Black Sheep Bounty Hunter

by Jackie Ashenden

  Duchess trusted her team, Quinn knew that, but he respected the fact that she didn’t want them to know what was going on with the blackmail situation. He’d been a leader himself, an officer, and staying calm and in control — even when you weren’t — was everything. Especially with a team like this one.

  They were all predators in their own way and Duchess was the hard-ass who’d tamed them, and he wouldn’t undermine that.

  Or at least, not unless it was a life or death situation. Which given the threat level the asshole blackmailing her had resorted to, it could very well end up being.

  West glanced around the room and, obviously coming to the same conclusions as Quinn, jerked his head down the hallway.

  Quinn followed him to a small office that held a couple of paper strewn desks and waited until West had shut the door.

  “It’s about Duchess.” Quinn came straight to the point.

  “Yeah, I got that.” West strode around one of the desks and jerked the chair out, collapsing his long body down in it. “Why the fuck should I tell you anything?”

  His belligerence was obvious and amusing. Quinn had never gotten a whiff of chemistry between West and Duchess, but the guy clearly cared about her a great deal.

  “You don’t like us being together do you?” Quinn observed.

  West gave him a look that would have cut the tongue out of a lesser man. “Don’t fuck with her, Redmond. If you hurt her I will tear you apart, understand? And I do mean that literally.”

  Well, he had to respect that. In West’s place he’d have said the same thing.

  Quinn inclined his head. “Message received loud and clear.”

  Far from being appeased, West’s gaze only narrowed. “What do you want?”

  Now, they were getting to it.

  “How long have you known her?” Quinn asked.

  “What business is it of yours?”

  “She’s in my bed, asshole. That makes everything about her my business.”

  West scowled. “I’ve known her a time.”

  That was…unhelpful.

  “And has anyone done violence to her in that time?” Quinn asked, deciding not to beat about the bush.

  Shock flickered through West’s gaze, though it was quickly masked. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

  “Come on, you know what a victim of violence looks like.” Quinn held the other man’s steely gaze. “We’ve both seen shit like that, right?”

  “What? You playing the military card now? The ‘all the bad things I’ve seen’ bullshit?”

  Quinn ignored him. “I want to help her. But she won’t tell me a goddamn thing.”

  “If she won’t tell you, what makes you think I will?”

  “Because we both have women we want to protect.” Hell, it wasn’t even a lie. He did want to protect Duchess. The fact that he’d done a shit job protecting other people in his life before didn’t stop the protective urge he still felt, even now.

  It was why he’d kept the family business after his father had died, when all good sense had told him that winding it down and doing something else was the more sensible option. Protecting people and making sure assholes stayed off the streets was important to him. Sure, he’d failed the business years ago when Charlie Jones had died, but he wasn’t going to fail now. And part of not failing now meant keeping his family and his friends safe, and that included rivals-turned-friends such as Duchess.

  Totally nothing to do with how much he wanted her.

  West’s gray eyes became steel sharp at the mention of ‘women’. “Rose?” Her name was a gunshot in the silence of the office. “If there’s a threat to her, so help me God, I will—”

  “Yes,” Quinn said, because he had to. Because he knew the type of man West was. A man who’d die to protect the people he cared about and die without a second’s thought. A man who would want any and all information about any said threat, right the fuck now. “Yes, there’s a threat.”

  It wasn’t what Duchess had wanted and betraying her trust went against his normal inclinations, but this wasn’t just about her. It involved her sister’s life and, by extension, West’s too. He couldn’t in good conscience hold back intel if it was going to save someone.

  The other man’s features tightened, his posture stiffening. “Tell me,” he bit out. “Now.”

  Quinn checked the door and locked it for good measure. Then he turned back. “Duchess is being blackmailed. It’s been going on for months and she hasn’t told anyone, because she doesn’t want anyone to know. But last night she turned up on my doorstep asking for help because she’s received a threat to Rose.”

