Bounty Hunter (12 page)

Her gaze locked on his, and his chest tightened. “I wish you could help me, Hawk.
You can’t know how much.”

“Hawk?” he echoed automatically.

A shaky smile curved her lips. “I don’t know where that came from. Your Indian name,
I guess. It … it suits you.”

He fought his immediate physical response, telling himself it was only a nickname.

“Call me whatever you want,” he said, trying to sound as if it didn’t matter. “But
I can’t do anything until you tell me why you ran.” He refused to let her back away
from the truth.

She broke eye contact again and stared downward as she twisted her fingers together.
So much tension in such a slender frame.

“Aw hell,” he muttered. Giving in to his need to ease her silent torment, he slid
onto the step above
her and gently turned her so she sat between his thighs with her back to him. He’d
expected a fight and didn’t quite know what to make of her acquiescence. Not one to
dwell on infrequent favors, small or otherwise, he began gently kneading the soft
curves at the base of her neck.

She didn’t make a single noise, but after several minutes, she did let her head fall
slightly forward.

Kane stifled a groan as the moon lit the fine ridge of her spine that peeked out from
the top of her loose collar. Acting on instinct, he pressed his thumbs to the center
of her back and ran them slowly downward. It was as if he’d unzipped her. Her body
sagged, then shivered as he retraced the motion upward. He followed the same motion
again, this time wringing a sigh from her as his hands stopped to rest on her shoulders.
He forced his fingers to lay gently and not to pull her backward—against his hard,
fully aroused, body.

Instead he let his hands drop, his arms resting on his thighs, his chin just above
her head. The scent of her hair, the scent of
her
, kept him aroused, but he used the discomfort to remind him of his offer to help.

“Why did you run?” he asked, his voice a rough whisper.

After a long moment in which he felt her shudder as surely as if he were still touching
her, she answered.

“Because if he finds me, he’ll kill me.”

She said it with total conviction. That fact, combined
with the undiluted terror he’d witnessed briefly in her eyes, told him she was not
exaggerating. Rage filled him. His palms fairly itched with the need to pound something.
Preferably flesh. Specifically Sam Perkins’s flesh.

He fisted his hands, as much to stem the urge for violence as to prevent him from
yanking her into his arms and keeping her there. Paying dearly for his even tone,
he asked, “Why here? Doesn’t he know about this place?”

“No,” she said, her voice still shaky. “I told you before, I’d only been here once.
And that was over two decades ago.”

“Is the deed in your name? Can he trace you here?” Kane already knew the answers to
those questions, but he had to ask. When she was thinking more clearly, she’d surely
wonder why he hadn’t. He grimaced, hating the duplicity. Telling himself she’d know
everything at some point didn’t make him feel one whit better.

“The deed is in Matthew’s name,” she answered, mercifully pulling him from his thoughts.
“It’s not listed on any of my asset sheets, such as they are. I’m not sure if Matt
claims it, but it’s probably on his tax statements. I don’t think Sam would think
to track them down. I didn’t even remember it until I saw the picture in Matt’s apartment.”

Kane winced, glad she was facing away from him. “Sam. Tell me about him, Annie. What
would make him want to kill you? Is it because you finally stood up to him and escaped?”

“It’s not like that. I mean, until … he never hurt me, not physically, if that’s what
you’re thinking.”

“Tell me what I’m supposed to think, Annie.”

“I … uh …” She gulped, the sound audible. “You were right. I know something about
him he doesn’t want revealed. It could … destroy his reputation. His whole life.”

Damn. He’d figured as much. A mistress. He ached for the anguish she must be going
through. As if the terror of being hunted wasn’t enough, she was dealing with rejection
as well. The latter, an emotion he was on intimate terms with.

And all the money in the world wouldn’t have stopped Kane from killing Sam Perkins
with his bare hands if he had appeared at that moment.

“Must be one hell of an affair if he’s willing to kill to keep it a secret.” He wanted
to kick himself when she flinched. “I’m sorry, that was a lousy thing to say.”

