The Huntress: full-length sexy romantic suspense (4 page)

“The last hunter to go after the bastard worked with me.”

She didn’t know. “Oh…I’m sorry, Butch.”

He shrugged. “The bonding company withdrew their contract with us hours after that bastard popped a hole through my friend’s head. Said they were afraid we’d carry out some kind of vigilante justice.”

“Imagine that,” she said dryly. Knowing Butch, he’d probably snap Grayson’s neck like a twig if he were to get near enough.

“Watch yourself, Vega. Don’t go after him alone.”

She shrugged off the warning. She knew how to take care of herself. “Tell me, do you know anything specific about this guy that could help me find him?”

He stubbed his foot against the edge of a sisal rug for several minutes before answering. “I shouldn’t help you. I lost a friend and a lot of money because of him.”

“Fine.” She checked her watch. She was dangerously close to being late for her mother’s dinner party. “I’ve got to get changed and ready to go to Mom’s.”

A few sleek dresses hung in the back of her closet just for these occasions. She went into the bedroom and started to dress. Her mother, always eager to impress—she was the good political force behind her husband’s rise to police chief—liked to make her dinner parties into grand affairs. Serving gourmet meals on the finest china in the family’s austere formal dining room. The fact her mother had inherited a fortune from a great-aunt, only made her lofty vision of what was ‘impressive’ all the more possible.

“He was Army Special Ops,” Butch called from the other room. “That’s what Snitch is probably opening, his Special Ops history file. His partner, Greg Harper, served with him along with two others. I don’t know what missions they were on. The lid on his history is tight. Doubt Snitch can pry those files open. The hacker we used failed miserably. Couldn’t get much of anything useful that way.”

She emerged from the bedroom fully dressed in a pale violet silk dress that dipped low in the back. Her strappy pumps with heels that would make a fluff-ball like Lila Crafter proud matched the gown perfectly. She pulled her hair up into a loose French twist. She hadn’t bothered with much makeup; her mother would scold.

“Thanks, Butch.” She gave him a quick kiss and pushed him toward the door. “If I don’t leave right now, Mom will be having fits by the time I get over to the house.”

* * * *

After a painfully long evening, Vega collapsed on her bed and stared at the ceiling. This new bachelor her mom had selected had taken one look at Vega and just about licked his lips. The conversation revolved around his life as a doctor at a private clinic and his opinions on everything, all of which bored Vega down to the soles of her feet…until he started to talk about self-defense. He’d recent begun taking classes and thoroughly enjoyed the challenge. Finally, a topic of common interest. She had agreed heartily and explained how invaluable her lessons had been to her when bounty hunting.

The room slammed into an uncomfortable silence. Her mother’s newest candidate for Vega’s future husband snapped his gapping mouth closed. She’d clearly shocked him.

Vega and the renowned doctor fit together like two ill-matched puzzle pieces.

She stared at the ceiling for several more minutes before dragging herself back up to check her phone messages. Snitch had called twice. First to report she’d retrieved Grayson Walker’s file, and then to report that she’d retrieved the files on the team who’d served with him.

Vega flipped on her computer and pulled up her email. Sure enough, the files Snitch had promised were sitting in her inbox waiting to be read. It took the rest of the night for her to absorb every word.

The files cracked open Grayson’s past, but gave nothing of what Grayson or his buddies had done during their years in the army. With a little additional computer work, she put together a long list of family and neighbors from Grayson’s childhood—all possible sources. Within a few days, she would know every detail, including Grayson’s favorite color. As the first rays of light streamed through her window, Vega leaned back in her chair, grinning. She felt damned full of herself.

“Gotcha!” she said.

Chapter Three

Her trail ended here.

The bar’s crumbling concrete block walls were in dire need of a fresh paint job. A handful of cars, beaten and dirty, were parked in the crumbly asphalt lot. For over a week, Vega had pounded on nearly every door between Atlanta and this backwater, salty area in the low-country of South Carolina. She was searching for Tommy Fisher, the man Grayson Walker would most likely run to. Fisher owned the bar. It was a far cry from the expensive glass and steel tower her quarry had used to house his Six-Star Enterprises.

