Dared by a Dangerous Man

by Cleo Peitsche

  “How long have you been awake?” he asked.

  “Not long.” I forced another yawn, but I was alert, on edge. I wanted to ask why he was looking at engagement rings, but really, what a stupid freaking question.

  I wondered… looking at rings probably made him think of his first wife, who’d been killed. When he and I met, he’d still been mourning her, but I’d never gotten the impression he compared the two of us.

  If I had, I would have run like hell.

  He rose to his full height and switched off the television. “I lost track of the time,” he said. It felt like filler.

  “How did the movie end? Did they get home?”

  “I don’t know. I turned it off when you fell asleep. You were exhausted.” Usually he followed this up with a teasing suggestion that I cut back at work, but not this time.

  He came around the sofa and stood over me.

  As his eyes searched mine, warmth spread through me, and suddenly I knew exactly how I felt about Corbin searching for an engagement ring.

  It made me happy. Thrilled was more accurate. I wanted to marry this man. Not just wanted. It was going to happen, because when the moment came, my answer would be yes.

  I slowly wet my lips and tilted my face up, but he caught the back of my neck and dropped a kiss on my forehead. “Bed time for bounty hunters.”

  “And for bad boys?”

  He smiled, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes, and I wondered what the hell was going on inside his head. With Corbin, it was either easy or complicated as hell. There was nothing in between.

  Twenty minutes later, as I lay in bed and listened to the faint sound of the shower running, I knew getting back to sleep would be impossible. My heart wouldn’t stop racing, and a million thoughts zipped around in my head.

  Some girls dreamed about big weddings. As the tomboy daughter of a bounty hunter, my fantasies about catching a man had been quite different.

  Corbin came out of the bathroom. Even as large as the bedroom was, the scent of his spicy body wash lightly wafted toward me on a cloud of steam.

  The light went out, and he got into bed. I rolled over and snuggled close. His skin was extra warm from the water, and he smelled good enough to eat.

  I stroked my palm over his washboard stomach, but when I tried to go lower, he stopped me with a rough hand on my wrist.

  “It’s late, baby,” he said. It sounded like a rebuke.

  Surprised and a little hurt, I turned over, away from him, my movements abrupt. When he didn’t react, I moved even farther so that we didn’t touch at all.

  He had to realize I was upset, but he didn’t wrap his arms around me or tell me that if I didn’t stop pouting, I was going to earn a spanking.

  In fact, he didn’t say anything at all.

  Chapter 3

  Corbin drove me to work in his latest iteration of black SUV.

  “See you tonight.” He surprised me with a scorching kiss.

  I got out and stood next to my car, which hadn’t been moved in over a week, as everyone inside the office had surely noticed.

  He turned out of the parking lot, and I wondered if his preference for those trucks was more proof that he hadn’t completely adjusted to civilian life.

  Or maybe he just liked big trucks.

  I watched until he was gone, and I wondered what was bothering him. He’d been awake before me that morning, and I’d tracked him to his office, the door closed. I’d stood outside, feeling hurt, wondering what the hell was going on. But then he’d walked out, gave me a big and unconvincing smile and a chaste kiss.

  “You gonna stand out here all day?” Rob, my twin brother, had come out of the short, squat building that housed Stroop Finders. The bright morning sun washed the color out of his straight reddish hair. Behind his scratched glasses, his brown eyes looked a little too alert for so early in the morning.

  “Maybe,” I said suspiciously. “Did you OD on coffee?” It was weird to be semi-lectured about starting work on time by Rob, who a year ago had been the biggest slacker ever. I still didn’t know what had prompted the change.

  I glanced to the left, saw Martin’s motorcycle and stifled a groan.

  We’d inherited Martin from Henry Heigh, who had once been a respected bounty hunter. The less time thinking about Henry, and that time in my life, the better.

  A lot of things had changed during Henry’s reign of terror. Some were awful, but I had to admit that many were useful. Martin fell into the latter category. Mostly.