“Don’t apologize. I only wish that were the case.” She laughed, and the flat sound
chilled him. “The night I followed him, that’s what I suspected.” She tipped her head
back, her gaze directed at the star-filled sky. “What a fool I was to think that I
would have been devastated by that truth.” Another bark of laughter. “Now I’d gladly
line the women up if that was all he wanted.”

Kane’s mind whirred with this new information. He’d jumped way off base, and it took
a moment to
reconfigure the facts. If it wasn’t a sex scandal Perkins was afraid of, that left
one other alternative.

“Are you saying he’s involved in something illegal?”

She shook her head. “You know, when I finally figured out what he was doing, I was
so stunned, the legal implications didn’t cross my mind.”

Kane had only to tilt his head to the side to see the slight quiver of her chin. It
was the only indication that she was holding on to her anger with a grip that was
tenuous at best.

“Something else happened to change that.” It was a statement meant to encourage not
question her story.

She nodded, the motion small and tight. “Oh yeah.”

“What was he doing, Annie? The night you followed him, where did he go?”

“He was attending a … meeting. In Hunnicutt. At Joe Twyler’s house.”

Kane knew of the small town. It was a dozen or so miles outside of Boise. The man’s
name was familiar also, but the connection didn’t come through. She took care of that
with her next statement.

“Aside from Sam and Hunnicutt’s mayor, the chief of the local police department and
several influential Boise businessmen were there. There were others, but I didn’t
recognize them. Not that it mattered.”

Kane let out a long, slow breath. Damn, damn, damn. Annie hadn’t been lying about
the trouble
she was in. As a matter of fact, to his knowledge, she’d never lied to him about anything.
An honest woman. He grimaced. Just what Sam Perkins didn’t need.

“How did you know these people? Do they know you? Do they know you saw them?”

She waved her hand as if to slow him down, then slumped forward to rest her chin on
her knees, raking her fingers through her tangled hair. Her fingers shook, and she
eventually dropped her hand to clasp her other one around her shins.

Kane felt as if he’d kicked a defenseless kitten. He took another deep breath, struggling
to keep a hold on his control. A thousand questions lay right on the tip of his tongue.
But what Annie didn’t need was him grilling her, making her feel like the criminal
instead of the victim.

“I’m sorry. You’re throwing a lot at me.” He fought a surprising smile when her posture
once again became rigid and defensive. Maybe there was more tigress in his kitten
than he’d credited her with. “I know I asked you to. Just give me a second to think
this through.”

“Why? How long does it take to decide to cut and run?”

Kane hadn’t missed the plea underlying her tough-as-nails demand. “Annie—”

“I wouldn’t blame you if you did, you know.” Her spine slackened some, her voice when
she spoke was more rough than harsh. “I knew from the start it would be like asking
for the moon.”

Before he could think to do otherwise, Kane followed his instincts and tugged her
backward, cradling her against him. At the last moment, he regained enough control
to settle for looping his arms loosely around her shoulders, letting them dangle in
front of her chin, while his own rested lightly on the top of her head.

“If you asked for it, I think I’d find myself trying like hell to get it for you.”

She flinched at his softly spoken avowal, but it had been said, and he wouldn’t let
her pull away.

“Why? Why would you do that, or any of this for me? You don’t even know me.”

“I suspect I know you better than most.” She didn’t deny it so he pushed on, ignoring
the danger signals blaring in his head to quit now before he tore apart everything
he’d accomplished. “And I think maybe the same could be said of you.”

She was silent for a moment. “Then that’s a very sad thing.”

“Why?”

“Because I feel as if I don’t know you at all, Hawk.”

His blood pounded through his body at her softly spoken endearment. And it was an
endearment, at least to his mind. To his heart. His body followed his heart and responded
accordingly. “Yes, Annie, you do,” he said quietly. “More than you think.” She stiffened.
“You trusted me with your story. Something I don’t think you’d have done with another
man. True?”

“Maybe that’s so, but you can’t deny that my judgment isn’t the greatest in the world.”

Kane swore under his breath. Another thing Perkins had robbed her of, and it was a
precious gift. Her self-respect. “Annie, there is no shame in loving someone with
all that you are. If that person betrays that love, it is their loss, their shame.
For destroying a gift that should have been revered.”

