Feeling The Heat

by Rhonda Nelson

  The silence yawned between them and for a moment she didn’t think he was going to respond. “Every weekend for a year and half, eh?” he finally asked.

  She chuckled, releasing the sob stuck in her throat. “Dad was stubborn.”

  “So I guess you come by it honestly then.”

  She managed a weak smile. “I guess I do.” She paused and chewed her bottom lip. “Look, I know this isn’t your usual style, and I understand that.” And she really did. She was asking for admittance onto his turf. It would be like him coming into her office and asking to consult on a wedding. She got that. But…“But I need to do this. I can’t not do it. Does that make sense?”

  Seemingly thawing, Linc looked away and swore under his breath.

  He was weakening, Georgia thought, a burst of hope rushing through her. “I can either go with you and help, or follow you around and be a pain in the ass.”

  He turned to glare at her, but softened it with a hint of a smile that bordered close enough to wicked to make her belly tremble and her nipples pearl. “Either way you’re a pain in the ass.”

  Time to move in for the kill. “Your father tells me that your little sister is getting married next year, tentatively planned for the fall?”

  “Yes,” he said guardedly, clearly suspecting a trap. “She is.”

  And his father—a helpfully chatty fellow, who’d clearly had his own agenda when he’d talked to her this morning when she’d gone by the bond office in another futile attempt to talk to Linc—had also told her that they’d lost their mother twenty years ago, and dealing with all the froufrou, girly things a wedding entailed was going to be a “freakin’ nightmare.” As the only girl and a haunting replica of her mother, Gracie was the apple of the Stone clan’s eye. They loved her to distraction. They wanted to make her happy.

  Linc, in particular, according to Martin, wanted to make her happy. Evidently the two shared a uniquely special bond.

  As the premiere wedding planner in the area, this worked in Georgia’s favor, so she pressed her advantage.

  “If you help me—if you let me come along with you—I’ll plan her wedding.” She steepled her fingers beneath her chin and delivered the coup de grâce. “Gratis.”

  Another hot oath slipped from between his sinfully carnal lips, blistering the air and warming her heart.

  His gaze tangled with hers, momentarily snatching the breath from her lungs. “Did my father put you up to this?”

  “He might have planted the idea,” she conceded, instinctively knowing that he would be able to tell if she lied. Judging from the keen look in those sharp green eyes, she got the feeling Linc Stone didn’t miss much, if anything.

  He swore again and looked away, defeated but not ready to fold.

  I’ve got him, Georgia thought, smiling.

  Mission accomplished.

  “Fine,” he finally said. “But we do this my way and you follow my rules to the letter.”

  Provided his rules made sense, she’d do just that. If they didn’t, well…

  She’d improvise.

  3

  “SO YOU CAVED?”

  Sitting in the kitchen of Cade’s old farmhouse—the one that belonged to their maternal grandparents—watching his brother cook their steaks over the Jenn-Air grill, Linc resisted the immediate impulse to thump Cade on the back of the head. Satisfying though it may be, they’d gotten a little too old to wrestle. Not that they hadn’t done their share of it in the past, he thought, feeling his lips twitch. And he had the scars to prove it. But he liked to think they’d both matured, at least a little bit.

  “No, I didn’t cave,” Linc said, careful to keep the annoyance out of his voice because Cade would pounce on it. He casually tipped his beer back and swallowed. “I merely decided that her offer was too good to refuse.” Not a complete lie, if not the complete truth.

  Seemingly unconvinced, Cade snorted under his breath. “Admit it. She played you.”

  “If anyone played me, it was Dad,” Linc told him with a significant grimace. “He’s the one who told Georgia about Gracie’s wedding. What was I supposed to say when she offered to plan it for free? No?” He grunted. “I didn’t have a choice.”

  Cade merely arched a brow.

  Ordinarily Linc didn’t like being manipulated, but in this instance Martin’s interference had allowed him to save a little face because after hearing why the ring was so important to Georgia, Linc wouldn’t have been able to turn her away. Hell, she was a pain in the ass, but he wasn’t an ogre.

