by Lisa Childs
But it was clear that she already loved him or her.
Her eyes shimmered with a sheen of tears, and her voice cracked with emotion when she added, “I just don’t want to do that in jail.”
“I don’t want you to have this baby in jail, either,” he said.
But he wasn’t sure how the hell he was going to keep her out of it. Tom Kuipers had covered his tracks well. Right now, he had set himself up to look like the victim—instead of the bad man that he was. And Lillian had been made to look like the bad person: the criminal.
Maybe they should just run. It had worked for Jake’s father. He had eluded capture for decades.
* * *
As the baby flipped in her stomach, Lillian’s heart flipped in her chest. But that was over the look of awe on Jake’s face. She wasn’t the only one falling in love with their unborn baby. Jake loved the child, too. That was probably why he hadn’t turned her over to the authorities yet.
He didn’t want their baby born in jail any more than she did. As if to confirm her suspicion, he asked, “When are you due?”
“Four weeks,” she replied. She imagined a clock ticking off the minutes as she raced to prove her innocence.
But she wasn’t racing anymore. She had no idea where to look for Donny or that flash drive. She blinked back tears as she thought of her younger brother’s betrayal.
Nobody had followed them back to the hotel. Jake had to be right. That had been her brother shooting at them.
“Why didn’t Donny help me?” she asked. “What the hell did he do with that flash drive?”
“He probably sold it to Tom Kuipers,” Jake said.
She bit back a curse, not certain what the baby could hear from inside her womb. No doubt he could feel her anxiety because he moved around even more.
And that look of awe and wonder crossed Jake’s handsome face again.
“At least he’ll have half your genes,” she said. “Maybe he’ll have a chance at a normal life.” Even if he was born in jail...
The look of wonder left Jake’s expression, replaced with one of dread.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, alarmed that he looked so upset. She covered his hand with hers.
He shook his head, and he jerked his hand back from her belly and from her touch. He fisted it at his side, as if he wanted to hit something. Or someone...
She couldn’t blame him if he wanted to hit Donny. She wanted to hit her younger brother, too. But she didn’t think Donny had upset Jake this time. She had and she hadn’t meant to. “Jake?”
“You asked about my two names,” he said, and his voice sounded odd, almost hollow, as if he was entirely devoid of emotion.
She knew that wasn’t true, though. She’d seen his fury. And she’d felt his passion. Jake wasn’t hollow. He was deep and full of secrets and lies.
Was he about to reveal one of his secrets?
“Yes,” she said, prodding him now. He had shut her down when she’d asked him earlier that evening about his two names, just as he had shut her down every other time she’d asked too personal of a question.
“Jacob Williams is my real name,” he said. “Not Jake Howard.”
“So you’re a bounty hunter under an assumed name?” she asked. “Did you do that to protect yourself from vengeful fugitives?”
It made sense. His was a dangerous profession. Not every fugitive he apprehended was armed with airsoft guns like her dad and brother Dave. Even Donny had bought a real weapon now.
She shivered as she thought of how close some of those bullets had come to hitting her and Jake. What the hell had her brother been thinking?
He had been protecting himself with no regard for her. Gran had warned her that all Davies men were selfish. Since that selfishness was all Lillian had known, she’d thought all men were like that. That was why she’d guarded her heart so well—until Jake, with his charm and generosity, had stolen it.
“I legally changed my name to Jake Howard years ago,” he told her. “I didn’t want the same name as my father anymore. So I took my mother’s maiden name.”
At last, he was talking about his family. Since she carried his baby, maybe he’d realized she had a right to know. Her baby carried half his DNA. She bit her bottom lip, so that she wouldn’t ask him any questions. She didn’t want to interrupt when he’d finally started talking.
“I figured it would be confusing, too,” he said, “for a US marshal to have the same name as a wanted fugitive.”
“What?” the question slipped out with her shock.
“My father is a fugitive,” he said. “He’s been on the run for two decades—ever since I was thirteen.”
Her family had never managed to elude capture for more than a couple months. And then everything she knew about Jake—everything that was Jake—fell into place for her.
“That’s why you became a US marshal,” she said. It wasn’t a question now. It was a certainty. “You wanted to catch your father?”
“You probably don’t understand that,” he said. “Even after how they treat you, you have this sense of loyalty to your family.”
They had tested that loyalty lately—especially Donny.
“I don’t know the situation,” she said. “So of course I don’t understand. What did he do, Jake?” And she shivered at the look that crossed his face.
It was a look of horror now, as if he was reliving whatever it was. As if he’d been there.
She shuddered now as she guessed—even before he told her—what it was.
“He killed my mother.”
Despite having guessed it, she gasped in shock. Leaping up from the bed, she closed her arms around him, holding him as his big body trembled in her embrace.
And she realized why he’d never told her. It was because it was too hard for him to talk about. It was obviously too hard for him to take comfort, too, because he pulled away from her. “I grew up without a mother,” he said. “I don’t want this baby to grow up without one, too.”
