Curvy Girls: The Big Girl and the Bounty Hunter

by Georgette St. Clair

  If you enjoy the Big Girl And The Bounty Hunter, please check out my other Curvy Girls Titles, which you can find on my Amazon Author Page:

  http://www.amazon.com/Georgette-St.-Clair/e/B00BDP7WPW/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_pop_1

  The Big Girl And The Bounty Hunter

  Curvy girl Josephine Sawyer knows there’s only one reason why hottie bounty hunter Cooper Thomas is putting the moves on her – because he wants information on the whereabouts of her bail jumping brother. So she ended up letting Cooper sweet talk her into a night of scorchingly hot sex…so what? She’d never betray her family. But Josephine is shocked when she finds Cooper pursuing her with increasing passion, acting jealous when other men hit on her, and shadowing her every move. Is he really falling for the feisty, plus sized beauty, or is it all part of a greater scheme – a scheme which could put her life in danger?

  Copyright 2013 by Georgette St. Clair

  This book is intended for readers 18 and older only. It is a work of fiction. All characters and locations in this book are products of the feverish imagination of the author, a tarnished Southern belle with a very dirty mind.

  License Statement

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each reader. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  If you enjoy “Curvy Girls: The Big Girl And The Bounty Hunter”, please be sure to check out “Curvy Girls: Sweet Surrender” And visit www.georgettewrites.com for news on my next curvy romance!

  Chapter One

  “Get back…I mean it! I’m armed, and the police are on their way!” the voice coming from the kitchen was high and tinged with panic. And not a little anger.

  Cooper paused, standing still in the tiny living room. He’d just come to Josephine’s house to talk, but when he pulled up outside, it was clear that something had gone wrong here, so he walked in, uninvited, stepping past the front door that hung off its hinges.

  It looked as if an angry whirlwind had spun through the room; bookshelves tipped over and books splayed across the floor, plants dumped out and planters smashed, pictures ripped off the wall, scattering sparkling shards of glass. Couch cushions had been slashed and were spilling their stuffed guts onto the wrinkled-back rug.

  From where he stood, he could see the kitchen window, and Josephine Sawyer’s reflection. She was armed, all right…with a can of air freshener. She had her cell phone in her right hand; she probably was telling the truth when she said the police were on their way. He certainly hoped so.

  “I’m not a burglar!” He called out. “I was driving by and saw that the front door had been kicked in! Are you all right?”

  Raising both hands in the air to show that he was harmless, he walked into the kitchen.

  Josephine stood facing him, in the back corner of the postage-stamp-sized room. When he walked in, she quickly raised the bottle of air freshener and pointed it at him.

  He raised an eyebrow. “Don’t worry, I promise not to attack. I don’t want to leave here smelling like Guava Passion.”

  With a sigh of exasperation, she set the air freshener down on the kitchen counter, but her expression was still wary. Not surprising, considering she’d come home to find her house had been broken into and trashed, and now he, a perfect stranger, had walked in through the front door. “Who are you, exactly?”

  The kitchen had also been savaged. Coffee cups and plates and glasses lay shattered on the floor, cupboard doors gaped open, dangling on one hinge.

  “My name’s Cooper. Cooper Thomas.”

  “You’ve been following me.” There was accusation in her tone. “I saw you the other day when I was going into the bookstore at the mall. And please don’t try to deny it; I’m not in the mood for games.”

  Cooper felt a flash of irritation. She’d spotted him. Nobody ever spotted him. He was a pro at what he did. And yet, he’d let himself get distracted by the way the sun glinted in her silky brown hair, and the way her jeans hugged her generous rear end, and he’d let himself get careless as he tailed her.

  It made no sense, because although she was pretty, she wasn’t stunning. She was a larger woman, voluptuous, with a friendly face and flowing brown hair. Her eyes were cornflower blue and a smattering of freckles scattered across her nose and cheeks. She wore little makeup and dressed to hide her figure.

  But ever since he’d first laid eyes on her a few days ago, he’d felt oddly drawn to her. The way her face lit up when she smiled, her quiet strength, the way she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear…

  He mentally shook himself.

  She came from a family of criminals. She was harboring a criminal. He needed one thing from her, and one thing only: information. And he’d do whatever it took to get it.

  He flashed a self-deprecating smile. His smile had a devastating effect on women; he was well aware of it.

  “Guilty as charged,” he said. “I was just hoping to talk.”

  “Really? About what?” Frost dripped from her words.

  Okay, so it was going to take a little while to thaw her out.

  “Maybe we could talk over a cup of coffee. After you fill out your police report, we could-“

  “No.” She cut him off. “You can tell me why you were following me, or you can walk out of here, now.”

  “All right, fair enough.” He was unsettled; he’d never asked a woman out for coffee, or for anything for that matter, and been turned down. And there was something about Josephine that made him feel slightly off kilter. “I was hired by the Benigno Brothers bail bonds firm. I’m looking for your brother.”

  “So you’re a bounty hunter?”

  “Something like that, yes.” Exactly like that.