  If nothing else, he had to respect the lengths to which Georgia’s father had gone to make her mother his bride. Did he understand it? No, of course not, and frankly, he didn’t want to. The idea of being that in love with someone—that dependent on another person for his own joy—didn’t appeal to him in the least.

  If that was love, then he’d leave it to them.

  But the idea of the ring being with a thieving bastard like Carter Watkins was simply more than he could take. It grated on every righteous and just nerve in his body, and he liked to think there were a lot of them.

  Being in the bond business was ugly work—they typically dealt with the dregs of society, but there was something about a damned thief that just made his blood boil. It was a lazy, disrespectful crime designed to profit off another person’s work, and it pissed him off to no end.

  Furthermore, it hit too close to home.

  Shortly after moving into his loft, he’d been the victim of a break-in. In addition to taking everything of value—mostly electronics and a couple of guns, one of which had belonged to his grandfather—the bastards had trashed everything that wasn’t deemed “marketable.” Pictures had been taken off the walls and tossed, cushions slashed, his pottery—some of his earlier work that he’d been particularly proud of—had been smashed just for the hell of it. Drawers had been emptied out, tables upended. He’d walked in on a nightmare and to this day, still got that same sick, violated feeling in the pit of his belly when he thought about it.

  Just knowing that strangers had entered his own private space—his castle, the one he’d painstakingly worked and saved for—had been enough to make him alternately want to vomit and smash things. Unfortunately, and to his eternal irritation, the perps had never been caught and not a single stolen item had been found. Another reason he suspected that Georgia’s ring would forever be MIA. Though it sucked, Carter Watkins could have done anything with it by now. Another flash of anger tightened his jaw.

  Finding the man was his job, Linc knew, but knowing firsthand the hurt and hell Carter had put Georgia through over the past few days irritated and annoyed him beyond what was rational. Another alarm bell sounded, alerting him to possible trouble, but like the others, he decided to ignore it. Though Linc had several files open at the moment, Carter Watkins’ case had just been moved to the top of his stack. And if he happened to beat the hell out of him in the process of bringing him in, well…so be it.

  Georgia had been right on several points, a fact that he had to admit he found impressive. The slimeball hadn’t been able to make bond, which meant funds were low. If funds were low, leaving the area didn’t seem plausible. And if he couldn’t get a decent price out of the ring at a pawn shop, then duping someone on the street seemed like the next logical course of action. Linc took another pull from his beer. And like she’d already concluded, if Watkins managed to do that, finding the ring would become next to impossible.

  “You would have done the same thing,” Linc told him, referencing his arrangement with Georgia once more.

  Cade paused and shot him a look. “No, I wouldn’t.”

  “Bullshit. For Gracie?” he scoffed. “You know damn well you would’ve taken the deal, as well.”

  His brother plated the steaks, added his signature sautéed mushrooms, then made his way over to the big beat-up table that had seen its fair share of Stone gatherings. “No, I wouldn’t, because there would have never been a ‘deal.’ I would have let her
come along with me from the start.” He seated himself and that too-shrewd gaze caught Linc’s. “What interests me is the fact that you said no to start with, little brother. It begs a lot of intriguing questions, if you ask me.”

  Linc carved a piece of steak off and impaled it on his fork, resisting the urge to shift uncomfortably. “Nobody’s asking you.”

  Infuriatingly, Cade merely smiled. “Have you told Gracie yet?”

  Linc nodded, thankful for the shift in conversation. “Yeah. I called her from my cell on the way out here.” He chuckled, secretly pleased that he’d made her happy. “She was over the moon. Kept whooping and hollering in my ear.”

  Interestingly, while discerning the Stone men’s thoughts was a bit like trying to decipher ancient Greek, no one ever had to wonder about what Gracie Stone thought or felt. She was an open book, and a loud one at that. Of course, if she’d been quiet when they were growing up, she would have never been heard. While their entire family was admittedly close, there’d been a special bond borne between the two of them after their mother had died. Cade had stepped in and became more of a parent than their father, but he and Gracie had actually been able to remain true siblings. Thankfully she’d found someone who appreciated her exuberant personality and didn’t try to tone her down.

