Pride of a Hunter

by Sylvie Kurtz

  He needed to close Jill off from her family for the next few weeks. The mother he could keep busy with the planning for the reception. But invitations weren’t going to keep Luci busy for long. She needed something else, something more, something bigger. He tapped his teeth with the cap of his gold pen.

  She loved her little farm and seemed attached to that big oaf of a man who’d taken up residence in her guest room.

  That was the answer, of course.

  What Warren did was to save kids like Jeff. Young boys shouldn’t have to grow up shoved aside while their mothers panted after men. They needed their mothers’ full attention and resources.

  All he was doing was reminding those foolish women where their priorities should lie.

  He’d love to grab and leave right now, but Jill had a big payday coming. If he could hang on for two more weeks—until their marriage certificate was signed—he could teach Jill, and her sister, a real lesson.

  DOM PULLED LUCI next to him as they exited Warren’s building and stepped onto the sidewalk. The accidental bump of her hip against his triggered both guilty pleasure and rightful punishment. He couldn’t help wanting her. She’d gotten under his skin the moment she’d walked into that first training class twelve years ago. But his mishandling of the situation seven years ago had wiped the joy from her eyes—from her soul. She deserved better than a constant reminder of her darkest moment.

  He slung an arm over her shoulder, deepening his torment. He could pretend she was just a member of the team if it killed him. As he leaned his head to whisper in her ear, her scent of peppermint and herbs teased him, made him hungry for a taste of her warm skin. “Swanson’s watching.”

  As Dom had expected, Luci stiffened, then forced her shoulders to relax. “Do you think he’s buying your performance?”

  Dom’s cheek twitched with the exaggeration of a smile. “Only as long as you don’t act like I’m poison ivy. Let’s go in here.” He led her into the bistro three doors down from Swanson’s office.

  “The memory game?” she asked, stepping toward the restaurant’s glass door.

  He nodded, holding the door open. Normal team-work, planning strategy, closing a case. He could do normal. “I also want to see if Kingsley’s gadgets are working.”

  “Kingsley?”

  “Seekers’ computer guru. Did you notice the locksmith van parked on the street?”

  She nodded. “White with red lettering.”

  “It’s listening in to Swanson’s conversations. There’s a small camera in the light fixture in front of his office that shows us who’s coming in and going out.”

  “And?” she prodded.

  “So far nothing on both counts.”

  “For a guy working on clearing cases, isn’t that strange?”

  “My thoughts exactly.”

  The sign on the hostess’s stand told them to seat themselves. They took a booth in front of the window that overlooked the entrance to Swanson’s office building. Dom graciously allowed her the prime perch with back to wall.

  Old habits died hard. Nice to see that Luci hadn’t lost them all.

  They both assessed the rest of the patrons. Of the eighteen-odd tables, couples occupied only two others: two women engaged in a meal of juicy gossip and an older pair dined in companionable silence. A lone man sat near the back, concentrating on his laptop as he ate the bare-bones meal on his plate.

  The decor was stark—all straight lines, sharp angles and funneled light. Dom much preferred cozy and lived-in—like Luci’s house.

  A waiter, as stiff as the polished aluminum wall sculpture behind Luci, handed them menus and listed the specials. Dom ordered the first thing that caught his attention, then turned back to Luci. “Do you have any paper in your bag?”

  She extracted a small notebook and tore off a few pages. More digging brought out two pens.

  Dom poised his pen over the scrap of paper. “Write down everything you saw.”

  Only the tip of her tongue showed between her teeth as she bent over the task with concentration. He cupped a hand over his forehead, blocking her out of his sight. Too distracting.

  Five minutes later, their drinks—hot tea for him, iced tea for her—had appeared and their lists were complete.

  “What do you think?” Dom asked as they swapped lists. He liked the boldness of her handwriting, the surety of her hand over the paper.

  Luci’s tongue poked the inside of her cheek as she mulled over her answer. “Do you think the degree on his wall is real?”