  “Not that I have any reason to tell you anything, but I will tell you what I told the police. I have no idea where my brother is, or why he took off; it’s completely out of character for him.”

  “Is it really, Josephine?” he asked. “He’s currently on probation for assault. And he’s been arrested several times for embezzlement. He has a reputation as a master computer hacker, and when he goes to work for people, large sums of money tend to disappear.”

  She folded her arms and flashed him a challenging glower. “He is on probation for a bar fight. He stepped in to defend a friend of his. And the people who accused him of computer hacking were thieves themselves, white collar criminals who’d ruined investors lives and gotten away with their crimes. And every one of them dropped the charges against him.”

  Three times, specifically. Three companies had accused him of embezzlement – and then abruptly refused to press charges.

  “That only means he’s good at avoiding getting caught. Your brother’s got a reputation for being a charmer who can talk his way out of anything.”

  “Well, if you’ve seen where my brother lives, and I’m sure you have, I guess it’s pretty obvious where he spends all of his ill-gotten gains. What with that mansion, and the fleet of fancy cars,” Josephine snapped. “And he hasn’t even hired a private attorney; he’s being represented by the public defender’s office.”

  Cooper couldn’t argue with the fact that nobody knew what Cooper had done with the money he stole. Her brother worked as a bartender and lived in an apartment in a questionable neighborhood near his sister Bitter Valley, Pennsylvania. His car was ten years old.

  But there w
ere plenty of reasons that he might not be flashing his money around. The most likely explanation was that he was hiding the money and stashing it in an offshore bank account, for an early retirement.

  “My brother was falsely accused of committing armed robbery. It’s possible that he took off so that he’d be able to prove his innocence.” But Josephine’s face creased in a frown.

  “Or, more likely, he didn’t want to go to trial because he knew he’d be convicted and sent away for a long time.”

  Josephine shook her head, clearly exasperated. When she did that, her silky hair flowed over her shoulders and the sunlight streaming in through the shattered kitchen window revealed hidden tones of honey and amber. Cooper tried very hard not to notice.

  “I’ve talked to his lawyer at the public defender’s office. The case against him was highly circumstantial from the start, and it was falling apart by the time he was put in jail. That’s one of the reasons that he was released on bond. My brother had an airtight alibi at the time the armed robbery took place; he was at work that night, and dozens of people can vouch for that. My brother’s car was used in the robbery and then dumped and stripped. Why in the hell would he use his own car? There were several hairs found inside the car whose DNA came back to a known felon – a felon who worked as a chauffer for Jonathon Blacke, one of the men who claimed my brother stole from him.”

  “And yet, he jumped bail and ran.” Cooper glanced around her kitchen. “Whoever broke in here was obviously looking for something. Do you think it has anything to do with your brother?’

  “I don’t see how.” She shook her head, baffled. “Did they expect him to be hiding in a couch cushion, or under a begonia?”

  “Is anything missing? I see that the TV and VCR are still in the living room.”

  “Not that it’s any of your business, but no. As far as I can tell, nothing was taken.”

  “And you have no idea where he might be?” Cooper watched her closely, and a shadow crossed her face, and she blinked once, quickly, and took a deep breath before she looked him right in the eye to answer him.

  “No.”

  She wasn’t a very good liar. And clearly, she at least had an idea where her brother was. Cooper felt a surprisingly sharp twinge of disappointment lance through him. He wanted to think that she was an innocent in all of this.

  But how innocent could she be, with a brother like Jason and a father like Mack Sawyer?

  Well, at least now he’d confirmed that he was on the right track; sticking close to her would lead him to Jason, he was sure of it.

  A car whooshed by, without stopping. Cooper glanced at the door.

  “What?” Josephine said.

  “Oh, nothing. I was expecting the police to be here by now.”

  A rueful smile flashed across her face. “You don’t know Bitter Valley very well, do you? The police force is understaffed and overworked. And when it comes to this area of town…they tend to take their time.”

  Cooper frowned. “You should get an alarm system put in here. Better locks.”

  She shook her head. “I can’t afford it.”

  “Can you stay with a friend until the landlord fixes the doors for you, at least?”

  She managed a grim smile that told him the landlord would be in no rush to make any repairs. “It’s not really your concern, Cooper. I’ve told you all that I know, and more than I needed to. You can keep following me all you want; I have no idea where my brother is. And you need to leave now.”

  “All right. But I’m waiting outside until the police show up, in case whoever breaks in here tries to make a comeback.”

  “Not necessary.”

  “And yet, I’m doing it. I was raised to be kind to damsels in distress.”

  He climbed into his Ford Taurus and waited. And waited. And waited.

  She wasn’t kidding about police response time in her neighborhood. He was still sitting in his car outside her house 45 minutes later when she emerged from her front door, holding a bottle of water.

  He watched as she approached his car. Her silky hair glimmered in the light and fired up the bank of embers burning low in his groin.

  He rolled down the window, and smelled the light, flowery scent of her perfume, and wondered what it would be like to smell her sun-warmed skin

  “Hello again. Long time no see.” Cooper flashed her an ingratiating smile, which she did not return.

