She took a deep breath. “Look, I’m sorry. It’s just that being back at that house has been very painful for me, and call me old-fashioned, but I feel uncomfortable selling to someone I’ve never met.”
“So you’ve changed your mind?”
“No, I just want to know who he is.”
“Believe me, Alex, if I could tell you, I would. But I signed a confidentiality agreement and I’m a man of my word. I can relay your concerns to him when he calls, but I doubt he’ll budge, even if it means losing the property. He’s very private.”
Alex sighed. Why was she pushing this poor guy? He seemed to be telling the truth and she wasn’t about to get anything out of him like this. Maybe his emails and phone calls were just some weird coincidence, and maybe the person she should be interrogating was whoever had broken into the house.
It certainly wasn’t Gérard.
She drained her glass and got to her feet.
He looked up at her. “You’re leaving?”
“I’m sorry,” she said again. “Here you were enjoying the view and I come along and start bullying you like some psycho cop. I’ll let you drink in peace.”
“But I told you, I prefer not to drink alone.”
“Trust me, you don’t want me for company right now.”
“On the contrary,” he said. “That’s exactly what I want.” Now he got to his feet. “But if you aren’t interested in drinking with me, what do you say to a walk on the beach?”
Though he wobbled slightly as he held out a hand, he was so damn charming in tone and demeanor that she couldn’t help but forgive his excesses. That Clive Owen vibe was working overtime right now, and despite the anger and confusion this trip had already wrought, she found herself giving into him.
“I guess I could use some air,” she said.
There was something soothing about beaches at night.
Back in Baltimore, before their involvement with Stonewell International, Alex and Deuce would sometimes grab a six-pack and drive out to Rocky Point after a hard day’s work. They’d spend half the night camped out on the sand with several of their cop and bail enforcement friends, drinking beer and swapping war stories in front of a fire. The park was technically closed after sunset, but the beach patrol was more than willing to extend a bit of professional courtesy to their public-safety brethren.
At some point in the night, Alex would usually find herself alone and walking barefoot along the water’s edge, letting the cool breeze off Chesapeake Bay remind her that the world was not always about bail jumpers and chases down blind alleyways and bondsmen with tight purses. Sometimes you had to let go of all the bullshit and revel in those small moments of escape.
She figured it was no different tonight. As she and Gérard worked their way down a set of wooden steps to the beach outside the Largo Inn, she decided to allow herself to let go for a moment. To be that free woman Gérard had spoken of.
He said, “So, what do you really do for a living?”
Alex stifled a smile. She’d known he hadn’t believed her. “I told you. Same as you, only I hunt people instead of properties.”
“You’re with the police?”
She shook her head. “I’m a fugitive retrieval specialist. Or what the people in the cheap seats call a bounty hunter.”
He looked surprised. “That seems an usual profession for…” He paused, as if he were afraid to finish the sentence.
“For what?” she said. “A woman?”
They were walking on the sand now, the beach curving along the coastline, dotted by clusters of dark palms, an ocean breeze rendering the late summer humidity almost bearable. Gérard had sobered some, but still could have benefitted from a cup of coffee or two, although his drunkenness was more endearing than obnoxious.
“Not at all,” he said, stopping. “What I meant to say was…for someone so beautiful.”
From anyone else this would have seemed like a well-practiced line, and it probably was. But Gérard came across as sincere instead of smarmy, and Alex had to admit she liked the sound of it. Maybe it was the Irish whiskey talking, but if he kept it up, she might let go completely.
Gérard was silhouetted against the backdrop of the bay as they looked at each other for a moment that was probably a lot shorter than it seemed. In a movie, he would try to kiss her now and she would resist but finally give in, despite her conflicting emotions. And the boyfriends and husbands in the crowd would undoubtedly be squirming in their seats, wondering what the hell kind of flick they’d agreed to see.
But Alex was no ingénue, and the man who emerged from the shadows of the palm trees six seconds later, pointing a gun in their direction, proved this was no chick flick.
“Down on your knees. Both of you.” The guy was wearing gloves, a ski mask, and a very ugly attitude.
Alex glanced at Gérard, and then at the hotel, which was farther away than she’d realized.
The mugger took a step closer. “Nobody can see us down here, bitch. Now get on your fucking knees.” He turned to Gérard. “You, too, asshole.”
Alex had learned long ago that you don’t mess around with a guy with a gun, especially at almost point-blank range. If things escalated, she’d do whatever needed to be done, but a few bucks and some credit cards were not worth getting shot over.
She sank to her knees and gestured for Gérard to do the same. But instead of complying, Gérard’s gaze took on a look she didn’t like.
Oh, shit.
He had been about to make a move on a woman he barely knew, and now had to prove himself worthy, the proverbial knight in shining armor.
Before she could stop him, he crouched slightly, as if he were about to kneel, then sprang forward like a soccer goalie diving for the ball. Judging by the mugger’s reaction, he hadn’t expected the move any more than he’d expected to use the gun. He let out a yelp as Gérard wrapped his arms around him and knocked him to the sand.
