That's what crosses Clint Evans's mind the minute he takes on the four thugs holding heiress Julie Rose hostage. It isn't the danger that has Clint in a lather, but Julie herself. The pretty, petite schoolteacher he's been hired to return to her wealthy fiancé is no fainting trust-fund baby. She's more of a hellcat, one who won't be deterred when she sets her sights on something. And her sights are set on Clint.
The one rule Clint never breaks is this - don't get involved with the client. He can look, but he definitely cannot touch - even if it's driving him crazy. Keeping Julie safe until he can figure out who's behind her kidnapping means never letting her out of his sight. And the closer he sticks to the feisty, seductive woman who makes him feel alive...the harder it gets for him to ever consider letting her go...
Contains mature themes.
Release date:
June 1, 2010
Publisher:
Zebra Books
Print pages:
352
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Those rough, rumbled words carried a dose of suspicion—and accusation. Equal parts nervous and concerned, Robert Burns swallowed hard. He was a man of influence, damn it, a man of wealth and standing with his own source of power.
This man-for-hire, a grunt that now worked for him, would not intimidate him.
It didn’t matter that Clint Evans wore an aura of danger as thick and suffocating as an electrical storm, or that his eyes were so…Jesus, his eyes were so sharp they seemed to cut right through Robert.
Forcing himself to lounge back in his chair, Robert feigned an insouciance that eluded him.
Evans’s reputation hadn’t been exaggerated. This man was more than capable of killing. Robert could see that just by looking at him, and it suited his purposes even as it set his nerves jangling.
“I can’t think of anyone else it could be.” That much was true, because as far as Robert knew, Julie had no enemies.
But he did, and now he’d been reduced to a man he didn’t recognize, a man he couldn’t respect. That thought made him ill, but it was still possible that he’d get Julie back unharmed and be rid of some trouble at the same time.
Robert lowered his head in what he hoped looked like hesitation, when in fact he teemed with frustration. The ransom note, now somewhat crumpled and smudged, rested on his desktop as an ugly, grim reminder of what his life had become. He detested himself for what he planned to do, but damn it, he had no alternative.
“I hate to admit it,” Robert murmured low, “but Julie’s something of a…tease.” He sighed and raised his face. “Her father did his best with her, but she’d do things, see…certain men, just to enrage him, just to prove he had no real authority over her. After his death, well, she seems to enjoy dishing the same provocation onto Drew.”
“Drew?”
“Drew Johnson, her uncle, the executor of her trust fund and the man now forced to monitor her behavior.” When Clint said nothing, Robert felt compelled to explain further. “Drew and her father were close, as family and as business partners. He loves Julie, never doubt that. But she’s always done just as she pleased regardless of how it damaged the family name.” He shrugged. “Sometimes it pleased her to flirt with danger.”
“You’re saying she got snatched because she flirted with the wrong man?”
“It’s possible. She’s done it before. Once she even had a liaison with a stable hand.”
A funny expression, almost like satisfaction, passed over Clint’s hard face. “Do tell.”
Robert shook his head. “It was a huge scandal, and Julie wouldn’t even bother to deny it to anyone, not even the press. She almost seemed to enjoy the untoward attention.”
Amusement brought a crooked smile to one side of Clint’s unhandsome face.
Robert scowled at the awful ransom note. “It’s possible she’s been up to her old tricks, and now she’s gotten herself into trouble. That’s all I can come up with.”
“You think she flirted with Asa Ragon?”
Swallowing down his uneasiness, Robert began his fabrication of the facts. “After the note, there was…one phone call.”
A new alertness entered Clint’s already intimidating expression. “What was said?”
Robert wanted to back up a step. He wanted to stop now, to call it quits. But he couldn’t. “Only that I should wait to hear from the kidnapper. He said he’d call and give me a time and place to take the money.”
“That was in the note. Why make a call if there wasn’t anything new to add?”
“He wanted to reiterate that if I involved the cops, or anyone else, they’d kill her.” Robert gulped, and tried to appear convincing. “The voice…It sounded like Asa.”
