Just Eight Months Old...

“Like I said, it was a favor.” Elliott glanced at his recently chewed fingernails. “Look, I could go on all day about how this was a first offense. About how they had worked for the company for ten years and all that, but I won’t.” He paused. “The fact is I put up the bond and they skipped.”

Hannah drew in a deep breath and slowly let it out, trying to come to terms with everything that had happened in the past ten minutes. Ten minutes. Six hundred seconds. Such a short time, really. A short time she was afraid would affect every minute of her life thereafter.

Elliott wasn’t joking when he said he was in danger of closing down. If made to pay the amount of the bond, not only would his office be history, but Elliott himself would probably be paying off the debt for his next two incarnations.

“Why call Chad in?” She recrossed her arms over her chest.

“He’s the best there is, aside from you.” His expression was earnest. “Hannah, I need every ounce of manpower I have for this one. I swear, if I lose this place you might as well dig a hole for me six feet under. And don’t think I’m exaggerating. As much as I complain and manipulate, this business is my life.” Elliott shifted uneasily. “So…what do you say? Will you postpone your plans for Seekers and take this last one on?”

Hannah thought about her daughter, the cost of the day-care center she’d wanted to enroll her in and the one she’d chosen instead because it was more reasonably priced. If she succeeded in this trace, she’d be able to afford to send Bonny to the other one…plus a whole lot more.

“Does it mean working with Chad?”

Relief colored Elliott’s ruddy features. “That’s up to you.”

“You have files on these guys?”

He pushed a thin manila folder across the desk. “Here. Only they’re not both guys.” Hannah looked at him. “One is a woman.”

“What is this?” She examined the single sheet of paper in the file. The application form was skimpy at best, half the blanks left empty.

“Like I said, this was a favor.”

“Yes, you said that. What did you do? Just sign the bond without the normal paperwork? This isn’t like you, Elliott.”

“Believe me, if I had known this was going to happen, I would have got more.”

“It says here that the jumpers put their houses up.”

“Expensive houses, too. The only problem is they’re mortgaged to the hilt. Not worth the dirt they’re built on to me.”

“I don’t know, El…” She stepped away from the desk and chairs, pulling down the front ends of her vest. “Finding these two would be like finding—”

“I know, I know. Like finding needles in a haystack the size of Europe.”

Accepting the case meant more than postponing the opening of Seekers. It meant working with Chad again. A very risky prospect indeed. She wouldn’t even consider working against him. She might be afraid of what the man could do to her personal life, but she wouldn’t make the mistake of misjudging his professional talent.

She slid her hand into her pocket, fingering the message inside. Anyway, maybe it was time Chad knew the truth. The thought alone choked off her breath.

“Exactly how much money did you say there’d be in it for me?” she asked.

Elliott named an absurdly high figure.

“I’m in.”

“Good.” Elliott leapt to his feet. “You have four days.”

“Four days?”

“If you don’t bring them in within four days, you miss out on the money and I lose my business. Hell, I’m lucky the judge even rescheduled the hearing.”

Four days wasn’t much time, Hannah thought. That came out to two days apiece to find each bail-jumper.

“No problem.”

Chapter Two

Heat pressed in on Hannah from all sides as she left Blackstone Bail and Bonds. But the external heat didn’t concern her half as much as the emotions expanding inside her. She drew to a stop, as much to adjust to the change in temperature as to face Chad where he leaned against the building.

It was like someone had clipped an image from her memory and pasted it right in front of her: his right shoulder casually propped against the brick of the building; his hands stuffed into the pockets of his faded jeans; his legs crossed at the ankles, emphasizing the dusty cowboy boots he always wore.

Even as she compared him to the image, she noticed some changes that didn’t match up. Details that went beyond the physical.

When she’d known him before, there had been a sadness about him, a grief she’d later learned stemmed from the death of his wife and child in a car crash he’d refused to go into detail about. Now? Well, now he looked…more distant, somehow. Harder.

“Elliott really bought himself one this time, didn’t he?” Chad’s gray eyes focused on the cars streaking by on the ten-laned Queens Boulevard. “What was he thinking?”