  “Doubt it. I’ll have Kingsley check. The P.I.’s license is, though. Kingsley confirmed that earlier this morning. I’ll see if he can pull the application.”

  Luci added two packets of sugar to her tea and stirred with more vigor than needed. “But Warren’s only been in New Hampshire for a couple of weeks.”

  “You don’t have to be a New Hampshire resident to get a New Hampshire private detective license. You don’t even have to be a U.S. citizen.”

  “Really? But don’t they do a background check?”

  Dom freed the fork, knife and spoon from their napkin mummy. “Sure. On the name he gave them and that would come up clean. Even if he’d used his real name, it probably would have come clean. He’s never been convicted for his crimes.”

  “Still, there are work requirements. How could he build the experience and be out working his scams at the same time?”

  Her fingers scratched at the pale blue of the tablecloth and he wanted to dome his hand over them, calm their nervous scrabbling. She’d had the steadiest hands of the team, never missed a target. And that consistent reliability had balanced the whole team.

  “Same way he gets his IDs,” Dom said, contenting himself with the warmth of the tea. “Pay for it.”

  “That’s fraud, isn’t it? Can’t you get him on that?”

  “If we can prove it.” Dom bit into one of the prissy breadsticks from the long, thin basket. The tasteless paper only made him more ravenous.

  Luci groaned. “It all comes back to that proof.”

  Yeah, just a little thing like evidence that would hold up in court. Dom flexed his fingers, breaking the breadstick he plucked from the basket. Getting his hands on something that could nail Swanson dogged him 24/7.

  The waiter arrived with their food.

  “I noticed a firearms proficiency certificate.” Luci frowned into her Tex-Mex salad, picking at the black beans, chunks of tomatoes and corn with her fork. “Doesn’t the state fingerprint for that?”

  “Two sets.”

  “Can’t we use the fingerprints to corner him? If the fingerprints from whatever name he used with his last mark match the ones when he’s using Warren Swanson, then that’s proof of fraud.”

  Dom dug into the grilled tuna, wild rice and green beans and tried to ignore the spike of stomach-eating acid ravaging his gut. “We’re going for the whole enchilada. We could get him on lesser charges for obtaining a firearm under an assumed name, but it’s his first offense and he’d probably walk with a slap on the wrist.”

  And the last thing he wanted was to give Swanson the option to roaming the country again, looking for an easy mark. Just like his brother’s killer had, even though Nate was the son of a sheriff and had lost his life. His father had spent the rest of his career trying to nail Nate’s two-bit dealer. All the scumbag had to do was avoid plying his street-corner heroin trade in Lamar Skyralov’s territory. Not big enough fish for anyone else to care about gutting.

  The low blur of background music filled the void growing between them. Luci’s gaze scanned the street outside the window.

  Dom finished off the last of the food on his plate, looking for more. “My guess is that in the past six months, he’s been building a couple of IDs. That’s why I kept losing him.”

  “Isn’t using two IDs at the same time in the same place risky?”

  “Only if he gets caught. He’s been playing this game for a long time. He’s found a routine that works.” One
that kept him flying low enough under the radar not to attract unwanted attention.

  “So maybe there was no con going on in Florida,” Luci said, twirling her glass in a precise circle. “Just a fishing expedition.”

  “Could be.” Jill’s open personality had all but invited the shark in. Swanson must’ve thanked his lucky stars when he spotted her. Easy on the eye, a heart the size of a house and a desperate need for love.

  “Did he make side trips to Florida in between his other scams?” The rolling brook of Luci’s voice shook Dom out of his musings.

  “Hard to tell. I’ve only been following him for six months. The last scam he pulled was on Laynie McDaniels. The others I’ve been able to track down only tell me what he did to his marks, not what route he took after he left.”

  He snatched the last breadstick from the basket and bit down on it.

  “The money,” Luci asked. “Where does it go?”

  “Offshore.” In neat accounts no one could touch.

  “Figures.”

  “You going to eat that?” Dom pointed at the salad she’d barely touched. She slid it across the table.