  He was a damned good tracker. Better than me if the whiteboard could be believed. The whiteboard was one of Henry’s bright ideas. On it was a running tally of how many bounties each employee had collected for the company.

  For most of the summer, Martin had been several points behind me. Now we were neck and neck. The prize was pretty good: placement on the first page of the company website for employee of the year, and a gift certificate to Pomodoro Bistro.

  But the competition wasn’t the reason I disliked him, and his association with Henry wasn’t the reason, either. In fact, I couldn’t put my finger on it. Some days I was more indifferent to him. But other days, I wanted to use him for target practice.

  A month earlier, after I’d ranted to Corbin for the umpteenth time about Martin, Corbin had shared the results of the background check he’d run on him.

  Apparently, Corbin had run background checks on everyone at the office. “Everyone?” I’d asked, flabbergasted. Stroop Finders ran background checks on all new employees, but because of his connections, Corbin had access to a whole higher level that likely included kindergarten grades and genetic profiles.

  “Not you, your brother or your father,” he’d said without even a trace of a smile. I’d been so surprised that I hadn’t reminded him that he’d previously investigated my father in relation to an FBI leak.

  Other than a penchant for miniature golf, there hadn’t been anything suspicious in Martin’s past. He was squeaky clean, and anyway Corbin knew people who knew people who’d known Martin for years. Or something.

  “Anything interesting come in overnight?” I asked Rob as I followed him into the building.

  “Nope. Care to see the Most Wanted list?” Rob handed me a paper just as Erin, the pixyish, bubbly new receptionist, handed me an icy can of cola.

  “Good morning, boss,” she said. “Need anything?”

  Shaking my head, I squeezed the paper between my elbow and my side and popped the can’s tab. It opened with a satisfying hiss.

  “Where are you going?” Rob asked as I headed toward Dad’s office.

  “To work,” I said. “After all, I can’t stand here all day.” I tried to mimic his tone from earlier.

  He followed me in. “You used the office yesterday.”

  “You got it two days in a row.” Fair was fair, after all.

  “Because you were on the other side of town.”

  I sank into Dad’s plush chair, and it squeaked agreeably under my weight. “It’s mine today, but starting tomorrow we can share.”

  He blinked. The idea of sharing it hadn’t occurred to him. Truth be told, it hadn’t occurred to me, either, until thirty seconds before the suggestion popped out of my mouth.

  We needed to expand the building. The parking lot was more than large enough to double the footprint and still have plenty of room for parking.

  There was another reason I wanted to share, a reason Rob didn’t know about. The previous winter, a man had met a premature end near my desk. If it had been up to me, I would have moved the whole business to a new location.

  I’d caught a lucky break, though. Because of all the new employees, things had been rearranged significantly since that awful night. Sometimes, though, when I caught the right angle, it was like falling into a time warp.

  Yeah, I was ready for a major renovation.

  Stroop Finders was growing, which gave me the perfect excuse to push for changes. Rob now agreed that it needed to happen sooner or later
, and in July we’d even met with contractors and had gotten some estimates.

  What we hadn’t done was bring it up again with Dad. Investment didn’t appeal to him; he needed money. Martha needed money. The three-week cruise they were currently on, for example, had been her idea.

  Cruises weren’t cheap. Neither were building additions and renovations.

  “There are some big bounties on that Most Wanted list,” Rob said.

  Big bounties? Maybe someone for Corbin to chase? As far as I knew, he hadn’t been doing anything the last few weeks.

  Rob continued to linger by the door, and I shrugged. If he wanted to stand there and watch me look comfortable, that was his business. But I couldn’t help but make a point of stretching, to show how much I was enjoying all the extra space.

  And still he waited.

  I picked up the list and finally looked at it. When I saw the man in the number-one slot, my body went cold, and the air in my chest seemed to turn into mud. It couldn’t be, but…

  Corbin Lagos. And the words next to his photo, I knew them by heart. Considered armed and dangerous. Speaks four languages. May be using an alias. Quite probably out of the country. Wanted for murder, conspiracy and theft. 30 years old. Blue eyes. Dark brown hair. 6’3”.