“You’ve met him?”
“Yes, and once you do,” Robert said, finally able to give the unadulterated truth, “you don’t forget him. You definitely don’t forget his voice. It’s rough, sort of gravelly. Maybe even damaged.”
“I’m curious.” Clint crossed his arms over his chest and sized Robert up with a look. “What kind of relationship does an up-and-coming social type like you have with a thug?”
“We’re certainly not friends!” His confidence ruffled, Robert made a show of straightening his tie, tugging on his cuffs. “I’m a well-respected financial advisor. One of the corporations I work for wanted to buy waterfront property from Asa. He was…was there during the discussion.”
“What was your recommendation on it?”
“That area is rife with development, but the city had no plans to extend public water and roadways onto that property. It would have cost more to develop it than it was worth, so naturally I advised against it.” A chill skated down Robert’s spine. At the time, he hadn’t realized the level of Asa’s influence. When he’d talked the corporation out of the property, convincing them to buy a property he represented instead, he’d talked himself into more trouble than he could handle.
“I’ll bet Asa wasn’t too thrilled with your interference.”
“He’s a lowlife scum of no importance to me.” Except that Asa had been enraged, and he’d demanded that Robert reimburse him for the money he’d lost on the deal—or else.
“You think Asa took your fiancée to get even with you?”
“Of course not.” Frazzled, Robert rearranged a gold pen on his desk just to hide his loss of composure. He couldn’t let Evans know of his own involvement or everything would crumble around him. That meant there had to be another reason for Asa to take Julie, one of her own making.
“Julie happened to be with me during that meeting. We were leaving straight from there to a play. I hate to say this, but you must have facts.” The lies burned like acid in his throat, but Robert told them anyway. “She…well, for lack of a better word, she seemed impressed with Asa.”
Clint turned his back on Robert. He picked up a small photo of Julie from the bookshelf. “You think she got involved with him?”
“I don’t know.” Jesus, Robert just wanted this over with. He didn’t want to talk it to death. “But I do know that Asa has a lot of connections. If he didn’t take her, he knows who did.” Robert stared at Clint’s back, thankful that those piercing eyes weren’t on him. “It was definitely him on the phone.”
With careful precision, Clint replaced the photo. “You say she’s a reckless flirt, that she got herself in this predicament by playing dangerous games.” He didn’t look away from Julie’s image as he spoke, and there was a raw edge to his tone. “Yet you still planned to marry her.”
Despite the pep talk he’d just given himself, Robert shivered. His smile felt sickly, and the sound of his heartbeat drummed in his ears.
“Understand, Evans, I love Julie, and love is often blind. Besides, I don’t really blame her for how she is. Her father could be overbearing in his efforts to protect her. He always tried to control Julie by controlling her money, gifting it out in small doses as he saw fit.”
And in the process, he’d made sure that Robert couldn’t skim from the funds. The bastard.
Clint turned his head to stare at Robert. “I take it she didn’t like that.”
“Julie hated it, and sometimes she hated him. I see her behavior as rebellion.” Robert raised his gaze cautiously to lock with Clint’s. “After we’re married, she’ll settle down.”
Evans said nothing to that. The silence dragged on until Robert felt stretched taut, until his skin prickled and his nerves twitched. Damn it, he would not cower. This was too important.
He stood and rounded the desk. “When you find her—” And he had no doubts Evans would do just that, one way or another. He cleared his throat and forced the words out. “You should be aware that Asa is very dangerous. Don’t underestimate him, don’t go after him unarmed.”
That eerie green gaze, unblinking and ice cold, pinned Robert. “You want me to shoot him?”
Instinct told Robert to deny it, but he couldn’t. “Despite her brazenness, Julie doesn’t deserve to be ransomed by a lawless ruffian. She doesn’t deserve to be frightened, mauled, and…”
Evans’s eyes narrowed.