The gun went off, and the shot came perilously close to giving Alex an unsolicited tracheotomy. She fell back with a grunt, then scrambled to her feet just in time to see her inebriated hero trying to wrestle the gun from the mugger’s hand.
The mugger lost his grip and the weapon went flying into the darkness as he and Gérard tumbled into the water, the mugger’s hands disappearing from view.
Gérard suddenly groaned in pain and rolled away as the mugger jumped to his feet, holding a blade.
“Stay back,” he told Alex, adjusting the mask that had come askew. “Stay the fuck back!”
Alex glanced at Gérard, who was still moving but clutching his side.
“Thomas? Are you okay?”
He groaned again. “…I’m cut.”
Alex looked up sharply, the anger she’d stifled earlier coming back full force. The mugger must have recognized the threat, because the eyes behind his ski mask went wide.
“Stay back!” he said, his voice wavering. “Or I’ll cut him again!”
If Gérard was hurt, she didn’t have room to argue, but she didn’t have to let the mugger know that.
She took a step forward, keeping her voice level. “You’d better run, you son of a bitch, or I’ll tear your head off.”
The mugger stood there for a moment, the hand with the blade trembling. Then, without warning, he heeded her advice and took off running, disappearing into the darkness down shore. Alex briefly considered chasing after him, but knew she couldn’t. Instead, she moved to Gérard and pulled him away from the water.
“…Is okay,” he grunted, the stress of the moment bringing out more of an accent. “I will be okay.”
She pushed him against the sand, checked his shirt, and spotted a tear in the fabric near the upper right rib cage. She ripped open the shirt and checked the wound. It was a fairly long slice but didn’t look deep, thank God. A couple minutes with a medic and he’d be fine.
“I think you’ll live,” she said. “But we need to notify the police and get you some medical attention.”
“No…no police.”
“But— “
“He was an amateur. He was scared. I don’t think he’ll be trying this again.”
“I can see you haven’t been around too many perps.”
Gérard shook his head. “The police will never catch him and will only make our lives miserable for the next few hours.”
He was right about that, even more so where Alex was concerned. As soon as they found out what she did for a living, the questions would likely change in both character and tone. Alex had a decent relationship with the cops in Baltimore, but there was no telling how local law enforcement felt about bounty hunters.
Looking at the wound, Gérard said, “It doesn’t seem too bad. Leave me and I’ll be fine. I have a first-aid kit in my room.”
He sat up, groaning again as blood seeped from the wound.
“At least let me patch you up,” she said. “I’ve had a little experience in the field.”
He shook his head. “I almost got you shot and I’ve already taken up too much of your night with my drunken foolishness.”
“I insist.”
He looked down at the blood on his hand and relented. “All right. You might have to help me up.”
“Hold on for a second.”
She pulled her cell phone from her pocket, switched it to flashlight mode, and made a quick sweep of the beach until she found the discarded gun. There were children staying at the hotel, and she didn’t want them to find it.
“All right,” she said. “Give me your hand.”
Twenty minutes later, she was in his bed.
CHAPTER 7
IT WAS NEARLY three in the morning when Alex abruptly came awake.
She had been dreaming of her mother, twenty years old, wearing that veil and wedding dress. Alex sat on her lap, admiring the turquoise stone on her finger, saying, “I don’t want you to die, Mommy.” But when she looked up again, she was sitting alone.
Or so she thought.
To her surprise, she saw a Persian wedding rug spread out before her, covered with the traditional bowls of bread and nuts and coins and incense and two burning candelabra with a mirror between them.
But the face reflected in the mirror was not hers.
It was the groom from her mother’s wedding video.
Alex sucked in a sharp breath and opened her eyes and found herself lying in the dark of Gérard’s hotel suite. Gérard was on his back beside her, chest rising and falling but making no sound as he slept. And as the dream receded, regret kicked in, and she could only ask herself why?
Why had she decided to sleep with this man? He was a virtual stranger.
Alex had always been impulsive. For as long as she could remember. But she had never been reckless about her choice of bed partners, which, for better or worse, were few and far between.
So what was it about this one that had made her cave?
Hell, cave wasn’t even the word. If anything, she had been the aggressor.
After they had found the mugger’s gun, she had helped Gérard—wet and bleeding and smelling of the ocean—through the hotel lobby and up to his one-bedroom suite.
She’d sat him on his bed and told him to strip off his shirt. “Where’s your first-aid kit?”
He winced and gestured toward the closet. “In the suitcase.”
She retrieved it and checked inside, happy to see it contained some cotton swabs and several butterfly bandages. She then crossed to the bathroom and found a towel and two washcloths. After soaping one of the cloths, she filled a glass with water, and carried everything back to the bed.
She said, “Lift yourself up a little.”
He did as he was told and she scooted the towel underneath him and flattened it out. When he lay back down, she inspected the wound under the nightstand light and found a lot of sand, but was relieved to see it was even shallower than she had first thought.