  A muscle worked in West’s jaw. “And she didn’t come to me first?”

  Quinn could hear the fury simmering in the other man’s tone and quite frankly he couldn’t blame him. But Duchess’s reasons for not telling her team had to be good ones, especially when she would know what keeping this from West would do to him.

  “No,” Quinn said flatly. “She doesn’t want any of the team to know and she wouldn’t tell me why. Only that if the reasons for the blackmail got out, she’d lose everything and so would all of you.”

  West turned abruptly, pacing the width of the office and back again, fury rolling off him in waves. Then he stopped. “You should have come to me immediately.”

  “The threat wasn’t immediate. It was a warning, that’s all.”

  The big former Marine shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “Fuck,” he said tightly. “She should definitely have come to me.” There was no hiding the thread of hurt in his tone.

  “She’s trying to protect you,” Quinn pointed out. “However fucking stupid it is, that’s what she’s trying to do. Also, she’s been dealing with this for months on her own and she’s not thinking straight about it.” At least, that was his personal view on the situation. “You know what she’s like. She’s a protector just as much as you and I are.” And it was the truth, he realized all of a sudden. She was trying to protect her team and her sister. Going about it the wrong way, sure, but that’s where her heart was.

  “Fuck,” West said again. “She knows I’d lay down my life for Rose, that I’d protect her with everything I am. How could she not at least tell me?”

  “We can’t think of the whys and why nots, and all that bullshit,” Quinn said coolly. “That can wait. What we have to do now is deal with the threat in front of us. To Rose. And to Duchess herself.”

  There was a second where West’s gaze was full of molten steel, violence gathering in the air around him. Then, like a door slamming shut, it was gone and there was nothing but the cold focus of an elite soldier. “So,” he said flatly. ”What’s the situation?”

  “What the hell is going on, Lil?”

  Lily sat behind her desk trying to hold onto what calm she had, which wasn’t much, and regarded her sister. “Nothing’s going on.”

  “Oh bullshit.” Rose crossed over to Lily’s desk and slammed both hands down on it, blonde curls bouncing angrily, her blue eyes snapping. “Quinn Redmond is what’s going on, isn’t it? And that’s just for starters. Not even going to mention how the past couple of months you’ve been distracted and tired and won’t talk to me about anything.”

  Lily took a breath, then another, her heartbeat loud and fast in her head. Her mouth still burned from Quinn’s kiss, certain parts of her body remembering what it had felt like to be pressed to certain parts of his.

  Bad, bad body. This was all getting so out of hand and she didn’t like it. Not the intensity of her desire or the way Quinn had misread the fear she hadn’t quite been able to hide. He’d attributed it to someone hurting her and she’d let him think that, because it wasn’t exactly a lie. Mason had hurt her.

  But she wasn’t afraid of Quinn. He might be the grumpiest bastard in all of Texas, but she knew he’d never hurt her.

  No, what she was afraid of was herself and the hot mass of desire and need that he seemed to bring out of her all too easily
. She felt too close to the edge around him, too out of control, and she couldn’t have that.

  Couldn’t tell him about it, either. Far easier to let him assume that someone had hurt her. At least he’d dropped the subject when she’d told him she was handling it, though she was under no illusions that he’d dropped it completely.

  He was going to come back to it at some point, she was sure. Probably at the worst possible time, too.

  The next few days are going to be fun.

  Lily pushed that thought well out of her head.

  “Quinn and I are none of your business,” she said coolly to her indignant sister. “And as for the other stuff, it’s just some business hassle. I’m dealing with it.”

  But she could see Rose wasn’t convinced and unsurprisingly. If she was Rose she wouldn’t be convinced either.

  “So after resisting him for months you just suddenly decided to sleep with him?” Rose demanded. “And hey, if you did, that’s cool. But God, you could have told me.”