The sun slowly sank behind the western skyline. Hannah gazed at it, then at him again. “Obviously he wasn’t.”

Hannah walked toward the battered Ford LTD. Chad picked up his duffel bag and followed, grasping on to the passenger’s door handle at the same time she opened the driver’s side. Her hand froze on the hot metal.

“Where are you going, Chad?” Her voice came out little more than a whisper.

“With you, of course.”

Her stomach plunged to her feet. “I don’t recall inviting you.”

He squinted at her against the sunlight. “Since you agreed to take the case, I thought we’d be working together. Are you saying you want to go out on your own?”

She wondered why her throat suddenly felt like sandpaper. “And what if I am?”

“I know you better than that. We each know exactly what the other is capable of. I’m certainly not interested in working against you.”

Hannah recognized her own thoughts only minutes earlier.

Chad drew in a deep breath and slowly let it out. “Look, I just got in from Florida and took a taxi from the airport. If you want me to catch another one, let me know.”

Hannah remained silent, half tempted to take him up on his offer. She could do without him slipping back into her life right now. She wanted, needed time to grow accustomed to his being back, even if it was only in an official capacity.

But time was something she didn’t have. Besides, she suspected no amount of time would lessen the empty ache in her chest…or change the reality standing in front of her in the shape of Chad Hogan.

She leaned against the car.

“Okay, Chad, I’ll work with you.” She ignored his probing gaze. “But it doesn’t mean side by side, night and day. I just mean I won’t work against you.”

He spread his hands on top of the roof and drummed his thumbs against the hot metal. “You’re telling me aside from sharing information, you would rather not lay eyes on me. Is that it, Hannah?”

“Yes.” She gripped the door handle again. The squealing of tires ripped through the thick air.

She spotted the rusted monster of a car bearing down on her a nanosecond before Chad clutched her wrists and hauled her toward the curb and into his arms. She stared at the darkly tinted windows of the Monte Carlo as it sped down the street, the back end fishtailing as it turned right at the first intersection.

“Damn New York drivers,” Chad murmured, his breath disturbing the hair over her ear.

Tugging her gaze away from the empty street, Hannah became instantly aware of her position in Chad’s arms. She shivered at the solid feel of her breasts against his chest, took a breath of the familiar, tangy smell of his clean skin, wriggled to free herself from the hot, electric touch of his hands against her back.

“Let me go, Chad,” she whispered, uneasy with the knowing shadow in his eyes.

He released her.

Hannah turned on watery knees and got in the car. She watched him stow his duffel in the back then climb in next to her.

“Where did you get this rust bucket?” he asked.

If the heat outside was stifling, the stagnant air inside the car was even worse. Hot sweat trickled between Hannah’s breasts even as awareness continued to surge through her veins from their brief contact.

He ran his hand across the dust-covered dash. “A rental?” he asked.

She nodded. “I had to, for conspicuousness’ sake. I was just about to take it back in exchange for my own.”

Chad’s face was unreadable in the fiery hues of the setting sun. “You kept the Alfa?”

Longing swelled in her stomach. She had not forgotten the Alfa Romeo had been a thirtieth birthday gift from him. She turned the key in the ignition. The only gift he had given her during their two years together. An expensive gift—not only for the money, but it had been one of many things that had cost them their relationship.

“Yes, I kept the Alfa,” she said quietly.

She stared ahead at the sparse traffic. “Uncle Nash says my old room over the dry cleaners is empty, so let’s head there.” Chad’s voice cut through the thick air. “We’ll pick up some Chinese and—”

Hannah shifted the car into drive. “I am not going to Coney Island with you, Chad.” She pulled away from the curb, then remembered she hadn’t intended to take him with her.

“You’re being unreasonable, Hannah. You lived there…we lived there together. You’re as familiar with the place as I am. All I’m suggesting is we get out of this heat and get an early start in the morning. The last thing on my mind is getting you into bed.”

She took a corner a little too quickly. “Interesting you should say that. It’s one of the things you were very good at,” she said quietly. “Look, Chad, there’s no going back. Not to Coney Island. Not to the way things were between us, either professionally or personally.”