And that was why he’d been helping her. It wasn’t because he loved her—like she loved him. Despite this realization, she couldn’t fight how she felt any longer. All the feelings she’d once had for him rushed back even stronger.
She loved Jake Howard.
* * *
“This is the guy,” the security chief said as he dropped a photo onto the table. “All of Tuttle’s bounty hunters are licensed, so I searched through public records for copies of those licenses and recognized him.”
Tom glanced down at the picture, and anger coursed through him. The guy, with his thick dark hair and chiseled face, was the kind of good-looking that it wouldn’t matter if he was broke, he’d still get women.
Tom needed the money to get women. Lots of money.
“Who is he?”
“Jake Howard.”
“I don’t give a damn what his name is,” Tom said. “Who is he?”
“A bounty hunter, just like you thought,” Archie Wells confirmed.
But there was more and Tom waited for it.
“He’s also an ex-marine and a former US marshal,” Archie added, and it was obvious from the awe in his voice that the respect he’d already had for the guy had grown.
So Jake Howard was freaking Rambo.
Tom cursed. This was not good. “If he’s a bounty hunter, why the hell hasn’t he brought her to jail?”
“He has a history with her,” the chief said.
Tom snorted.
Of course he did.
Women like Lillian Davies didn’t go for guys like Tom, despite the money. But they would go for a guy who looked like this.
Tom hadn’t even bothered to make a pass at the little accountant, though, because when he’d hired her, it had been with the intention of setting her up to take the blame for stealing the money he’d
been planning to steal. He’d been well aware of her family’s reputation, so he hadn’t figured anyone would believe she was innocent.
But apparently this Jake Howard believed she was. He’d risked his life for her.
Wells continued, “He brings in all her family members for jumping bail. He must have gotten to know her through that.”
“We need to track him down,” Tom said. Maybe that would be easier than tracking down Lillian Davies, since his guys had failed dismally at that.
But it wasn’t just Lillian that Tom wanted. He wanted that damn flash drive, too. He’d paid for it. It was his.
If it even existed...
Chapter 17
The bars slid closed behind Jake, locking him in with the criminals he’d brought here. To jail.
Hell, this wasn’t jail. It was prison. But because they weren’t violent criminals, like his missing father, it was minimum security. There was no glass between him and Dave and Donald Davies Senior. He walked across the room to where they waited at a round metal table for him. With benches around it, it looked like some kind of picnic table at a park. But there were bars instead of trees surrounding them.
“I’m surprised you agreed to see me,” he said.
“You said it’s about Lillian,” her father said. And despite his criminal ways, maybe he did care about his only daughter.
“She’s in trouble,” Jake said.
“What? You knock her up?” Dave asked with a snort of amusement.
They didn’t know she was pregnant. Of course, she’d been gone for six months, waiting for trial. By her own account, that was the last time she had seen Donny in person—when she’d given him that flash drive.
And she’d said that she hadn’t visited her dad and oldest brother since he’d apprehended them. They were still refusing to talk to her.
So why had they agreed to talk to him?
Apparently, it was curiosity, because her dad asked, “Why are you here, Howard? Do you want us to help you apprehend her?”
Maybe that was good, that they didn’t know she was already with him, waiting in the leased SUV down the street from the prison. Outside of camera range.
Hopefully, she was staying in the back seat, like he’d told her, where the windows were tinted and no one could see inside. He hated being away from her...except for last night.
Last night he’d stayed outside the hotel room. He’d given her the excuse that he needed to stand guard while she slept. But that hadn’t been the case at all.
After he’d told her about his family, he’d needed space. Because if he’d taken the comfort she’d offered him, he would have lost control. With his emotions as raw as bringing up the past made them, he wouldn’t have been able to show her the gentleness she and their baby deserved.
His baby...
The child was his. She’d confirmed it. But even before she had, he’d known. He’d felt the connection. It was as strong as the one he had with the baby’s mother.
“Howard!” Don Senior said, snapping his fingers in his face. “What the hell’s wrong with you?”
He was desperate. That was his only reason for seeking out these two degenerates. “You need to talk to your son.”
Don glanced over at Dave. “We talk all the time.”
They were probably cell mates. They looked more like brothers than father and son. They were both short and skinny with tattoos and greasy black hair and small dark eyes. They looked nothing like Lillian with her pale hair and blue eyes. She must have looked like her mother.
“You need to talk to your youngest son,” Jake clarified. “He has a flash drive with files on it that Lillian downloaded to prove her innocence, and he hasn’t turned it over to the authorities like she asked him to do for her.”
Dave snorted again. “And why the hell would we help her after she helped you get us in here?”
“She didn’t help me,” Jake said. “She had no idea I was a bounty hunter.”
Dave snorted again. “Bounty hunter. You’re public enemy number one to every member of the Davies family. There’s no way she couldn’t have known who the hell you are. We’ve been talking about you for years.”