“A couple butterflies should do the trick,” she said. She poured water on the cut to wash away the sand, then swabbed it with soap and rinsed again.
He winced. “You’ve done this before.”
She nodded. “Combat training.”
“Combat training?”
“Army. Two-year stint.”
He laughed and shook his head. “I have to tell you, Alex, the more I know of you, the more fascinating you become. Whatever possessed you to join the military?”
“It’s a long, boring story.”
“Nothing about you is boring. Tell me.”
She shrugged. “I could say it was a family tradition, but the truth is I wasn’t ready for college, and figured a two-year stint would do me good. I could always use the GI Bill to help get me an education later.”
She left out the part where she had heard rumors that her father had fled to the Middle East, and how she had naively believed she might somehow be able to contact him once she got over there. She had been so young and stupid then.
“So did you?”
She dried the wound and applied some ointment. “Did I what?”
“Get an education.”
She nodded again. “I had thoughts about joining the FBI,”—another naive notion that it might help her gather information about her father—“so I majored in Legal Studies, with a minor in Anthropology. I figured since I had a military background and I’m fluent in Farsi, getting in would be a slam dunk.”
“You speak Farsi, too?”
“My mother was Iranian. She made sure to teach me.”
He studied her carefully. “Yes, I see it now. She must have been very beautiful.”
Alex wasn’t sure why his gaze made her uncomfortable, but it did, though not in a bad way.
“And did the FBI accept you?”
“Not even close. They rejected me outright.”
He frowned. “Why?”
She took out one of the butterfly bandages and ripped open the wrapper. “That’s another long and boring part,” she said, the edge creeping back into her voice, “and I’d rather not get into it, if you don’t mind.”
“We can stop talking altogether, if you prefer.” He gestured to the wound. “You have my life in your hands.”
She laughed and started applying the first bandage. “Trust me, this little thing isn’t even close to life threatening. You probably won’t even feel it in a day or two. I doubt it’ll leave a scar.”
He let her work for a moment, then said, “If you don’t mind my asking, how do you go from Legal Studies and Anthropology to working as a…fugitive retrieval specialist?”
“Simple. I met a guy at a party, we got to talking and hit it off.”
“A boyfriend?”
She laughed again. “No. Turned out he’d been doing trace work for a bondsman, but wanted to strike out on his own and needed a partner. With my background and training, he thought I might be a good fit.”
“I suppose in a profession like that, being a woman has its advantages.”
“Being a woman always has its advantages.” She finished up and patted his bare chest. “And it looks like my work here is done.”
Gathering the wrappers, washcloths, and first-aid kit, she got to her feet, but before she could take a step, Gérard grabbed hold of her wrist. It was a gentle enough move, but most men would have regretted making it.
“There’s no hurry,” he told her. “I’m too wired to sleep. Stay for a while. Talk.”
She looked around the bedroom. “In here?”
He gestured to the doorway. “We can go out to the sitting room if you like. I wouldn’t want you to get the wrong impression.”
He was smiling again. She thought for a moment, then set the washcloths and first-aid kit on the nightstand.
“No,” she said. “This is fine.”
Then, in a move that surprised her even more than it did Gérard, she climbed onto the bed and kissed him.
He didn’t seem to have any trouble kissing her back.
Now here she was, lying in the dark, still unsure wh
at had possessed her to climb into his bed in the first place.
Maybe it was simple. Maybe at that moment she had needed to be close to someone. Maybe his charm and drunken attempt at gallantry and her own attempts at playing nursemaid had gotten all the right synapses firing and the rest was inevitable.
Whatever the case, it was done, and she needed to get the hell out of there. And when Gérard came back for more, assuming he would, she’d explain that everything from here on out was strictly business. She just wanted to make this deal and go home.
When it came down to it, he probably wanted the same thing.
After pushing the sheet aside, she carefully extricated herself from the bed and searched the floor for her clothes. She found her jeans and underwear lying on one side of the room, her T-shirt on the other, and didn’t remember removing any of them.
Jesus, Alex. What are you, an animal?
She heard Gérard stir and suddenly felt vulnerable standing there in the buff. She got dressed as quickly as possible, scooped up the mugger’s gun from the dresser, and tucked it in her waistband. Tiptoeing over to the nightstand, she kept her gaze on Gérard, then quietly slid open the drawer, and removed a pad and pen, both stamped with the Largo Inn logo.
She stood hunched over the pad, pen ready, trying to figure out what to write. She got as far as Dear Thomas and stopped, ripped off the sheet and crumpled it in disgust before returning the pad and pen to the drawer.
After checking to make sure she wasn’t leaving anything behind, she went to the door and let herself out.
When Alex was gone, the man who was calling himself Thomas Gérard opened his eyes and reached for his mobile phone on the nightstand. Punching in a speed-dial number, he climbed out of bed and went to the window overlooking the hotel’s front parking lot.
He waited through three rings before the line came to life and a voice said, “Yeah?”
“She’s leaving the hotel.”
“Why so early?” A hesitant pause. “You think we’re blown?”
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