  She held the bottle of water out to him. “Not that I should be encouraging you in any way, but since it’s hot out, here’s some water.”

  “Thank you. You’re too kind.”

  “Not really. I’m an EMT. If you get dehydrated and pass out, I’m legally obligated to try to revive you.”

  “Right. About that. You’re in a profession where you help people. And yet, you’re helping to conceal a criminal, someone who hurts others for a living.”

  Josephine’s eyes flashed with anger. “My brother has never hurt anyone. He defended a friend from a bully at a bar.”

  “All right. We’re not going to see eye to eye on this. I’ll back off. But may I come in and use your restroom?”

  She looked at him through narrowed eyes. “Are you going to search it while you’re in there?”

  Cooper couldn’t help but smile. “You want the truth? Yes, of course I am.”

  To his surprise, she laughed, a rich, musical sound, and he found himself staring, fascinated by how beautiful she was when she smiled. “Fine. I do appreciate a man who’s brutally honest. Search away, I’ve got nothing to hide.”

  As he followed her into her small, trashed house, he found himself watching her walk and liking what he saw. The sway of her full hips, the swing of her hair…it was just too bad that she was harboring a criminal. And lying to protect him. And --- Aw, hell. There was just no way.

  Chapter Two

  Well, this wasn’t very promising…Josephine had been in Crooked Creek less than five minutes, and already a horse was trying to kill her.

  At least, she was pretty sure that’s what the horse’s intentions were when it wrinkled back its lip to bare enormous teeth, rolled its eye at her, and stamped its foot, sending up a swirling cloud of dust.

  And the killer horse was standing between her and lunch. She’d skipped breakfast in her rush to make it to the plane on time, it was noon, and damn it, she was hungry.

  Fortunately, the horse was tethered to a hitching post by the boardwalk outside of the Dry Gulch Saloon, or Josephine was pretty sure she’d be a goner. An embarrassing headline, stomped to death under a whirl of slashing hooves. What did that horse have against her, anyway? She was a nice person. She helped old ladies reach groceries on high shelves. She paid her taxes.

  Josephine took a few steps back from the horse and considered her options. Folding her arms, she took a moment to admire the scenic beauty of the Crooked Mile, the main street that ran through the little town.

  Crooked Creek, Colorado, was one of the prettiest towns that Josephine had ever seen – not that she’d seen many, outside of Pennsylvania.

  In June the weather was warm and mildly breezy, and the air was light and clear and tasted like sunshine. The main street of the town, which had been built in the 1860s, was lined on both sides with a broad wooden plank boardwalk, and all the stores and restaurants could have been featured in a Western movie, but the paint on them was shiny and new, in shades of green and gold on some stores, brown and tan and black on others.

  In the distance, emerald-carpeted hills climbed higher and higher until they finally gave way to towering blue mountains with the faintest of white caps of snow remaining on their peaks. It was heaven; it was as far from the grimy, faded mill town where she’d grown up as the Earth was from the sun.

  It was too bad that her stay there was going to be so short.

  “Ma’am? The horse won’t hurt you. She just wants you to give her a treat.” Startled, Josephine turned to look at the man who’d walked up behind her. Handsome, olive skin, dark curly
hair, wearing a sheriff’s deputy uniform and a wedding ring. His nametag read “Mancini”.

  The deputy held an apple slice out to her and she took it, uncertainly.

  “Put it in the palm of your hand. Keep all your fingers together so the horse doesn’t bite one of them off, by accident.” He looked amused.

  Josephine scowled. She was sure she was quite the comical character, cringing in terror from a horse that was tied to a pole.

  “That’s supposed to be reassuring? And why are you carrying around an apple, anyway?”

  “My wife always gives me a bag of apple slices when I head out for work. Never know when you’re going to run into a horse around here.”

  Reluctantly, Josephine put the apple on the palm of her hand and held it out to the killer horse, certain that he’d swallow her arm all the way to the elbow.

  But the horse reached down and with surprising gentleness, gathered the apple slice from her palm with its soft rubbery lips, and then chewed, seeming to forget her existence completely.

  “Wow.” Josephine glanced at the horse in surprise. She’d misjudged the animal. Gingerly, she reached out and stroked its silky soft neck, letting her hand rest for a minute there.

  “Thanks,” she said to the deputy, who nodded at her, said “Enjoy your visit here,” and walked off with a respectful tip of his hat.

  Was it that obvious? Of course it was. She was standing there with a suitcase resting at her feet, wearing size 16 designer jeans and a flowing zebra print blouse (from a consignment store) and strappy black low-heeled sandals. She practically had a big neon sign hanging over her head blinking the words “tourist”…which was the story of her life, anyway. She’d grown up in foster homes, gone to a dozen different schools before she graduated from high school; she was always an outsider.

  Sighing, she reached down and grabbed her suitcase from the boardwalk, and walked towards the Dry Gulch saloon…only to see a woman burst through the swinging double doors, cursing up a storm.