Despite her argument, the months they’d been apart began to fade into the background, leaving her feeling insecure and defensive. Which didn’t make any sense, really. She and Chad were no longer a couple. They no longer shared the same apartment. Their lives were completely separate. Still, that didn’t change the fact that one important thing connected them and always would.

Bonny.

Gripping the steering wheel, she concentrated on this important detail.

“I have something I need to do,” she said. “If you want me to drop you off, let me know. If not, you’re welcome to come along for the ride for now.”

“I’ll come along for the ride.”

“And after that, you’re on your own. Right?”

“Right.”

Something in Chad’s voice compelled her to look at him. She winced at the shuttered expression he wore.

“Why don’t we forget about the past and start from scratch, okay, Hannah? I don’t need the hassle any more than you do. We’re both adults. Why don’t we approach this like the professionals we are and forget the rest?”

Her hand shaking, she switched on the radio, the only part of the car that worked properly. The interior filled with the neutral sound of country music.

What would he say when he found out a reminder in the shape of an eight-month-old little girl made it impossible for her to forget?

Chad studied Hannah from beneath half-closed lids, then pulled at his collar. It was hot. But whether his new sense of discomfort had to do with the August heat or how right Hannah had felt in his arms again was unclear. He glanced at her slender ankles visible below the hem of her gauzy skirt, then budged his gaze up her long, almost too slim body to her blue, blue eyes. Everything about her spoke of freshness, strength and a love for life.

Face it, Hogan, you missed her.

While the admission didn’t come easily, he’d always known Hannah struck an unnamed chord in him. He watched the freckled backs of her hands as she gripped and released the steering wheel, and fought the urge to reach out, take one of those hands in his. It had taken a lot to walk away from her nearly a year and a half ago. But he’d had no choice. She had made that clearer than a Florida sunrise. He forced his glance away from where the humid breeze stirred her curly red hair. Why did he feel like someone had just taken a paintbrush to his gray, cynical life? And why did he feel that her vital presence was exactly the reason he had to freeze her out?

Because, he told himself, whatever primal urges made him ache to touch her, to lose himself in the taste, the feel of her, he couldn’t risk letting her in again. She had come too close the last time.

The moment he met Hannah nearly three years ago he knew he’d end up hurting her, but had been helpless to stop himself. He recognized instantly that the qualities that drew him to her would be the very traits that would eventually push them apart. Hannah demanded everything from life—and she’d expected everything from him. Only she hadn’t known that he no longer had everything to give.

The way he saw it, their breakup had been inevitable. It had never been a question of “if” but of “when” and “how.” He knew from the outset that Hannah would one day finger him for the fraud he was. Would notice his shortcomings and boot him out of her life. What he hadn’t banked on was that her rejection would cut so deep. Or that his hurting her would hurt him so much it was painful sometimes to breathe.

During his self-exile in Florida he had hoped his absence would help heal Hannah’s wounds. He had also sought forgiveness for having hurt her. From the sea where the Gulf met the Atlantic in the Keys, and from the vodka bottles that never had anything to give beyond illusionary escape. Each and every day he pushed himself to the limit in his two-bit assignments in order to feed his untouched savings account, and each and every morning when he awakened, he found himself more restless than before. He had moved his secondhand trailer from seacoast town to town, concentrating on local skip-traces and collecting license plates from uninsured vehicles for twenty bucks a pop. He had searched for a peace that proved as elusive as the answer to why his wife and son had been torn from his life four years ago, before he even met Hannah.

No, he had nothing left to give Hannah…except his apology. And he’d been offered the perfect opportunity to give it to her when Elliott called him that morning.

Hannah pulled into the no-parking zone outside the central Queens police station and turned off the ignition. Chad knew it was where she had served five years as a NYC police officer.

“I thought we were going to pick up the Alfa,” he said.

Hannah let herself out of the car and Chad followed. He tried not to watch her, appreciate the way she moved, the way she walked. He tried harder still to ignore the fear she tried to hide. He’d expected several reactions from her, but fear wasn’t one of them. Hannah had never been afraid of anything. Was it fear of him? Possible, but not probable. All he knew was he didn’t like to see the emotion coloring her eyes when she looked at him, which wasn’t often.

