Bad Boy Series
Hawk’s Call
Simone Carter
©Copyright 2017 Simone Carter
All rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the author. Reviewers may quote brief passages in reviews.
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products or the writer’s imagination or have been used fictiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Epilogue
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Chapter 1
The phone call came in the middle of the night. Robyn had finally fallen into a restless sleep and at first thought the noise was part of a dream. At last she realized it was real and blinked her eyes open, looking for the clock. It was after one in the morning. God, it had to be news of Crystal.
Robyn Gentry grabbed the phone and clicked it on. “Hello?”
“Ro…Robyn?”
“Crystal! Oh, my God. Are you okay?” Robyn was frantic to hear from her little sister. The girl had run away from home a month ago. She was just barely 18. Robyn had been her guardian since the death of their mother five years ago, and Crystal had fought her at every turn, acting out the entire time. She was a rebellious girl who defied her older sister whenever she could.
Robyn almost lost it, though, when a few weeks back Crystal began dating a dirty, tattooed biker named Guts. Guts, of all things. Geez. Then Crystal disappeared with the skanky guy. Robyn had been out of her mind with worry ever since.
“Crystal, talk to me, honey.”
“Oh, Robyn, you were right. I never should have left with Guts.” Crystal was sobbing, making it hard to understand what she was saying. “I want to come home.”
“Okay, baby, okay. We’ll get you home.” Robyn shoved a hand through her tumbled mass of rust-colored curls. “Where are you?”
“I’m in…Oh, damn, Guts, no! Don’t!”
The phone went dead and Robyn went nuts.
“Crystal! Crystal!” Damn. The connection was broken. A cry of frustration burst from Robyn’s lips. She clutched the phone, her eyes filling with tears. She tried dialing the number back but it just rang and rang with no answer.
Robyn barely slept the rest of the night. She finally got out of bed at about five in the morning and made a pot of coffee. What should she do? She was more worried about Crystal now than ever before. She’d sounded terrified.
Robyn grabbed the phone and studied the number the call had come in from. It was an 812 area code. That meant Crystal was somewhere in the southern part of Indiana, not far from where Robyn was in Indianapolis. But that was a whole lot of territory. Where, exactly, did this call come from? That’s what she needed to find out.
She pondered the problem as she killed time. She threw in a load of laundry and mopped the kitchen floor. She tended to keep busy when she was worried, and she was definitely worried now. She had to find Crystal.
By the time she’d taken a shower and dressed in faded jeans and a t-shirt, she’d decided what she had to do. The police had shrugged off Robyn’s report of a missing person, noting that Crystal had left on her own accord. They would be no help. The only other option was to hire a private detective.
The thought of the expense was overwhelming. Robyn was a teacher at an inner-city school and money was tight. She had student loans to pay, and Crystal had just gotten her braces removed last year but Robyn was still paying for them. She’d managed to put a little bit in savings but that wouldn’t go far.
Well, she was just going to have to bite the bullet. Finding Crystal was the most important thing. If it cost her every penny she had she would pay it.
School had just let out for summer vacation three days ago, so Robyn was free during the day. By 9 a.m. she was on the phone with a private detective who had only a small ad in the yellow pages. Maybe since he didn’t pay for big advertising he wouldn’t be too expensive.
By noon she’d met with George Petropoulos, a small, middle-aged man with a bald head and a rotund belly. He had a rather shabby office in a near downtown neighborhood. He didn’t look like a detective to Robyn, but maybe the old saying was true—you can’t judge a book by its cover. At least she hoped not.
“Okie dokie, Ms. Gentry. You don’t have to worry your pretty little head about a thing.” George shoved his chair back from his desk and stood up. “I’ll get on this right away. Having that phone number really helps. You should be hearing from me in just a couple days.”
Did she just see him lick his lips greedily? No, she was probably imagining things, Robyn reassured herself. It’s just that his fee seemed high, but what did she know? She’d never hired a private detective before.
“I certainly hope so,” she muttered, rising to her feet. “At what you’re charging, I’ll only be able to afford you for a couple days.”
“Now, now, this shouldn’t take long at all. Besides, it’s your little sis. She’s worth it, isn’t she?”
“Yes, she is. She’s worth everything to me.”
“Okay, then. You just go on home and wait for me to call.”
Robyn didn’t have much faith in George Petropoulos. He looked shifty, but he was cheaper than a couple of other guys she’d talked to. When she hadn’t heard from forty-eight hours later, though, she started kicking herself in the ass. Why the hell hadn’t she paid a little bit more and hired a better detective? Now she wouldn’t have the money to hire anyone else.
Robyn was reprimanding herself for being stingy while standing on a stepladder, rehanging the curtains she’d just taken out of the dryer. It had been three days since she’d hired the detective, and she hadn’t heard a word from him. She’d been on a cleaning binge the entire time, trying her best to forget about the situation. There was nothing she could do, so she did her best not to think about it. The best way to do that was to work off her impatience.