  Mark Fletcher had been Gracie’s high-school sweetheart. He was the strong, silent type. The calm to her storm. Linc grinned. And the guy had balls, too, because dating Gracie knowing that her brothers were waiting in the wings to rip him limb from limb if he hurt their little sister was a testament to stones if there ever was one.

  “She told me to tell you that she was sorry she couldn’t make it,” Linc told him. “She’s got a funeral tomorrow and two weddings this weekend.” He ate a mushroom and grunted with caveman appreciation. “What was Dad’s excuse?”

  They generally got together for dinner at Cade’s at least two or three times a week. While Martin might be the genetic head of the family, Cade was their unspoken leader and had been ever since their mother died. Holidays, family gatherings…all took place at his brother’s house.

  Cade grimaced. “Why else? He had a date.”

  Linc nodded, unsurprised. Their father kept a sizable pool of eligible women in his dating queue at all times, and seemed to be going out with more frequency and fervor since Marlene had come to work for them. Though it could only be a coincidence, Linc didn’t think so. Cade had noticed the recent development, as well, and, like him, suspected Martin was trying too hard to stay busy. But better that than trying too hard with Marlene. Both he and Cade had made it abundantly clear that messing around with their secretary would not be cool.

  Father or no, they had to draw the line somewhere.

  “This is good,” Linc said, gesturing toward his steak with his loaded fork.

  “Thanks,” Cade murmured. He washed a bite down with a bit of wine, or hoity-toity juice as Linc liked to call it. “So what’s next for you and Ms. Hart?”

  Back to that again, were they? “I’m picking her up at her office in the morning.”

  “Where’s her office?”

  “Germantown. We’re going to check out a few places we know Watkins has stayed in the past.”

  “She dated him, right? Doesn’t she have a phone number for him? Has she tried getting in touch with him since she discovered the ring missing?”

  Marlene certainly hadn’t wasted any time bringing Cade up to speed, Linc thought, studying his brother. “She’d been calling a disposable cell. I figure he chucked it after he took the ring.” And though she hadn’t said it, Linc figured Watkins had chucked her, as well. Talk about adding insult to injury. Take the most important thing in the world away from her, then dump her? Yeah, that’s classy. He wiped his mouth and tossed the napkin onto his plate. How the hell had she ended up with loser like him in the first place? Linc wondered, annoyed beyond reason. It boggled the mind.

  “Slick bastard, isn’t he?”

  “He won’t be slick enough,” Linc said, a bit of a growl creeping into his voice.

  Cade paused and studied him. “You sound determined.”

  Linc chuckled darkly. “You should hear her.”

  Honestly, Carter Watkins wasn’t safe until she found that ring, and he wasn’t certain the guy would be even then. Making an enemy of Georgia Hart was probably the stupidest thing the guy had ever done, and considering he wasn’t particularly smart, that was saying something.

  “She’s already proved that she’s determined. She didn’t give up on you, did she?”

  Linc felt a grin catch the corner of his mouth. He had to admit having her show up at his place tonight had been completely unexpected. In fact, when he’d opened the door, it had taken him a couple of seconds to even recognize her.

  Her hair had thrown him. It had been down, curling gently around her face and over her shoulders, instead of pulled tight in that infernal ponytail. Honestly, the ponytail wasn’t flattering. You’d think she’d have a friend or someone to tell her that she looked better with her hair down. It…softened her, for lack of a better explanation. And considering that he was already susceptible to that vulnerable fix-me thing she had going on, Linc didn’t need her to look any softer.

  Furthermore—disturbingly—it was damned sexy.