But there was a way she hadn’t known—because he’d lied to her and Lillian was entirely too trusting.
Jake ignored Dave and focused on her father, appealing to the man’s paternal instincts—instincts Jake had already developed himself for that baby she was carrying. “She’s not just in danger of going to jail,” he told Donny Senior. “Someone’s trying to kill her.”
The older man stared at him for several long moments, as if trying to gauge Jake’s truthfulness. Then he shrugged off whatever concern he should have been feeling, and he stood up to leave.
“You’re not going to help her?” Jake asked, both shocked and outraged. But he, better than most, should have known you couldn’t trust family.
Don Senior shook his head and said, “She’s already dead to us.”
* * *
Lillian must have fallen asleep in the back seat because she jerked awake as the SUV started moving. Fear rushed through her as she worried that it wasn’t Jake driving. But then she sat up and identified the driver’s head as the back of Jake’s, his dark hair falling over the collar of his black shirt.
She released a shuddery breath of relief and tried to meet his gaze in the rearview mirror. But he looked away from her. Maybe he was just focusing on the road. Or maybe he still felt awkward about what he’d revealed last night.
Ever since his admission, he’d been distant.
She couldn’t imagine the horror of his childhood. It was clear from his expression when he’d told her what his father had done that, while it had shocked Lillian, it hadn’t been a surprise to him. His father must have abused his mother for years. And Jake, as their child, would have witnessed all that.
Her heart ached for everything he had endured and for everything he had lost. Despite his distance now, Lillian felt closer to him than she ever had. She understood him so much more than she had before.
He was focused on apprehending fugitives because of his father eluding justice. He didn’t want anyone else getting away with their crimes.
What about her? Did he really believe her?
He must or, surely, he would have brought her to jail by now. For one horrifying moment, she’d thought he’d intended to turn her in when he’d driven up to the prison. But then he’d told her his plan to appeal to her dad and brother to help her with Donny.
They’d come out of hiding before to protect her. He’d thought they might come to her aid again.
“What did they say?” she asked. But she wasn’t as hopeful as he’d been.
His gaze met hers briefly in the rearview mirror before he quickly looked away again. And she knew...
It hadn’t been good.
“What did they say?” she asked again. “Did they agree to reach out to Donny?”
He shook his head, and his dark hair swept across his collar. “No.”
Just like his admission regarding his past, even though she’d suspected the truth before he’d shared it with her, she gasped with shock. “They won’t?”
Her own family had refused to help her.
“No,” he said. “They refused to talk to me at all.”
Jake was not a good liar. Maybe that was why he’d given her his real name all those months ago. It was obviously easier for him to tell the truth than lie.
But this time she appreciated that he wasn’t telling her the truth. She knew it would only hurt her. Her family hadn’t forgiven her for being involved with Jake.
What would they say if they knew she loved the bounty hunter?
Probably nothing at all. They had refused to talk to her months ago. All but for Donny...
And now she couldn’t reach out to him, ei
ther. She slid her hands over her belly. Her baby was the only family she had now.
* * *
Donny dropped into the chair across the metal table from his dad and brother. Sweat trickled down between his shoulder blades. He hated this place and had vowed, like Lillian had, that he would never wind up here.
Prison.
But they’d summoned him with a phone call to his brother Dylan. After last night, he’d been staying there since Katie had thrown him out.
She wanted nothing to do with him again. And he couldn’t blame her. He’d shot up her house.
Of course, he’d been trying to hit the intruder. Not her or the kids or Lillian.
But his hand was still shaking from how close he had come to shooting her. He’d had no business buying that gun. “Why’d you guys want to see me?”
He’d told them about the flash drive when Lillian had given it to him six months ago. Instead of just doing what she’d asked of him, like he should have, he’d asked their opinion about what to do with it. Now he wished like hell he’d never taken their advice.
“Jake Howard came to see us,” Dave said with a snort of disgust. He hated the bounty hunter.
They all did.
But for Lillian.
Katie had told Donny that his sister was pregnant. Why the hell hadn’t Lillian told him that? But maybe she hadn’t known six months ago when she’d given him that flash drive.
“What did Jake want?” Donny asked. But he knew. Jake was with Lillian, but he hadn’t brought her to jail yet. Maybe he cared about her, too.
“He wants you to give that flash drive to the police,” his father said.
Donny wanted nothing to do with the police, but he admitted, “I should give it back to Lillian.” Then she could use it however she wanted.
“You should ask that boss of hers for more money,” Dave said.
Donny had already burned through everything Tom Kuipers had paid him—for an empty flash drive. Good thing he’d done the drop through an exchange at a bus locker. Donny had taken out the money and left the blank flash drive. And he’d slipped away before any of Kuipers’s men had had a chance to grab him. But he’d seen them there. That was why he’d had Katie stage a disturbance, screaming that one of the men had tried to assault her.