  He dug his fork into the greens. “Even con men have roots. It’s human nature to want to touch base with home. Maybe there’s someone in Florida he goes back to.”

  “How can we find out?” Then a slow smile lifted the fog of sadness across her face. “The van?”

  He shrugged. “If he makes a call that seems interesting, we can get a warrant to look at his outgoing calls.”

  But she ignored his caution and grabbed on to the tenuous bit of hope he’d offered her. “And the number could lead us to proof.”

  “Getting anything that way’s a long shot. He’s too careful.”

  “It’s better than just sitting around waiting.”

  Dom slanted his head, gazed into Luci’s keen eyes, lingered a little too long on the sexy pout of her mouth. “You used to be good at waiting.”

  Sniping required painstaking discipline to move at a snail’s pace, sneak up on a target and set up a shot. Yet each of those moves required a complex thought process, refined motor skills and the kind of confidence that others mistook as arrogance. The waiting had purpose.

  All this waiting managed to do was flail anxiety until it became a living thing with insatiable hunger.

  “Yeah, well a lot of things have changed in the past seven years,” Luci said with a sigh. She held up a hand blocking whatever he might have said. “I’m dealing with Cole the best I can. I don’t want to talk about him.”

  “I’m not going to push.” Though he wanted to.

  “Since when?”

  “Since I see how much you still hurt.” He’d give her whatever she needed, even if it meant he’d have to bear the weight of his guilt for the rest of his life.

  With a jerk of her chin, she pointed in the direction of his pocket, neatly detouring around the minefield she’d unwittingly created. “Go ahead. Show me how your gadget works.”

  “It’s a tracking device I tagged on to Swanson’s car.” Dom flipped open his PDA. He selected the computer function and showed her the screen. “The flashing dot here tells me I’m receiving the signal. If his car moves, this will beep at me and I’ll know he’s on the move.”

  “And be able to follow him since your office is only a few doors down.”

  Dom nodded as he flipped closed his PDA. “That’s the idea.”

  She took a long pull from her iced tea. “What didn’t you see in Warren’s office?”

  Dom brought back to mind the surgical precision of Swanson’s office. Everything there to create a mood, a thin veneer to hide the truth. “Paper. If he’s working on a case, as he said, there’d be paper around. For all that’s done on the computer, clients still like hard copies.”

  “Especially lawyers.” Luci flicked her braid over her shoulder and skated her fingertips on the sweating glass of tea. For a moment, he was lost in the spell of the design those nimble fingers created. “What do you suppose he has hidden in the safe behind his desk?”

  The black metal brute with the shiny brass handle was too Hollywood to hide anything of value. “I’d bet nothing of importance. It’s all for show.”

  “You’re probably right.” Condensation oozed from between her fingers against the glass. “What about security? How hard would it be to get into his office after he’s left?”

  “The locks and cameras are easy enough to get around.” That alone was enough to convince him Swanson kept no trace of his intention in his office. Dom narrowed his gaze at her. “But neither of us are going to go inside.”

  Her spine straightened with righteous indignation. “Why not? We need the proof.”

  “I want to avoid illegal search and entry, if possible. I don’t want to taint any of the evidence we find.”

  Luci arched two perfect brows. “I need to go through your file on him. There has to be something we missed.”

  Attention to details. That’s what closed a case. Fresh eyes wouldn’t hurt anything.

  “I’ll bring it home tonight.” Knives of tension cut through his gut, inflaming his already hyper digestion. He reached for the elf-size cup of green tea and found it empty. Home. He hadn’t had a real one in years.

  Dom glanced at his watch and signaled the waiter for the check. “Speaking of shows. I’ve got to get back to the office. Walk me down?”

  After he paid the tab, they walked in silence, side by side, taking in the quaint atmosphere of a downtown that had had cosmetic surgery done and wanted to show off its new face. He stopped in front of brass plaque on the yellow brick facade announcing Holliday & Houghlin. He turned toward Luci and used saying goodbye as an excuse to scan Swanson’s office. The light was still on, but Dom couldn’t see inside this far out.