Silence followed his terse declaration, forcing him to listen to the echoes of his
words in his mind. Thoughts of his grandmother assaulted him. Yes, he knew all about
the pain and shame of betraying someone’s love. The loss of a precious gift. What
was happening to him? Distance, he needed to put Annie at a distance before he made
a bigger fool of himself.

No matter what had happened with Perkins, she was bound to him by law. Not to mention
vows of love that she obviously took very seriously. Vows that had been wasted on
a bastard not worthy of her loyalty. He struggled to pull his control together, to
do what he had to do.

Her next words kept him stock-still.

“Did you ever love someone like that, Hawk? Completely? Blindly, maybe?”

His heart fisted in his chest. Her question resurrected another ghost, this pain old
and well worn like a talisman rubbed again and again until the sharp edges were too
dulled to cut. “Yes. But I didn’t have any choice.”

“Is this part of what you meant earlier? About not always having the right to choose?”

“It was my mother.”

He felt the air leave her body in a long whoosh and fought against turning her in
his arms and kissing her, of not stopping until all their hurt disappeared.

“That’s one thing I had. I didn’t take it for granted, either.” She shifted a bit,
resting her chin on his forearm but not looking back at him. “That stinks, Kane. I’m
sorry.”

“Don’t be,” he started to say, but her hand on his arm stopped the automatic denial.

“For her, Hawk. For her. She’s missing one hell of a son.”

Kane’s throat tightened at the unexpected gift. He blinked hard several times, then
gave in and buried his face in her hair. What had he done to deserve finding such
truth in a person, only to be put in a position of having to betray it? He wanted
to stand and howl at the moon, stomp and yell and argue with the Fates until he got
the answers he wanted.

But he didn’t. He sat right where he was and let her sweet scent seep into his pores,
into his mind, into his heart. Storing up the heady sensations for the day when she
would no longer be within his grasp. “Thank you,” he said roughly.

She didn’t respond except to squeeze his arm gently then turn to face away from him
once again. When he could finally manage it, he pulled away
from her, leaning his elbows on the step behind him. It took a considerable amount
of discipline, all that he had in fact, but he ruthlessly steered his mind back to
her revelation, to his original purpose—helping her.

“What did you discover that night? What was Sam doing that was so terrible that he
threatened you?”

“It wasn’t a threat. I tried to talk to him about it, make him see reason. That didn’t
work. He poured on the charm, trying to convince me to do what he wanted. He’s real
good at that. But I … couldn’t. Not until he explained.”

“Did he?”

She shuddered. “No. He got nasty. Violent. I’d … I’d never seen him like that.” She
pulled in a visible breath. “I left him after that night. Checked into a motel until
I could figure out what to do next.”

“And?”

“And two days later, I was almost run off the road by an old pickup truck with no
tags.”

Kane had sensed it coming. But he wasn’t prepared for the ferocity of his response.
“Are you sure he was behind it?” he asked through gritted teeth. “Was he driving?”

“I couldn’t see, but I doubt it was Sam. And at first, I really wanted to believe
it was a coincidence. A driver with too many beers under his belt. It was a Friday
night, and … But it wasn’t a drunk driver.”

“Another attempt?”

She nodded. He gently massaged her shoulders. “I know it’s hard. Take your time.”
Time. Hers was running out, and it was all Kane could do to keep from tearing out
of there and back to Boise where he could get his hands on Perkins’s scrawny, lily-livered
neck. But without all the facts, charging off half-cocked was only likely to get them
both hurt.

“What happened?” he urged, as much for his sake as hers. “Another car incident like
the first one?”

“Same truck. But this time it was in the underground parking garage in the building
I work in. It … it was late, and I was the only one around. The headlights …” She
shuddered. “They blinded me. At the last minute I jumped onto the hood of the car—”

“Son of a good-for-nothing bitch!” Kane roared, unable to control his rage a moment
longer. Uncaring how she interpreted his comment or his actions, he pulled her roughly
into his lap, this time folding his arms tightly around her and pressing his face
against her neck.