The Bounty Hunter's Baby Surprise

“Stay down!” he yelled at her over the sound of the wind rushing through the shattered windows.

Even if she hadn’t been paralyzed with fear, she wasn’t about to move, not at the risk of getting hit by one of the flying bullets.

“And hang on,” he added, as he jerked the wheel and careened around a corner.

Lillian’s shoulder bumped against the passenger’s door, and she grimaced. But she wasn’t worried about her shoulder. She was worried about her baby. She couldn’t risk anything happening to her unborn child—to their unborn child.

“You have to slow down!” she yelled back at him.

“If I slow down, they’ll catch us,” he countered.

But he must have slowed down enough that the van had caught up with them because something rammed against the back bumper, sending the pickup into a spin.

Lillian grabbed tightly on to the seat and screamed. Earlier she’d been worried about losing her freedom. Now she was worried about losing her life.

* * *

What the hell had Donny Davies done? Guilt weighed heavily on his thin chest, making it difficult for him to breathe.

Lillian had trusted him...

But then the rest of the family had trusted her. And she’d betrayed them with that damn bounty hunter, Jake Howard. She had literally been sleeping with the enemy. She claimed she hadn’t known who he was. But she hadn’t stepped in and stopped the man from taking Dad and Dave into custody. From collecting his bounty.

Sure, she’d been crying, but it had been about the man lying to her. Not about her family getting arrested. Just like Gran, she’d always disapproved of the things some of the Davies family did.

She and Gran would certainly disapprove of what Donny had done. But Dad and Dave had declared that they owed her nothing now...

She was no longer one of them.

But since she hadn’t shown up for court that day, she was a fugitive now. So maybe for the first time in her twenty-five years, Lillian was one of them.

What would it cost her?

Her freedom?

Or her life?

The people after her were more dangerous than Donny had realized. And he had betrayed them, too. But unlike her, he had a place to hide where no one would find him.

Not even her.

He lay in the dark, unable to sleep, barely breathing, as he fingered the plastic device in his hand. What the hell should he do with it?

The right thing?

The thing his sister had asked him to do in the first place? Just like she’d asked him to stick with school and not resort to the life of crime the rest of their family lived. But Davieses rarely did the right thing.

Even Lillian.

She had made some big mistakes. Jake Howard was the biggest one, though. It was his fault that it had come to this, that her own family had turned against her.

So whatever happened to her was Jake’s fault.

Not his...

Chapter 4

His knuckles ached, straining from his efforts, as Jake clutched the steering wheel, fighting to keep it from spinning out of his grasp as the old truck careened wildly across the road.

Crouched yet in the small space between the dash and the front seat, Lillian screamed in fear. It wasn’t safe for her down there. She could hit her head on the passenger’s door or the dash. But it was better than getting it blown off.

The men in the van kept firing at them. Bullets pinged off the metal and cracked what was left of the glass.

He steered the truck out of the tailspin the van had sent it into when it had slammed into the rear bumper. Before the men could catch up again, Jake pressed hard on the accelerator. The truck jerked forward, and Lillian’s forehead bumped against the dash.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“No!” Her voice cracked with fear.

At least she hadn’t lost consciousness.

Unfortunately, he hadn’t lost the van yet, either. Bright lights glinted off his rearview mirror as the van accelerated, too, closing the distance between the vehicles again. He had to move faster.

“Hang on!” he warned her. Then he gunned the engine.

A whimper of fear slipped between her lips. He wanted to reach out and reassure her. But then he reminded himself that this was all her fault. Those men were shooting at them because of her.

“You must know who these guys are,” he insisted. “They showed up at your grandma’s house.”

“They must have followed you there,” she said.

Damn it. She was right. If these were the guys Mrs. Truman had talked about, the ones who’d shown up at Lillian’s place, they hadn’t seen the things she’d left behind six months ago. They couldn’t have learned what he had. But they might have staked out her apartment in case she showed up there. And they’d seen him instead.

“They probably don’t even know I’m in this truck,” she continued.

And they might not. He hadn’t known that she was inside it when he’d jumped into his truck. But she hadn’t just been inside it, she’d been trying to steal it. She couldn’t have known the rusted old pickup was his, though.

Could she?

He hadn’t used this vehicle when he’d been dating her. He’d used his pleasure vehicle instead, an old Chevrolet Nova he’d restored himself. This old truck was his work vehicle because its big block engine had more power. But at the moment it wasn’t fast enough.

“The last place I was before driving out here was your apartment. If they followed me...” And how the hell had they managed that without his noticing? “...then they followed me from there.”

The truck lurched forward as the van struck again. Metal crunched. He wasn’t sure if it was the truck’s rear bumper or the front of the van. He hoped like hell it was the front of the van. Maybe they’d disable their own damn vehicle.

“Lose them!” she yelled at him.

Her voice cracked now with anger. She wasn’t the sweet soft-spoken woman he remembered and whom he’d spent the past eight months missing. But then she must have never actually been that woman—the one he had started to fall for.

No, she was definitely a Davies.