“We are,” she replied. “Right after I find out what the police have on these bail-jumpers.”

“Hey, McGee!” the uniformed officer at the front desk greeted Hannah as they entered. “What brings you back to this part of town?”

Hannah stepped up to the desk and smiled. “Slumming it, I guess, Smitty.”

The fifty-some-odd-year-old officer eyed her. “Slumming it! You’re a real barrel of laughs, McGee.”

Chad noticed the way Hannah relaxed, appearing comfortable with the precinct banter she must have mastered during her stint as a police officer. Much more comfortable than she was with him.

“Is Schindler around?” she asked.

The officer moved a hand to his right. “Just where he always is. Guy should have gone home hours ago. I think he’d die without those blasted files.”

She moved through the throng of people toward the records room, barely noticing that Chad had a difficult time following. Hannah greeted a few detectives as they slid through yet another room.

“Here we are.” Hannah stopped outside a plain wood and smoked glass door marked Records—Do Not Enter and knocked.

“Can you get into hot water for this?” Chad asked as she opened the door.

“Don’t let the sign scare you. I think more people enter because of it.”

She peered around a series of metal shelves. “Schindler?”

There was a long silence, then a short, brawny man stepped from between two of the metal monsters over-burdened with worn manila folders.

“Hannah, is that you?” She leaned closer to Chad. “The running guess around the precinct is Danny Schindler lifts file folders in lieu of weights in his spare time.”

Chad got a whiff of her skin. She never had idea one how much her nearness affected him while they were together. The passage of time told him she still didn’t have a clue. It was the innocent smiles, the innocuous comments, the spontaneous touches that always got to him more than any obvious overtures. Then again, Hannah was obvious about nothing but her opinion. And she’d welcome his reaction—innocent or otherwise—as much as she’d welcome a bad sunburn on her fair skin.

“Hey, Danny, I see you’re still buried up to your neck in files,” she said, oblivious to Chad’s thoughts. Which was just as well. If she caught a hint of what was going on in his mind, she’d likely push him into a taxi the instant they hit the street again.

“Yeah, well, you remember how it is. A crime a second and all that. Someone has to keep track of them all.”

Schindler scrutinized Chad as Hannah introduced him.

Chad crunched the clerk’s hand in his, giving the muscle-bound geek a once-over before Schindler turned back to Hannah.

“Tell me you’re not still living the life of a bounty hunter.”

“Bail enforcer,” Hannah corrected.

“Then this is more than a I-was-in-the-neighborhood-and-thought-I’d-stop-by visit, isn’t it?”

She appeared slighted. “Now, would I be so crude as to use our friendship for my own professional gain?”

The smile never wavered from Schindler’s face. “Every chance you get.” He dropped the files he held to his overloaded desk. Chad watched one slip toward the edge then fall to the floor. He didn’t move to stop it. “What can I do for you, Hannah?”

“What have you heard on the two arrested at PlayCo?”

“The team that unofficially skipped bail from Lower East?”

“That’s them. I need whatever L.E. has on them. Can you handle it?”

“There is nothing I can’t handle, you know that.”

Schindler picked up the telephone and called what Chad guessed was his fellow records clerk at the Manhattan precinct.

“Danny and I go back a ways,” Hannah quietly explained.

“So it seems.” Chad settled his weight more evenly as he listened to Schindler persuade the person on the other end of the line to fax him the information.

“What are the odds on them having something we can use?” Chad asked, shifting through the files strewn across the desk.

Hannah closed a file he had opened. “Better than average. I’m sure PlayCo kept files on them. Whatever was in them was no doubt turned over to the police.” She tried to take another folder from him but he refused to let it go. She sighed. “Would you quit? We could get in enough trouble as it is.”

Chad opened the file and scanned the contents. “You didn’t seem too concerned before.”

“That’s because I’m used to being in trouble with the hierarchy of this precinct.” She pressed her index finger into his chest. “You, on the other hand, could very well be arrested for just being in this room.”