  “There a problem?” Rob asked, sounding choked.

  I raised my eyes to his, which gleamed with repressed laughter. It all clicked as my attention snapped back to the paper in my trembling fingers.

  It was eight months old.

  “You suck,” I said as I crumpled it and hurled it at Rob’s head, missing him by a mile.

  “It was worth it to see the look on your face. That’s your punishment for hogging the office.”

  “You handed me that before I had—”

  “’Cause I know you, sis. By the way, you might want to stop faking your hours at the shooting range. Your aim needs some work.”

  He went out, closing the door firmly behind him. Like that would keep him safe once I decided what revenge he deserved.

  I slumped with a shaky exhalation and wondered where Rob had found the old list. I’d personally amassed a forest’s worth.

  I’d thought I’d shredded them all, but apparently not. Or Rob had been sitting on that joke for a long time. Normally I probably would have thought it was funny, but my sense of humor about Corbin’s past was stretched thin at the moment.

  The intercom beeped, then Erin said, “I’ve got a call from Frances at the sheriff’s office.”

  Frances was one of the older women who worked the front desk there. I picked up the phone. “What can I do for you?”

  Oh, I hoped there was a whole houseful of fugitives that they couldn’t get to, a tidy afternoon’s worth of work to put me far, far ahead of Martin.

  “Audrey,” she started. Then stopped. “You haven’t been by in over a month.”

  That was true, and there was a good reason for it. Still, it was a strange thing for her to call and tell me. “It’s been busy here,” I said slowly, trying to figure out what was going on.

  “Oh.” She seemed disappointed, and I could imagine the wrinkles around her mouth deepening.

  “What is it?”

  “I was hoping you had a few minutes. I’d like to see you. I want to hire you.” Her voice dropped low. “It’s personal.”

  For a moment I struggled to understand what she meant, but then I remembered mentioning, months earlier, that I was getting into private investigation work soon. Back then, I’d even believed it.

  “Can you come by after lunch?” she asked.

  I hesitated. Technically, I didn’t have permission to do investigative work. But with Dad gone for weeks at a time, it was almost like his vote shouldn’t count, and Rob could do without me for a few hours.

  And anyway, this was Frances. She was a friend, a semi-sweet old lady, and most importantly, she worked at the sheriff’s office. All the driver’s license checks she’d run for me… She deserved a favor in return.

  “Absolutely,” I told her.

  “Good. Don’t tell anyone you’re coming,” she said and hung up.

  Shaking my head, I went to get my stack of files off my desk. As I picked them up, I glanced at the whiteboard.

  The score was unchanged since the night before. Martin and I were tied, 72 to 72.

  “Got a lead,” Martin said, a little smugly, though it might have been my imagination. His desk was one of those shoved up against the back wall. Like that, he could easily watch the rest of us. It made me feel like I was exhibit #1, and it was one of the reasons I always pushed to get Dad’s office.

  “Do you?” To avoid making eye contact, I rummaged around in my desk for nothing at all and tried to remind myself that every scumbag Martin snagged was more money for Stroop Finders.

  It didn’t make me feel any better.

  For years, I’d been the hardest-working, most successful employee in the company. I’d resented it like hell.

  But, apparently, it had become part of my self-identity. Pathetic, really.

  My fingers closed around a roll of tape, and I clutched it triumphantly, like there wasn’t tape in Dad’s office.

  Martin was watching me, his expression not unkind, but he was a strange little man. He was thin but strong, more like a rubber band than a human. His neck in particular creeped me out. It was disproportionately skinny, so much so that his Adam’s apple looked like an ax trying to hack through his skin. He had two chipped front teeth—even though Stroop Finders provided dental—and despite wearing his stringy, thin dark hair in a ponytail, the long strands were a perpetual presence in the bathroom.

  I’d removed my comb from the basket under the sink, just in case.

  He always wore cowboy boots and a skinny tie, even with his T-shirts.