  Then he made the mistake of looking into her green eyes, so full of wariness and sadness. He couldn’t help himself. He tipped his head forward and kissed her.

  He’d meant to keep it friendly, reassuring. But the punch of that first meeting of lips kicked through him like a mule, nearly knocking him on his butt. The taste of her exploded in his mouth. Sweetened tea and cumin and something headier than the oldest of whiskeys shot into his blood and sizzled through every cell in his body.

  “For looks,” he said, pushing away, trying to tame the unleashing of years of yearning. That small taste only left him desperate for more.

  “Right, okay.” Heat rushed up her neck. Her gaze focused on everything but his face, which was probably just as well. This kiss, this breach of propriety, was something else they probably shouldn’t talk about. He had no explanation for his action.

  She lifted an arm and pointed vaguely in the direction of her van. “Well, I’d better go. Brendan’s due out of school soon and I, uh, need to make a delivery before I pick him up.”

  How many times was she going to have to run from him as if he were a curse before he finally had the courage to take back his heart?

  Chapter Eight

  Dom’s unexpected kiss burned on her lips all the way to the Marston Country Club. Breezing through a yellow light, Luci shook her head. Dom, of all people. He couldn’t affect her that way. A kiss from him shouldn’t sear. It shouldn’t catch her pulse and send it racing. It shouldn’t leave behind a craving for more. He was a friend. A shoulder she’d cried on. The one person who’d seen her bare soul.

  He’d been Cole’s best friend.

  She couldn’t betray her husband’s trust. Not like this.

  “Get real, Luci,” she told her reflection in the rearview mirror.

  Dom wasn’t here to seduce her. He was here to catch a scam artist and make sure the only thing he could ever get his hands on was the inside of a jail cell.

  She drove past the front semicircle and around to the back of the fieldstone-and-wood building. She shoved the van into Park and pushed Dom’s kiss resolutely to the back of his mind. The kiss didn’t mean anything. Jill’s situation had unbalanced her. She was letting he
r good memories of the team highlight a touch of loneli ness. And Dom was there to suffer the consequence of her weakness.

  Luci yanked open the minivan’s back door and grabbed the cooler of greens and herbs she’d harvested that morning, the basket of lemon-rosemary dressing she’d whipped up last night and the round of goat cheese the chef had requested.

  As she struggled with the delivery entrance door, a bottle of dressing rolled out of the basket and burst on the concrete, staining her black pants. “Great.”

  She settled her account, then went around the corner to use the employees’ restroom to rinse off as much of the oil as she could from her pants. As she walked by the kitchen, the workers’ conversation stopped her cold.

  “Did you hear?” Luci heard one of the line cooks ask. The chopping on the cutting board added urgency to her words. “She’s shacking up with an old college friend.”

  “You’re kidding?” another answered. “Luci Taylor?”

  “No, not kidding. Someone said that he’s a loser, leeching off Luci because he’s got nowhere else to go.”

  “Why’s she letting him get away with that? I thought she was smarter.”

  “Lonely, I guess.”

  Luci didn’t bother to stay for any more rotten raisins to drop from the grapevine. Who had started that vile rumor? Sally Kennison? Why? Not that it mattered. None of it was true. The last thing Dom was was desperate. He’d actually be pleased to know his ruse of dumb redneck was working. Still, a bitter malaise lodged in her solar plexus, radiating like acid reflux up her esophagus.

  She glanced at her watch. She had five minutes left to put on her mom-face and pick up Brendan at school. What day was today? Monday? Was that a soccer practice day? She needed to keep better track of her schedule. She still had breeding to arrange for the goats, quotes to get for a new brood of chickens and the gardens to tend.

  As usual, Brendan was the first to burst out of the doors at the bell. His enthusiasm spilled over in a torrent of talk as if he needed to discharge all he’d dammed up during the day to make sense of it. The ride home was never silent and seeing her son so normal warmed her heart.