Robert shook, his voice, his hands, even his heart. He tried to hide his revulsion, to swallow his awful guilt. “God only knows what else they’ve done to her.” A shudder ran through his body, brought on by worry, by hope and fear.
Important, this was so goddamned important.
“I want him out of her life.” I want him out of my life.
“You want him dead?”
Oh, God. “If she’s been touched,” Robert stressed, knowing she surely had been and hating his part in it, “if she’s been hurt at all, yes, I want him dead.”
The words fell like a sledgehammer between the two men. Evans didn’t blink, didn’t change expressions at all, so Robert continued. “Either way, Julie definitely doesn’t deserve the bad publicity that’ll result if you bring a kidnapper in to the police. She’s had enough of that already.”
“By being a flirt?”
“Yes. The only way to protect her now is to make sure this is never known. That’s why I hired you specifically, rather than someone…better known.”
A cynical half smile touched Clint’s hard mouth. “Rather than someone more legitimate, you mean.”
Robert tightened his jaw. Was the bastard taunting him? If society ever found out that he’d hired a borderline criminal to save his fiancée, he’d never live it down.
Drew would certainly be outraged.
He’d given Robert the funds to ransom Julie, never suspecting that Robert would try a different tact to get her back. If Drew knew, he’d cut Robert out—financially and socially. He’d be ruined.
But Robert wouldn’t change his mind now. He honestly didn’t want Julie harmed, but he had no choices left.
“Julie’s an heiress. I can pay the money if it comes to that.” Or rather, he’d pay half. The other half would hopefully go toward buying him some time. But Evans didn’t need to know that. “I was afraid if I paid the ransom, they’d kill her.”
Evans nodded his agreement to that.
“And I was afraid someone else would feel honor bound to go by the book, to drag in a bunch of animals for prosecution.”
“Probably.”
“Julie’s reputation has already suffered several blows. I’m afraid she couldn’t weather another scandal.”
Lifting one eyebrow, Evans said, “Sounds to me like you’re afraid of a lot of things.”
Robert’s male pride quailed under the verbal blow. “I’m afraid for Julie.”
Evans reached for the photo again. “Uh huh. It’s touching, all this love and devotion you have for a woman who sounds like a royal pain in the ass.” He gave a careless shrug. “So I’m to be judge, jury, and executioner for this Asa Ragon, assuming he’s the only guy involved. I suppose there could be more.”
“Would more be a problem?”
“No.”
Did the bastard have to sound so cocksure of himself? Robert locked his knees. “Good.” He hoped he looked more enthusiastic than he felt.
“I’ll be her husband. I want to protect her, even if I have to protect her from herself.”
Turning the framed photo over, Evans pried off the backing, cracking the expensive hand-carved frame in the process. With a gentleness that belied the iron strength in his massive hands, he laid the broken pieces aside.
Alarmed, Robert took a step closer. “What are you doing?”
Those steely eyes were impassive when they looked at Robert. “I’m keeping this.” Evans slid the photo into the back pocket of his disreputable jeans.
For a man who commanded such an exorbitant fee, Clint Evans didn’t dress very well. His black T-shirt had faded to a dull gray, his Levis had to be ten years old, and his black lace-up boots had scuffed toes.
In fact, if it weren’t for the large, lethally honed body beneath those clothes and those dead eyes, Evans wouldn’t seem so imposing at all. He was an older man, probably nearing forty. His unkempt black hair had grayed at his temples and a timeworn weariness etched his unhandsome face.
But those eyes…
When Clint turned toward him, Robert shrank back, then shrank some more when he kept coming until Robert was forced to lean back awkwardly over his desk. Chest to chest, hands flat on the desktop and thick arms rippling with muscle, Clint Evans caged him in. He was bigger, harder, stronger, and Robert smelled his own fear.
This man would kill for money.
Robert wondered if he’d kill for pleasure, too.
That awful thought pinned him to the spot, making his lungs burn and his stomach clench.
Clint’s small smile held such a look of malice, Robert felt faint.