She pushed open the door to the Broken Cricket, a seedy bar stinking of sour alcohol and sweat, and stepped into the dark interior with a cautious gait. She zipped up her leather jacket despite the pit’s heat, not wanting any uninvited eyes to take too much notice of her and her tight t-shirt.

Not when she had a job to do.

She let her gaze roam the darkened interior of the joint as she quickly made her way to the bar, peeling her boots from the sticky floor with each step.

Damn, this was not at all what she’d expected. Perhaps she was in the wrong place. Grayson, according to her research, would not willingly subject himself to such a hellhole.

“Give me whatever’s on tap,” she said to the burly bartender whose shifting gaze had followed her from the moment she stepped into the bar. She slid a couple of dollars across the wooden bar top that probably had never been cleaned.

“You a cop?” the bartender asked, staring wide-eyed at her money.

She leaned over the bar, inwardly wincing at the thought of smearing the filth from it onto her favorite leather jacket. “Does it matter?” she asked.

“Not to me.” He pulled a glass from a shelf.

There was a large baseball bat hanging on that wall. She doubted the man was a sports fan.

“Might matter to some of these guys, though,” he said as he filled a mug with frothy beer. “If’n you’re not a cop, I hope you carry a gun just the same. Wouldn’t trust a man in here with a woman as clean as you. Ain’t a pleasant place, you see.”

“Thanks for the warning.” She took a deep drink of the beer, pretending not to notice the smudges of dirt on the glass. “Though, I
can
take care of myself.”

“I hope so,” he said as he wandered away.

She’d traveled too far to find this bar sitting in the middle of what the locals called Hell Hole Swamp, to run away now. Though she’d rather be spending Christmas Eve anywhere but here—more than thirty minutes from a freaking paved road—she wanted nothing more than to slap her cuffs onto her quarry’s wrists.

Jack had promised her that she could find this Grayson Walker with her eyes closed.

That had been a month ago.

She sipped the beer—slightly watered down—wondering again if she’d been mistaken about this place. Turning around, she stood with her back to the greasy Formica bar, letting her gaze search the darkened corners of the room.

The burly bartender could be the owner, Tommy Fisher. There was a definite resemblance to the photo tucked into her pocket. According to Tommy’s cousin, Grayson and Tommy hadn’t exactly remained friends after serving together in Special Ops. But they weren’t enemies. That made Tommy a contact, a very good contact considering Grayson’s short supply of friends.

She watched as the bartender carried a beer over to a gloomy booth in the far corner of the bar. A man, who was slumped down in the cushions, sat upright for a moment to accept the proffered drink.

Bingo.

The unmistakably finely chiseled cheekbones of Grayson stood out in this bar like a cut diamond in a pile of coal.

Unconsciously, she reached around to the small of her back to where her Glock 9 sat nestled in its holster and unhooked the latch. She was not about to take any chances with this one. Not after Grayson had rewarded the last bounty hunter to go after him with a bullet in the head.

She glanced around, assessing the situation.

Taking him here, in this bar filled with lawless hicks, would be just asking for trouble. But there was a back exit only steps away from where he sat. If she could get him to go out the back way, she could trap him.

There was nothing out that way except a dumpster sitting on a concrete pad. The property sloped sharply down into a murky swamp. An army of towering cypresses rising up from a sea of black water slowly advanced on the building, probably trying to reclaim the land that had been stolen years before.

Surely Grayson, from Atlanta’s concrete wilderness, wouldn’t risk the dangers of the swamp in the middle of the night. He’d stand and fight.

Fight. That was exactly what she wanted him to do.

The bartender bent down and whispered something in Grayson’s ear. Both men turned to stare.

Undaunted, she smiled and raised her glass in a mock salute. She pushed away from the bar and started toward them, swinging her slim hips.

I sure hope he’s attracted to women
, she thought while she sidled across the room, slowly unzipping her jacket. She could feel several eyes burning into her skin as she used her figure, which had been described as sexy more times than she cared to hear, to throw Grayson off-guard.

“Buy me a beer,” she said, her voice husky, just before sliding into Grayson’s corner booth. She looked up at the burly barkeep—his expression literally growled—and graced him with her most disarming smile. “He’ll pay,” she said. She turned her sultry gaze back toward Grayson. “I guarantee he will.”