She’d just finished fitting the rod back onto the hook when her phone rang. She almost fell as she clambered down the ladder and grabbed her phone.
“Hello.” She knew she sounded out of breath, but she couldn’t help it.
“Hi, Ms. Gentry? George Petropoulos.”
“Oh, hi. Tell me you have good news.”
“Well, I do have news. The phone call your sister placed came from a pay phone in Nashville, Indiana. From a bar there.”
Robyn drew in a deep, shuddering breath. Thank God. “So you know where she’s at?”
“Now, I didn’t say that,” Petropoulos countered. “I know where she was when she called you.”
“Well, we can find her then.” Ro
byn’s hopes were too high to be squashed.
“Yeah, we might be able to.” He paused for effect. “But the thing is, it’s going to take a little more money. It’ll involve me going to Brown County and doing some snooping. That will be at least fees and expenses for a couple more days.”
Robyn remained silent for a moment before asking him in a deceptively mild tone of voice, “Mr. Petropoulos, what did you do with the money I already paid you? Make a couple phone calls?”
“Yeah, I made phone calls but there’s more to it than that. I talked to the people at the bar where she called from. They don’t remember a kid with that description. And I checked into her financials, seeing if she’d used her debit card or credit cards anywhere, that sort of stuff.”
“She doesn’t have a debit card.” The chill in her tone became more obvious.
“Well, yeah, I know that now. And I tried to find out who this Guts character is, too.” Now he was starting to sound whiny. God, Robyn hated whiny men. She hated lazy price-gouging scoundrels even more.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Petropoulos, there is no more money.” Even if she had more, she wouldn’t give it to him. Geez, he’d barely done five minutes work so far and wanted more money? No, no fucking way. She’d do the job herself.
George tried for another few minutes to wheedle her, to no avail. Robyn finally lost her temper and hung up on the man.
Well, at least she had somewhere to start now. Devil Dan’s in Nashville. School was out for the summer, she wasn’t working, so she’d take up the hunt herself.
She was ready to go by mid-afternoon the next day. She’d notified her landlady that she’d be gone. She didn’t know for how long. She packed enough clothes for several days, brought her guinea pig and her potted plants to her neighbor Rachel’s apartment, and packed up her old Chevy Malibu. She was on the road by 2 p.m.
She didn’t know whether to be scared or excited. She worried about everything, like how she would eat if this turned into an extended trip. But Crystal needed her, had finally reached out to her. Nothing was more important than finding her sister and getting her home.
It was less than fifty miles from Indy to Nashville, but somehow she still wasn’t there two hours later. There’d been an accident on I-65 out of Indianapolis, before she’d been on the road for even fifteen minutes, and that slowed her down. Then the skies opened up and let loose with a downpour so hard she could barely see where she was going. By the time she turned onto Valley Branch Road and was nearing her destination, she felt like she’d been driving all day.
And that’s when she heard the distinctive flap flap sound of a flat tire.
Chapter 2
Damn! Just what she needed. Robyn guided the car carefully off the road, the rain still coming down hard enough that she had trouble seeing through the gray screen. She just hoped she was far enough off the road to avoid getting hit.
For a minute she just sat there, her head resting on the steering wheel. Lord help her. She’d never changed a flat tire before, and trying to do it in the pounding rain wasn’t going to be easy. Well, she couldn’t just sit here. That tire wasn’t going to change itself.
The moment she got out of the car, the rain soaked right through her clothes and a chill ran down her spine. Her tank top and jeans drank up the water in an instant, pinning the clothes tightly to her skin. Holy crap, that was cold. She moved quickly to the trunk and opened it, praying everything she needed was there. Yes. There was a spare tire and a jack.
Now she just had to figure out what to do with them.
It was the rear passenger tire that was flat, so she dragged everything out of the trunk and carried the jack to the side of her 15-year-old Malibu, muttering under her breath the entire time. It bad enough that she had come here on what could end up being a wild goose chase without adding this into the mix.
Cars whizzed past Robyn as she tried to figure out where to put the jack, spraying water over her already soaked body. Her hair was drenched, and rivulets of water streamed from her bangs down her face. God, she’d already had one shower today. She didn’t need another one or six.
Robyn placed her hands on her knees and peeked under the back of the car. She wasn’t aware that her slender bottom stuck up like a beacon, catching the eye of several male drivers passing by. One guy slowed down and pulled off to the shoulder behind her. She was so caught up in studying the car frame that she didn’t even hear him.
“Need some help?”
The deep voice startled Robyn so badly she jerked upright and twisted around so wildly that her head rammed directly into the chest of the man standing behind her. Ow! What the hell?
