually anticipated holiday.
But she did want to make a point.
“There aren’t enough hours in the day for me to be able to do my job as a social worker properly and date, much less build a relationship with someone who might or might not turn out to be worthwhile,” January said in all seriousness.
“Ladies, ladies, this is not the way to behave on the eve of our long postponed and much needed and deserved joint spa weekend,” Tatum said as she inevitably picked up the reins of peacemaker.
It was a familiar role for Tatum and one she slipped into time and again. If Simone was the brains and January was the heart and soul of their trio, then Tatum represented their common sense. In addition, it had been Tatum’s foresight that had goaded her to open this restaurant in downtown Chicago two years ago. And it had been her determination that helped her turn it into such a success—thanks to her innovative recipes—all in a breathtakingly short amount of time.
All three sisters were dedicated. They all sank long hours and hard work into their chosen fields. It was a work ethic that all three had learned right at home.
“Well, I don’t know about you two, but if I don’t get some sunshine on this all too pale skin of mine, I’m going to start looking like I’ve been left out in the rain much too long and I’m starting to rust,” January complained.
“Well, don’t expect me to feel sorry for you,” Simone told her. “Nobody told you to pick up those extra shifts and work all those long hours for the city.”
Right, like Simone wouldn’t cave the minute she was confronted with a frightened, abused child. “You try looking into those sad little eyes in the faces of the kids I deal with, and you pick which one to say no to. I dare you,” January said. She turned toward Tatum. “It’s a lot harder, I promise you, than whipping up those sinfully delicious meals for the overprivileged gentry claiming to want to get back to ‘nature,’” January told her other sister.
“Ouch,” Tatum cried, pretending to wince. “You’re tired and overworked, Jan, so I’ll cut you some slack. But I’d watch that tongue of yours if I were you.”
“I’m sorry. You’re right. I am tired and I am overworked.” January flashed Tatum an apologetic smile. “I haven’t even had time to pack yet.”
“You haven’t packed yet?” Simone asked, her eyes widening. “Jan, we’re leaving in the morning.”
“Yes, I am aware of that,” January replied wearily. “Just because I don’t have a PhD doesn’t mean I can’t tell time.”
“Well, nobody asked me, but I’d say that all three of us are way beyond needing that time off in order to recharge,” Tatum told her sisters.
And then she raised her champagne glass, ready to make a toast. When she had reserved this table for their dinner, Tatum had seen to it that the glasses beside the place settings were all filled with their favorite brand of champagne.
“To our much needed vacation,” she toasted, her blue eyes affectionately washing over her two best friends—her sisters.
They might have their differences from time to time, but there were no two people she loved more or had greater respect for than her sisters.
Simone followed suit, raising her glass to the others. “To our vacation.”
“Our spa vacation.” January underscored the sentiment, raising her glass, as well.
The sisters clinked their glasses.
“No matter what,” Tatum added.
Her sisters echoed the mantra, although both Simone and Tatum did look at January with a hint of suspicion in their eyes.
“Hey, don’t look at me like that,” January protested. “My boss was the one who insisted I take this vacation, remember?”
“Well, I’ll believe it when all three of us are on the plane,” Simone said.
“I’ll believe it when we’re getting off the plane,” Tatum interjected.
January knew that was for her benefit. “Very funny.”
After taking sips of the champagne and then setting down their glasses, the sisters began to eat—and talk excitedly about their plans.
Their voices were intersecting and melding, and at first, they didn’t hear the cell phone ringing. When the noise finally penetrated, the sisters looked at one another, silently asking where the ringing was coming from just before they each checked their own device.
And then January held up her hand. “Oh, hold on a second. That is my phone ringing.”
Simone exchanged a look with Tatum. “And then there were two,” the older sister said with a note of resignation in her voice.
Tatum sighed. This was not the first eleventh-hour phone call that had ever interrupted their carefully laid plans.
And, most likely, it wouldn’t be the last.
Copyright © 2021 by Harlequin Books S.A.
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ISBN-13: 9781488071348
High-Stakes Bounty Hunter
Copyright © 2021 by Melinda A. Di Lorenzo
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
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