Grayson stared at her, his mouth slightly open. “I want to be alone,” he grumbled after Tommy left, shaking his head as if trying to clear out a bunch of cobwebs.

“On Christmas Eve? No one wants to be alone on Christmas Eve.”

“I’m Jewish,” he said.

“Oh,” she said, though she knew full well he’d been raised Protestant. She knew damn near everything about him, except for his taste in women. “Well, maybe
I
don’t want to be alone.” She looked around the room at the motley group of men sipping on their drinks. “At least, not here.”

Grayson nodded. “I understand. This isn’t exactly a safe place. You don’t belong here.”

“You don’t look as if you belong either,” she said.

At that, he quirked a brow. “Looks can be deceiving.”

“Yes, they can, can’t they?”

“Look, I’ll pay for your beer since it is Christmas and all.” He glanced around the room. His shoulders were as tight as steel under his hand-tailored blazer. She wasn’t exaggerating when she’d said he looked out of place in the Broken Cricket. She blended into the bar much more smoothly than he could ever hope to. “I don’t mean to be rude. I just don’t want any company right now.”

He tossed a few dollars on the table in front of them and began to inch out of the seat.

“Wait.” She covered his hand with hers. Their eyes met. An electricity rose between them, catching her completely off-guard as the tingling settled low in her belly.

She mentally kicked herself. This seedy bar was not the kind of place where she’d willingly hook up with a man. And Grayson was certainly not the kind of man who could give her the happily-ever-after she never really wanted in the first place.

He’d murdered his best friend, she reminded herself. But still, when she withdrew her hand, she could not deny the pang of regret in her chest. Surprising really, her emotions rarely intruded into her professional life.

He stared at her, looking just about as startled as she felt. His soft brown eyes weren’t nearly as sharp as the man’s she had seen in her file photo. Exhaustion had taken a toll. This was a man who had not slept a full night in months. He was nearing the end of his rope.

She’d have to take extra care with him.

“At least walk me out.” She glanced toward the back exit. “I don’t want to have to fight off any of these bar beasts tonight. Not on Christmas Eve.”

He shrugged. “Guess it wouldn’t be right to leave you alone. Come on.” He pushed up from the table and waited for her to follow.

She looped her arm around his and easily directed him toward the back exit. He held the door open as she stepped out. The air was damp and sharp from the winter cold, a refreshing change from the smoke-filled bar.

“Oh,” she said with a mock shiver. “Is it ever cold!” She waited for him to close the distance. He wasn’t much taller than she was. She’d guess that he had a few inches on her. Still, she’d clearly felt the strength in his arm muscles, and wasn’t about to take any chances with him.

The heavy back door slammed against its frame, leaving them in near darkness. She could hear, better than see, the scraping of footfalls as he approached.

Her heart still insisted on feeling a vague tenderness toward him, damn him.
He was a killer,
she reminded herself.

Vicious. Heartless.

She’d made it a point to memorize the crime scene photos. Gruesome had been an understatement.

“I know who you are, Grayson Walker.” It wasn’t her job to judge him. She just needed to deliver him back to the justice system. “I know what you’ve done.” She raised her gun. She’d do well to remember he’d already killed one bounty hunter. “It’s time to return to Atlanta and face responsibility.”

She heard him suck in quick a breath. “Tommy said you smelled like a cop. I should’ve believed him. Since when does a cop look like she belongs on the cover of a fashion magazine?”

He didn’t seem to notice the gun in her hand, a weapon that could easily leave several gaping holes in the center of his chest. Or if he did notice, he didn’t care. He walked casually toward her, arms spread wide.

“I’m more dangerous to you than the police, Grayson. I’m a bounty hunter. I don’t get paid unless you get captured.”

He laughed in the darkness, a rather pitiful sound. “The fourth one, I believe. I wonder what makes you think you can succeed where those other brainless goons have failed? Are you planning to seduce me into surrendering?”

Without warning, he lowered his head and tackled her, tossing her to the ground as if they were playing a game and she was holding a football not a loaded pistol. Her breath whooshed out of her lungs. Grayson could remain where he was, straddling her torso, his hands pinning her arms, for the moment. She tightened her hold on the pistol he was working so doggedly to wrench from her grasp.