Jean Thomas - The Bounty Hunter's Forbidden Desire

“Probably not.”

“Didn’t matter. He looked up at me, I looked back at him, and I was lost.”

“Magic?”

“Yeah, an instant connection. You understand it, huh?”

“I don’t know why I should. I’m an only child. No siblings.” But she did understand. She remembered the photograph he carried in his wallet of a teenage boy helping his young brother to ride a horse. “So, from then on?”

Chase nodded. “I looked out for him. Came to his rescue when he needed it.”

And you’re still doing that , she thought. No wonder you came home and stayed home.

Josh had mentioned that his mother had died of breast cancer some years ago. Now their father was gone, and the brothers were the only family left.

The whole thing was clear to her now. Chase was convinced his brother was missing and in trouble, and that had him wild with worry. He was willing to do anything to find him—including what could easily be defined as kidnapping an unarmed woman.

* * *

After checking out of the motel, they filled the SUV with gas and started back to Portland. Now that Haley had her cell phone back, she called a couple of her closest friends who might have been worried about her absence. She was ready to explain it as business, but they hadn’t known she was gone.

Chase was silent during these calls and silent for some minutes after. She couldn’t be unaware of his sidelong glances and the speculative look in his eyes.

“I seem to be the subject of your thoughts. You’re wondering something about me. Do I get to know what it is?”

“It’s just that I shared practically everything with you about my past except the crush on Miss Sheldon I had in the second grade. Heck, I still remember how I admired her breasts in a certain blouse she wore.”

Haley affected what she considered to be a genuine case of shock. “In the second grade!”

“What can I say? I guess I was a budding lech even back then. But Miss Sheldon did have an impressive bust. Anyway, to get back to the moment... It occurred to me I know nothing about your background.”

“What’s to know? It’s nothing as dramatic as yours. I already mentioned I’m an only child. Both my parents are retired high school teachers living now in Arizona where it’s dry. My father used to complain about the damp, raw climate in Portland. Living in Seattle, you know what that’s like.”

“Yep, going whole winters without seeing the sun.”

“Exactly. Dad is as happy now as a hound on the scent of a possum. You see, all very ordinary and boring.”

“Maybe, but I think there are depths to Haley Adams she’s not sharing.”

“She aims to fascinate, all right.”

In truth, Haley concluded, Chase McKinley was the one who currently fascinated. She still wondered about that scar near his eye. It would have been easy enough just to ask him about it, except she didn’t want him to think she was interested in him like that. Bad enough she couldn’t stop inhaling that heady, masculine scent of his and she liked the way he quirked one eyebrow whenever he was questioning the veracity of something.

They were silent again. Haley might not consider it safe to get personal with him on any man-woman basis, but she couldn’t stop thinking about his relationship with his brother. She had told herself earlier it wasn’t her business or something he would appreciate discussing in any depth.

Now she couldn’t resist risking it.

“Chase?”

“Huh?”

“About Josh.”

“What about him?”

“I was just wondering how he feels about you still playing the big, protective brother. I mean, he’s—what?—well into his twenties and on his own now. I was just, you know, wondering.”

“Don’t wonder.”

There was a bite to his words that bordered on the severe. She’d been right. He didn’t like anything that approached criticism about his concerns for Josh.

Haley immediately dropped the subject.

* * *

Chase parked in front of Haley’s terrace house, shut off the engine and went around the SUV to see her to her door. The trip back to Portland had been as uneventful as the one before it had been action-packed. As far as he knew, she had been honest with him, giving him everything he’d asked for about Josh and his brother’s departure from Portland. Chase had no reason to linger, but he suddenly found himself reluctant to part from her.

He knew that examining that reluctance would be a mistake. It was better just to apologize for having wrongly apprehended her, thank her for helping him and leave her here and now before making a fool of himself.

She was digging her house keys out of her purse when he remembered something. “Would you mind taking this?” he asked her, removing one of his business cards from his wallet and handing it to her. “My address and phone number are there. I’m thinking that if you should hear from Josh, you’d do me the favor of contacting me. There’s no guarantee that he’ll write or call me, but you...”

“Yes, of course,” she said, accepting his card. “And having my own address and number as you did before you turned up here yesterday, maybe you’d return the favor if Josh should get in touch with you first. I would like to know he’s all right and how he made out with the big story he was so eager to hunt down.”

“I’ll do that,” he promised her.

She had the key inserted in her door and was unlocking it when a woman with a helmet of tight curls and a long nose flew out of the house adjacent to hers. She had a packet in her hand and was waving it as she hailed Haley. “Saw you pull up and decided I’d better run out and deliver this. Old Faithful went and pushed it through the wrong slot in the wrong door.”

“This is my neighbor, Phyllis,” Haley introduced Chase, accepting the packet. “Don’t tell me we’re having that trouble again, Phyl?”

“Yep, we’re going to have to talk seriously to that man.”

Haley turned to Chase, explaining, “Our postal carrier is forever mixing up our mail.”

The neighbor lifted her hand in farewell. “Gotta fly. I promised Eddy I’d be on hand for his soccer game.”

“Thanks, Phyl,” Haley called after her.

Chase was prepared to make his own farewell when his gaze was caught by the address on the front of the packet in her hand. The sight of it locked him in place where he stood.

“Can I see that?” he asked.

“It is my address,” she assured him.

“It isn’t that. It’s the handwriting.”

She passed the brown packet over to him so he could look at it up close. There was no mistaking the familiar scrawl. “This is from Josh.”

“I never had any occasion to see his handwriting, so I couldn’t have recognized it. You’re sure of that?”

“Positive.” He gave the packet back to her.

“You’d better come in, then, while I open it.”

He made an effort to contain his excitement as she pushed the door open, scooped up the rest of her mail from the floor of the foyer where it had landed from the mail slot and indicated he should follow her into the house.

It was a modest-sized place. Comfortably furnished, Chase noted, with appointments that spoke of its owner’s tastes. Country-style fabrics, traditional art work on the walls, potted green plants and a minimum of ornaments.

Chase permitted himself no more than a quick visual sweep. He was too eager to see the contents of the packet to be interested elsewhere. Haley placed her mail on the living room coffee table and perched with the packet in hand on the edge of the sofa while Chase hovered over her. He watched as she slid open one end of the thin package with a sharp fingernail.

Upending the packet, she shook it to dump out its contents. Three clear, very small plastic envelopes slid out onto the surface of the coffee table. They could have been sealed pill pouches for traveling. But they didn’t contain pills.