  “Why?” Unexpected anger flared inside her, which a sign of how much she actually wasn’t handling things, and it took some effort to control it. “It’s none of your business who I sleep with. It’s no one’s business.” She waved a hand towards the door to the office. “If you all could keep your eyes on your own damn papers I’d appreciate it. And if anyone starts on at me about being careful with a man like Quinn Redmond then so help me, I will kill someone.”

  Rose blinked and Lily realized her voice had climbed, the sharpness of it echoing around the small office space.

  Not good. Really not good.

  Her sister’s blue eyes surveyed her silently for a second. “Okay.” Rose pushed herself away from Lily’s desk. “Fine. You don’t have to tell me anything. It’s not like you do anyway. I just…” She stood there for a second, her mouth working as if she was chewing over something. “I’m worried about you. You’re working yourself to the bone and you look so white. Like you haven’t been sleeping. You don’t have to tell me anything if you don’t want. But for God’s sake tell someone.”

  Lily blinked, the concern in her sister’s voice prompting a creeping kind of shame. Because of course, her sister worried about her. Hell, if she’d been Rose, she’d be worried too. But she couldn’t tell her about the blackmail. She just couldn’t. It would put Rose in danger firstly, and then secondly….well, her sister would want to know about the reasons behind it and she couldn’t tell anyone that. No one knew what she’d done to Mason.

  And how long will you be able to hide it?

  Lily gripped on to the edge of the desk, letting the sharp edges dig into her palms, the slight pain cutting through the hot tangle of emotion and grounding her, calming her.

  “I know you’re worried.” She tried to modulate her tone. “But I meant what I said. I’m handling it. And you want to know the real reason I’m not sleeping?” Lucky that she could lie with the best of them. She forced her mouth into a smile. “Quinn.”

  But Rose didn’t smile back. Instead her eyes narrowed.

  Lily cursed inwardly. Her sister wasn’t stupid and knew her very well, and since she’d been with West, she’d been a hell of a lot more observant. Clearly, Lily was going to have to work on her lying skills if she wanted to get anything over on Rose.

  She braced herself for more questions and argument, but Rose only said, “Okay. Well, be careful. The Redmonds aren’t exactly easy to deal with.”

  Lily eyed her. “What? No probing questions about what he’s like in bed?”

  “You said you didn’t want to talk about it. I’m just respecting your boundaries.” Rose turned toward the door. “Right, I have some work to do, unlike some people.”

  She went out, the door shutting with slightly more force than necessary.

  Blessed silence finally filtered through the office.

  Lily slowly tipped her head forward until the cool wood of her desk met her forehead, a strange tightness in her throat.

  This was…not going well. At all. First this stuff with Quinn and now she had her sister upset with her. The sister she was trying to do her utmost to protect the way she’d been doing ever since their father had gone to jail, leaving Lily — a teenager herself — in charge of a little girl.

  Yeah, and you know whose fault that was, right?

  Lily closed her eyes. She was under no illusions. It was hers. And so was her current blackmail situation. This was karma coming back to bite her on the ass.

  And that’s the real reason you don’t want anyone knowing about it. Because if you’d controlled yourself better, none of this would have happened.

  It was true. Of she’d only turned around walked away from Mason that last time, she wouldn’t be in this situation now. But she hadn’t. She’d let herself get angry, too angry. And she hadn’t walked away.

  She’d pulled the trigger and shot him instead.

  Five

  For the second time in twenty four hours, Lily stood on the threshold of the Lone Star Hotel, though this time it wasn’t raining, she wasn’t soaked to the skin and she wasn’t carrying a gun.

  She still had that same fear in the pit of her stomach though, the nagging sense that she was in the middle of a shit storm she couldn’t get out of. A shit storm that she was slowly losing control over, no matter how hard she tried to hold onto it.

  At least you have help now, though.

  Sure. If you could call Quinn Redmond taking charge of everything ‘help’.