“Geez, lady, I just asked if you needed help. You didn’t have to head butt me. There’s no need for violence.”
The voice, tinted with a teasing note, wrapped around Robyn like a smooth layer of chocolate coating a cherry. It was so deep, so velvety; it made a shiver run down her spine. Robyn shook off her surprise and managed to focus in on the Good Samaritan who had stopped to help her.
Holy crap. This might be either the best-looking man or the scariest man she’d ever laid eyes on. Tall, dark, and handsome, as the saying goes, but with rock-hard features and eyes so intensely amber they almost hurt to look at, like flames. His black hair hung in a thick, low ponytail that fell over his oh-so-broad shoulders. A close-trimmed beard and mustache outlined a strong jawline and firm lips. Lips that at the moment were quirked in a grin.
She ran her gaze slowly down the length of the man. God, he was big all over. Bulging biceps, firm, thick thighs, and a flat abdomen in between. All that man was clad in a black Harley jacket, tight jeans, and black leather biker boots.
Robyn stood there, her voice frozen for a moment. When she finally raised her eyes back up to the man’s, she realized that while she’d been studying him, he’d been checking her out as well. She became instantly aware of her wet, bedraggled appearance and conscious of his eyes resting on her chilled nipples budding against her tank top.
“I asked you if you needed any help.”
His voice startled her back to reality. This was a giant of a man. She only stood 5’1” herself, and this guy had to be 6’4” or more. She didn’t like big guys. Big guys usually couldn’t be trusted; big guys were dangerous. Robyn had a sudden urge to escape his presence.
“No, thanks, I’ve got it.” She tried to force a tone of confidence to her voice, but she didn’t think she succeeded… especially when her voice broke on the last couple words. She drew herself up to her full height to give herself courage. She didn’t want to be in this man’s debt. What she wanted was for this man to climb into his truck and go away.
“Okay, if you think you can handle it, I’ll just wait in the truck to make sure everything goes all right.” He nodded at her curtly before striding back to his truck and getting in.
Crap! He was going to watch her? No way. Robyn quickly followed him and hollered at him to roll his window down before shouting, “I don’t want to hold you up. Why don’t you go on?”
“I’m in no hurry,” he drawled. “I’ll just make sure you’re okay.”
Robyn almost stamped her foot like a frustrated child. Now she didn’t feel like she had a choice but to get to work changing the tire. But the man sitting in his truck watching her put her nerves on edge. Was he really a Good Samaritan? Or was he just waiting for a chance to snatch her away and take advantage of her?
Well, she didn’t really have a choice. She headed back to her car and picked up the jack. There was a small hole on the frame that it looked like the tool fit in, so she tried it and, much to her relief, it seemed to work. Great. Now all she had to do was jack the car up until the wheel was off the ground.
Robyn was small but she was mighty. She cranked on the jack. It moved easily at first, but with every pump of the handle it seemed to get harder. Her biceps bulged as she gave the jack one more thrust and saw the wheel just edge off the ground. Thank God. She didn’t think she could’ve done o
ne more push.
Now she needed to take off the hubcap and remove the lug nuts. She used the jack handle to pry off the silver rim then attached the end to the first lug nut. Hey, she could do this!
Or so she thought until she discovered the nut wouldn’t move. She tugged, and tugged some more, until suddenly her wet hands slid off the jack handle and she found herself flying backwards and landing flat on her ass.
The man was at her side in an instant. “Are you okay?”
Not even the cool rain could dim the fire in her burning cheeks.
“I’m fine. My hands just slipped.”
“I’m sure. But why not let me do this for you? I promise I won’t bite or demand payment of any kind.” He gave her a commanding look. “Wait in my truck out of the rain. As soon as I finish changing this tire you can be on your way again.”
By this time Robyn was shivering. She didn’t know if it was because she was cold or because of the effect this man had on her.
“Go on before we both catch pneumonia.”
Once again her eyes clashed with his, looking for any excuse to avoid taking his help. But hell, she could be here all day trying to loosen those lug nuts. She turned in defeat and marched to his truck.
It felt wonderful to escape the rain in the warm interior of the Dodge Ram. She watched as the man undid the lug nuts with apparent ease and took off the flat and put on the spare. Damn. He made it look so easy.
The moment the man put the flat in her trunk and closed it, Robyn hopped out of the truck. No way did she want to be in that confined space with this guy. She hurried through the rain to his side.
“Thank you very much. How much do I owe you?”
He looked at her seriously with those intense golden eyes for a long moment then shook his head.
“Not a thing. I was glad to do it.”
“No, please, I insist. Let me pay you.”
He stared at her quizzically then shook his head.
“I don’t want anything. If you want to pay me, just do something for the next person you come across that needs help.”
Bad Boy Series: Hawk's Call (Bad Boy Romance Book 1) Page 1