  While the too-tight ponytail screamed “Do not touch,” the loose spirals coiling around her face practically begged to be wrapped around his fingers. The unrestrained, uninhibited curls, combined with that overly ripe mouth he couldn’t seem to stop looking at and wanting to taste, and those sweet melting chocolate eyes, made her infinitely more appealing that he’d originally thought. Had he missed something to begin with? Linc wondered, shifting in his chair as the blood rushed to his loins. Or had he simply not looked close enough?

  In the end, it didn’t matter.

  He was supposed to be looking for Carter Watkins, not looking at her mouth, mooning over her curls and admiring her moxie, dammit.

  He’d do good to remember that, a reminder he grimly suspected would become rote over the next few days.

  “NOW WILL YOU TELL ME why you made me rent Dog, The Bounty Hunter: Season Three?” Karen, her assistant, asked with humorous disdain as she breezed into Georgia’s living room bearing the DVD and Chinese take-out. Stitch barked madly and ran in circles around her feet while Bogey and Bacall merely looked on in haughty feline arrogance.

  Georgia shifted the how-to books she’d purchased on her way home from Linc’s apartment to the side of the coffee table, making room for their food. A Girl’s Guide to Bounty Hunting, the most useful manual so far, sat on top of the stack. Yes, her window of opportunity to prepare herself for their first round of bounty hunting in the morning was rapidly closing, but that didn’t mean that she wasn’t going to try and cram as much knowledge of the subject as she possibly could into her brain before then. She’d pulled many an all-nighter in college during exams, so she was familiar with the process. And if it helped her keep her mind off of Linc and his probable date—the one she kept telling herself she shouldn’t care about—then all the better.

  “All in good time,” Georgia told her. “All in good time. What do you want to drink? I’ve got sweet tea, sweet tea or sweet tea.”

  Karen carefully set the food on the table and dropped her newest designer bag—an addiction more than a fashion statement—onto the nearest chair. “I think I’ll have tea,” she replied drolly.

  “Excellent choice,” Georgia said, making her way into the kitchen.

  “I noticed Jack’s car was home,” she said, obviously fishing for information. “No date tonight?”

  Georgia felt a smile tug at her lips. “I guess not. He and Monica exited into Splitsville last weekend.”

  Knowing the huge crush Karen was nursing on her brother, Georgia really should have mentioned Jack’s new unattached status earlier, but she didn’t want Karen to get her hopes up. Though it pained her to say it…Karen wasn’t exactly Jack’s type. Which was too bad beca
use if she could handpick a sister-in-law, Karen would fit the bill perfectly. She was smart, ambitious and loyal. She was also a little bit…forthright. An excellent quality for an assistant, but could be quite daunting and abrasive to a potential mate. Beneath the bravado though, Karen was a good-hearted softie who desperately wanted her happily-ever-after.

  With Jack, specifically, if Georgia’s instincts were on target.

  She’d casually put out a couple of feelers to her brother regarding any romantic interest in Karen, and his reaction had been short and to the point.

  Hell, no.

  Personally, given the amiable yes-girls her brother typically dated, Georgia thought a dose of unaccommodating directness was exactly what Jack needed. She wouldn’t interfere though, because she sure as hell wouldn’t want Jack interfering in her love life. And, considering how protective of her he was, she knew that was a too-real possibility. In fact, she typically kept her dates away from her brother.

  “A Girl’s Guide to Bounty Hunting? Skip Tracing 101? Bond Enforcement Procedure for Dummies?” Karen called out from the living room, her voice escalating and more bewildered with each title. “Are, uh…Are you thinking about making a career change? Because if you are, as your assistant, this would fall firmly into the need-to-know category.”

  Dumping ice into glasses, Georgia chuckled softly and shook her head. “No.”

  Thumbing through one of the books, Karen appeared in the kitchen doorway. She quirked a brow. “Then why all the how-to books? Why the bounty hunter DVD?” She frowned ominously. “Have you developed a fetish I don’t know about?”

  Georgia pulled a couple of plates from the cabinet, snagged forks, then gestured for Karen to bring the tea. She headed back to the living room. “Of course not,” she said, rolling her eyes. Honestly, sometimes Karen’s imagination was quite…odd.