“Yeah, I’m capable of killing.” The hushed whisper of his words only made them more menacing.
“I…I see.” Robert hated him in that moment, and he hated himself. He’d be so glad when this was all over. “That’s…good.”
“I also know a liar when I see one.” Clint’s eyes narrowed more, pinpoints of green fire.
“Call it a sixth sense, intuition, but I always know when someone is bullshitting me.”
A warning? No. He couldn’t know, Robert tried to convince himself. But the tension built and Robert thought he’d made a horrible mistake, that Evans would kill him on the spot and no one would know who had done it, because no one knew he’d hired him. No one.
Sick defeat washed over him.
Then Evans leaned back, his smile crooked, smug. “That’s something you might want to remember, Bobby-boy.” He turned and walked toward the door, saying at last, “I’ve got everything I need. I’ll check your lead right now.”
“Now?” Just the thought of Clint Evans getting near Asa filled Robert with anxiety. If Asa found out that Robert had hired Clint, he’d be dead before nightfall. “You can’t mention my name, Evans. You can’t let him know I sent you there—”
Clint either ignored his panic, or just didn’t care. “You have my number, but only use it in an emergency.”
“Damn you, Evans.” Clint Evans’s business card listed a phone number, but no name, no address. Robert didn’t like it. Things were too out of control, too unstable. “Listen to me!”
“Sit tight and don’t do a damn thing until you hear from me.” Clint disappeared through the door, his gait relaxed, his attitude more so.
Robert slumped. His heart beat too fast and his knees felt like gelatin. Sweat dampened his brow.
Was Evans really that good? It’d be too perfect if both he and Julie survived this mess.
Robert hadn’t chosen Clint Evans lightly. In rapid order, he’d read the reports, and he knew about Evans’s major fuck-up two years ago. Only the most elite circles were privy to that information, but Robert had influential friends who were good at snooping. Evans walked a very fine line these days.
Since the awful fiasco, Evans hadn’t done much work-for-hire at all. He’d been too busy struggling to keep himself afloat and to pay his heavy legal bills. He’d sunk so low, he worked as a repo man, and by all accounts he was damn good at that job. Just as he used to snatch people back, he now reclaimed planes, yachts, and RVs, with little fanfare or fuss.
But the past was still there, still tainting him.
Clint Evans lived close enough, only a few hours away, so he was expedient. Given his tarnished reputation, he was capable of anything. And best of all, he was desperate. Those traits combined to make him the right man for this particular job.
Robert rubbed the bridge of his nose. He was doing the right thing, for himself and for Julie, he was sure of it. Second guessing himself now would be pointless.
If anyone could bring Julie back safe and sound, and at the same time get the better of Asa, Robert would put his money on Clint. Hell, he had put his money on him. But what Evans would get was a paltry amount in comparison to what Robert would gain—the love of his life, his freedom, a new start.
Dropping into his chair with an enormous sigh, Robert tried to believe his own reassurances.
But he kept seeing those eyes, and he knew stark fear.
The early evening June sun was high in the sky, broiling hot on such a cloudless day. Clint Evans slipped on mirrored sunglasses as he strode away from the enormous, ritzy house in an expensive Cincinnati suburb. He was very aware of that small photo in his back pocket, and very aware of the woman who needed him. He wanted to pull it out and look at her again, but he didn’t. Studying her further wouldn’t help. It’d just make him nuts, and his stomach was already unsettled.
Rage always cramped his guts, made him literally sick, and Robert Burns enraged him.
Clint drew a deep breath and considered what needed to be done in order to save Julie Rose. She wasn’t a beautiful woman. Hell, she wasn’t even all that pretty. But she had looked delicate and very proud.
Burns told him she was a schoolteacher. She fit the stereotype physically: mousy brown, medium-length hair, intelligent brown eyes. That serene, yet taunting half smile that meant she’d have the patience and the wit to deal well with kids—and men.
She was twenty-nine and looked it. Maybe she even looked a bit older.