Chad gazed at her finger, then slowly followed it up to her face. The finger against his chest grew suddenly hot. She quickly removed her hand.

“It might be an enjoyable experience. Provided you’re in the cell with me,” he said.

“It took a little doing, but Janice promised to fax the records right over,” Schindler said, hanging up the receiver. As he spoke, a telephone rang in the corner and the fax machine sprang to life. “And here they are now.”

The three of them watched the information roll in. The physical data sheets listed Lisa Furgeson as a thirty-five-year-old female with blond hair and blue eyes, five feet, six inches tall, one hundred and thirty pounds. Eric Persky was a thirty-eight-year-old male with light brown hair and green eyes, six foot two, two hundred and fifty pounds. Grainy black-and-white copies of pictures followed.

“Thanks, Schindler.” Hannah pulled the last page from the holder, looking to where Chad gazed over her shoulder. It took all of his restraint not to curve his arms around her waist and pull her against him, just as he used to do, back before—

He took a step backward, barely aware of putting distance between them. Her closeness reminded him of times he had no right remembering. He watched Schindler offer Hannah a manila folder to put the fax in. Her hands shook as she put the flimsy paper into the file folder. Apparently she was as aware of their closeness as he was.

“It’s a start.” Chad concentrated on something other than the shadow of fear in her wide blue eyes. “Mug shots, charges….” He reached around her, turning the top of the folder open, careful not to touch her as he did so.

Hannah moved farther away from him. He dammed the groundswell of emotion her rejection aroused.

“I’ve…I’ve got to make a phone call.” She hurried away from him and toward Schindler’s desk a few feet away.

“Be my guest,” Danny offered. “You need anything else, give me a yell. Oh, and I think that it goes without saying, but this little…transaction stays between us, okay? The last thing I need is Marconi coming down on me.” He grinned. “I think that’s the last thing you need, too.”

“You can say that again.” The records clerk disappeared between the towering metal shelves. Chad turned his attention back to Hannah. She tugged the slip of paper Blackstone had given her from her pocket and started dialing a number. Chad rubbed the back of his neck, easing the tension bunched there. Who had left her a message at Elliott’s office?

“Hi, it’s Hannah,” she said into the receiver, turning away from where he looked on.

The familiarity of her tone didn’t sit well with Chad.

Had she become involved with someone else since their breakup? He stiffened, something similar to jealousy burning through him. He wanted to take the receiver from her pretty little hand and hang up on whoever was on the other side of the line. Instead, he shoved his hands into his jeans pockets.

“I see,” Hannah said into the phone. Chad slowly stepped around the other side of the desk, watching her brows draw together. What? Trouble in paradise? Good.

She caught him watching her and turned quickly away. “Okay. I can be there in a couple hours. Is that all right? Good, I’ll see you then.”

We’ll see about that, Chad thought, his jaw so tight he couldn’t say a word if he wanted to.

“Who’s Marconi?” Chad asked as they left the precinct.

Hannah vaguely noted the sun had set, but the air showed no sign of cooling. Not unlike her skin, which still tingled from Chad’s nearness in the records room.

It wasn’t fair that she should still be so attuned to Chad’s emotions, feel so much for him. But if there was one thing she learned very early on—a point proved time and again since—it was that life wasn’t always fair.

“He’s the precinct captain.” She glanced back at the plain, stone building. She had once wanted nothing more than to follow in her father’s policeman’s footsteps and become a cop. What she hadn’t counted on was Victor Marconi being just as determined to see her off the force.

It was easy to remember Uncle Vic’s face when he’d told her, “Your father and I went back to Hell’s Kitchen, Hannah. He was more than my partner, he was my best friend. You were your daddy’s little girl, and you’ll remain so in my eyes.”

“I am not a girl, Victor. I’m a woman.”

Mickey D. McGee was the only person who remained untarnished and uncorrupted in Hannah’s heart and memory, unlike the other men in her life. His strength had been equaled only by his faith in a Catholic God that had comforted him after his wife’s death following the birth of their only child. A God she hadn’t been able to turn to when her father was shot and killed in the line of duty when she was only eighteen.