  The fear in her stomach twisted, turning into something else as she put her hand on the glass panels of the doors and pushed, stepping inside.

  Something that she really didn’t either want or need.

  Something that terrified her.

  Something that leapt the second she saw who was waiting for her in the foyer.

  Six foot four and packed with enough muscle to level a small nation. Just enough black beard to outline the shape of a hard jaw. Green eyes of a jungle cat. A will stronger than iron.

  Quinn.

  Her heart gave the stupidest flutter, the tightness in her shoulders releasing at the same time the heat inside her tightened still further.

  Her usual reaction to him, which she really needed to handle.

  He didn’t speak, merely held out his hand. There was intention in those mesmerizing eyes. The intention of a man who’d made up his mind and was not going to be moved come hell or high water.

  Hell might be coming sooner than he thought.

  “You’re looking particularly portentous,” she said, paying no attention to his outstretched hand. “How long have you been standing there waiting for me.”

  “I go into stasis when you’re not around, didn’t you know?” There was a gleam she didn’t quite trust in his eyes, his beautiful mouth curving. Which she trusted even less.

  Except the flutter in her heart and the heat between her thighs disagreed. It liked that gleam and the hint of amusement. It thought he was hot and sexy and it was thrilled that he was teasing her.

  It wanted more.

  It was damn stupid.

  Lily tightened her fingers on the handle of her suitcase and ignored the tease. “Anything I should know about?”

  “No.” He didn’t lower his hand, but the curve of his mouth disappeared and she wasn’t disappointed about that, not at all. “Stop being a stubborn mule, Duchess. Give me the fucking suitcase.”

  She was being a stubborn mule. But when dealing with an alpha asshole like Quinn, you needed a certain degree of stubborn.

  Especially now you know how he tastes.

  Another ripple of heat washed through her and Quinn — alpha asshole that he was — must have noticed, because the gleam in his eyes became a glitter.

  Lily fought to remain cold, privately cursing her own stupidity. Why the hell had she kissed him? It had opened a door and she wasn’t at all sure that she could shut it again.

  A tall, dark haired man suddenly strolled into Lone Star’s foyer from the direction
of the bar, his handsome features sharpening as he spotted her, icy blue eyes narrowing.

  Zane, Quinn’s youngest brother.

  Great, just what she needed. Another damn Redmond.

  “Hey Duchess,” Zane said, coming to a stop, examining her as if he was a quality inspector checking for flaws.

  Strong fingers closed around hers on the case’s handle, making an electric shock sizzle all the way down her spine and her breath catch.

  She tore her gaze away from Zane and found Quinn’s hot green gaze waiting for her.

  “Give me the case, baby,” he said softly. “Let me carry it for you.”

  He wasn’t talking about the case, she knew it. Felt it deep inside.

  You’ve always been wanting someone to help carry it for you.

  The thought echoed through her, making everything inside her curl up tight with denial. Making her want to hold onto that suitcase forever if she had to, because the only person she trusted to carry it was herself. Other people dropped things, smashed things. They didn’t take care of what should be precious to them, and she would never trust someone like that again.

  Yet even so, even though she thought she had a death grip on that case, her fingers were somehow uncurling from the handle and she was letting him take it from her.

  An expression crossed his face and it wasn’t triumph, it was more like a deep satisfaction. And she knew that just as he hadn’t meant that he’d only carry her suitcase, she’d given him more than just a suitcase when she’d let it go.

  Be careful.

  Her stomach dipped, though she ignored it. She was reading too much into it. It was just a damn suitcase.

  “Zane knows you’re staying with me for a time,” Quinn said, his rough voice surrounding her like a heavy, warm blanket. His attention lifted from her and turned toward his brother. “Don’t you, Zane?”

  Something wordless passed between the two men that Lily couldn’t interpret.

  “Yeah.” Zane gave his brother a pointed look, though when he spoke, he glanced back at her. “Just let me know if you need anything.”