According to Burns, Julie was a hellion and a sexual tease. Clint smiled. Yeah, it was that more than anything else that intrigued him. A mousy, intelligent schoolteacher—who liked to screw around. He shook his head, indulging in a private chuckle.
Even while distracted with thoughts of Julie Rose, Clint scanned the area. An inbred caution had kept him alive and kicking through a hell of a lot. He lived with a heightened awareness of his surroundings that few people ever experienced for a single moment, much less an eternity.
Appearing casual and relaxed, Clint rounded the block of the old, ostentatious homes. A green minivan, out of place in the upscale neighborhood of luxury cars, pulled alongside him and stopped. Clint opened the door and slid in. There was no one around to pay him any mind. He supposed rich folk didn’t sit on the front porch and wave at neighbors the way they did in his neighborhood.
“So?” Red Carter quirked a blond brow in curiosity, while gently accelerating the vehicle forward.
“I don’t trust him.”
Red nodded. “Me either.”
“No? Why not?” So it wouldn’t get bent, Clint pulled the photo out of his pocket and held it in his hand. He studied Julie Rose once more. Her big brown eyes, glinting with mischief, smiled back at him. Damn. “You haven’t even met him yet.”
“You don’t trust him, so I don’t trust him.” Then with a frown at the photo, “S’that her?”
“Yeah.” Clint held it up so Red could see.
“What a shame,” Red lamented. “She looks awful sweet and sassy.”
His tone squeezed around Clint’s lungs, pissing him off, making him edgier. “She’s not dead yet.”
“No, but probably wishing she was.”
Clint didn’t like that probability at all. Maybe his insight was influenced by his disdain of the wealthy. Who the hell knew? But whatever the reason, he didn’t believe a word of Robert Burns’s story, and that meant Julie Rose was in more trouble than first assumed. “I don’t think Asa Ragon has her.”
The ransom note had been of a typical sort. Disguised lettering in a hodgepodge style, simple and straightforward. They’d be in touch soon on where and when to deliver the money. A quarter of a million dollars in exchange for Julie Rose’s life. If the cops were called, she’d die. No signature.
The note was plain enough. Why would there have been a follow-up phone call? Especially when no additional info was given.
Luckily the ransom amount, twenty times over, was held in a trust for her. Robert Burns claimed he had the money if it was needed to keep Julie alive. But Clint agreed with him on at least that much.
Paying would more likely ensure her death, rather than prevent it. Clint intended to have her safe and sound long before they could realize that no money was forthcoming.
“I thought Asa was the only possibility.” As Red drove, the landscape changed. The houses gradually grew smaller in scale and closer together.
“There are always other possibilities. It’s just that when Robert mentioned Asa…I dunno. It didn’t feel right.” As a small-time crook with big-time ambitions, Asa was a suspect. The man had a record a mile long and was certainly capable of real cruelty. One of the first things Clint had done was run a check on Asa. He was a scumbag, with prior connections to theft, possession of illegal arms, drug trafficking, assault and battery, extortion, and organized gambling. The list was long but had nothing on the scale of kidnapping. Asa ran his slum-area neighborhood like a warlord, but he’d never served maximum time.
It just didn’t set right with Clint. He didn’t want to waste time making false assumptions that could end up fatal—to Julie Rose.
Red drove and stole peeking glances at Clint at the same time. “So if he doesn’t have her, who does?”
“Not sure yet. But I want to talk to this Asa character. Julie’s been missing for twelve hours now. If I’m wrong and he does have her, maybe he’ll give something away.”
Red nodded. “I’ve got his address in here somewhere.” One-handed, Red began riffling through the printouts he’d collected on Asa Ragon the moment they’d accepted the case.
Clint had every confidence in Red. They’d known each other for a lifetime, along with Mojo Dray, and between the three of them, there wasn’t much they couldn’t accomplish. Though they hadn’t worked together in this capacity recently, not since…
Clint shook his head. He wouldn’t go there, not now. It’d only distract him when the last t. . .
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