  A weird little man. Corbin had told me that Martin used to be a heartbreaker. Rob said he made an excellent wingman. Personally, I found both hard to believe.

  I went back into the office, dropped the files on the desk and flipped through them. They were all fairly difficult. All would require staking out someone’s house for days, or bribing someone’s mom or best friend. That always gave me the warm fuzzies.

  In my admittedly biased opinion, I had a higher percentage of crap cases than usual. I tilted my head and looked toward Martin’s desk, which I couldn’t see from where I sat. I was going to have to start going through the incoming cases and divert a few of the easier ones my way. It wouldn’t be cheating. I had other duties besides hauling in the bad guys. Taking a few straightforward bounties was merely leveling the playing field.

  With a sigh, I chose the folder on the bottom of the stack. Guy with a DUI problem. He’d been missing for over a year, and according to the file, his ex-wife said he was using a fake name but she didn’t know what it was.

  Lucky, lucky me.

  I felt my eyes glaze over as I opened a browser and ran a search.

  By the time lunch came around, I was ready to go home. For the month.

  “Where’s Martin?” I asked Rob as I headed toward the main exit.

  “Following up his lead. He’s a hell of a tracker.” Rob was holding a peanut butter sandwich. He put it down, wrapped it up. “Can we get lunch together? We can talk about work stuff. Unless you’d rather do it tonight or tomorrow night?”

  “Today is fine. I’m heading to Deli-licious.” I thought of my meeting with Frances. “Take your own car.”

  “In that case, I’ll be there in ten. Just wanna make a quick phone call.”

  I didn’t want company, but nights belonged to Corbin. That was another reason I was struggling to keep up with Martin. When I went out at night, Corbin liked to come along. And I liked him to, too.

  Unfortunately, he was… distracting. Especially when we were alone in a car with nothing to do for hours on end.

  Three weeks earlier, the drug dealer I’d been following had finally come outside, and on her way to wherever, she’d slowed next to my car to snicker at us. More
specifically, to snicker at me, my pants half off, my boyfriend’s hands possessively roaming up my shirt, claiming anything and everything his fingers touched.

  “If you need a room,” she’d crooned, “feel free to use mine.” This had been addressed to Corbin. When I’d gotten out of the car, she’d thought I wanted to fight her.

  Because even if I thought I looked respectable, letting a guy feel me up under a streetlight apparently qualified as tramp trash behavior.

  Corbin had been amused, but I wasn’t, then or now. I tried to minimize nights out, and anyway, I worked enough.

  I bought a falafel wrap meal and paid to upgrade to a large bag of chips, filled my cup with half-cola, half-orange soda, then hovered over a table by the window while the woman leaving gathered up her thousands of shopping bags.

  While I waited, I tried to figure out what was going on with Corbin. And how to fix it.

  I was pretty sure I hadn’t been radiating let’s-get-hitched vibes. For one thing, it was too soon. I hadn’t even known him a year, and our relationship had been very, very… unconventional… for the first six months or so.

  I was happy with things. Sure, I was given to paralyzing bouts of insecurity, but apart from that, I had no complaints. I didn’t need promises of forever. I wondered if I should tell him that.

  He might take it the wrong way. After all, he was already looking at rings.

  And then I thought of him in a black tuxedo. The man had a body for tuxedos. Sometimes he liked to wear nice suits and take me to dinner, and he always looked so hot that if he didn’t stop me, we’d end up pulled over on the side of the road.

  I sat and dug into my lunch. Asking Corbin what was going on was the last resort. If he’d wanted to tell me, he could have done so at any point.

  “Mind if I sit here?” a woman’s voice asked from behind me.

  The large deli wasn’t crowded enough to double up on tables, and as I started to turn to look behind me, I caught Rob’s car pulling into the lot. A rusted pickup was backing out of a parking space, and my breath caught because I knew it was going to slam into him. I heard Rob’s horn even through the glass, and the driver slammed on the brakes. I exhaled.