Not that she didn’t have every right to be mad, with people shooting at them and trying to run them off the road.

Jake’s pulse pounded with fury. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so angry. He could remember the last time he’d felt helpless, though—when Lillian had sobbed heartbrokenly as he’d taken her dad and oldest brother into custody. He hadn’t been able to make her understand he’d just been doing his job.

But he suspected now that she’d always known who he was. She’d probably been playing him just as she must have played her boss when she’d embezzled money from the company for which she’d worked.

No matter what she’d done, though, he didn’t want anyone to hurt her. And with the way those guys had opened fire in the cottage, it certainly looked as though someone was trying to kill them. Jake didn’t intend to die, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to let anyone harm Lillian.

He pressed harder on the accelerator. But then he took one hand from the steering wheel and pulled his gun from his holster. He extended it through the shot-out back window and using the rearview mirror, he took aim and fired at the van. Over and over again.

Glass shattered and the van tires squealed as it braked and then slipped into a skid. While it careened out of control behind them, Jake accelerated more and increased the distance between them. Despite this, he was tempted to turn back and find out who the hell they were and if he’d hit any of them...

But he glanced down at Lillian crouched yet on the floorboards, and he knew that he couldn’t risk it. He couldn’t risk her life.

If he hadn’t been outnumbered...

But even if he’d hit one or two of them, he would still be outnumbered. There had been so many of them firing at him in her grandmother’s house.

They had to be after her.

And he intended to find out why.

He steered around a couple of sharp hairpin curves, nearly raising the truck onto two wheels as he did. Then he spied a slight space between trees on the side of the street. It was probably some old two-track road leading back to an old cabin or an oil well. He braked and turned onto the nearly obscured trail. He turned so fast that the truck nearly flipped over on the passenger’s side.

And Lillian screamed again.

“Sorry,” he said. “I’m trying to lose them.” And so far it looked as though he had.

The truck bounced along the rough road, as he continued down the two-track, deeper into the trees. Night had fallen, but the moon was big and bright enough that it might reveal their location unless he drove farther from the main road. Of course, if those guys found them Jake wouldn’t be able to escape with the truck.

He and Lillian would have to outrun the men on foot. As shot up as the truck was, that might not be a bad idea, even now. He wasn’t sure how much farther the beat-up old pickup could make it.

He stopped the truck and glanced out the back window to make sure they were deep enough into the woods so that they wouldn’t be seen from the road. But before he could even put the vehicle in Park, the passenger’s door opened—flashing on the dome light as she jumped out.

“Lillian!”

If the van went past and saw the light in the trees, their hiding place was blown. But she seemed more intent on getting away from him than the shooters.

Had she set up the ambush?

Jake followed her out and slammed the door shut behind him. But he couldn’t see her in the trees. He could only hear the occasional snap of a branch and the rustle of brush as she ran. She wasn’t getting away from him that easily.

But as he started after her, he heard the squeal of tires against pavement as a vehicle braked on the street. Maybe finding her was the least of his concerns right now. He had to worry instead that they had been found. And if the shooters had been determined to kill him before, they would be even more determined now that he had fired back at them.

Who the hell was after Lillian?

And where the hell had she gone?

* * *

Branches slapped Lillian in the face, making her gasp in shock and pain as she rushed through the underbrush. Twigs snapped beneath her feet and briars caught her pants, tugging on the thin knit maternity leggings. She heard fabric tear and felt the sting of the thorns scratching her skin.

Tears stung her eyes at the pain. But she rushed ahead, even though she had no idea where she was going. She didn’t even have any idea where she was. She might keep running and fall right off a bluff into Lake Michigan.

This wasn’t smart. But neither was staying where men were shooting and trying to run her off the road. Had they been looking for her at all? She hadn’t been in the cottage. And they couldn’t have known that she had been in the truck with Jake. Nobody had been around when she’d jumped into it.

So who were they really after?

Since they had shown up at her grandmother’s cottage, she suspected it was her—just as Jake had claimed—and he had just gotten caught in the cross fire. But she couldn’t trust him to protect her. He’d already proved that she couldn’t trust him at all.

Briars and brush tripped her, and she stumbled forward, falling onto her knees. A curse slipped through her lips as she reached for her belly, pressing her hands over it. She hadn’t fallen on the mound that was her baby, though. And she hadn’t hit the baby bump on the dash or the door while the men had been crashing into the truck and Jake had been driving like a mad man.

He was mad now.

She’d heard him shout her name just as she’d slipped into the trees and the darkness. She needed to get up and keep running. But her lungs burned and she struggled to breathe.

It wasn’t just the exertion from her run that had stolen her breath away. It was fear.

Men had been shooting at them.

Trying to run them off the road.

She’d suspected before how much danger she’d been in. That was why she’d spent the past six months awaiting her court date hiding out in Florida. But now she knew for certain. Somebody had literally come gunning for her. And it hadn’t been just Jake.

Jake...

The baby leaped beneath her palms. He was doing somersaults, just like Lillian’s heart was within her chest. Every snap of a twig or branch made it flip again. Somebody was coming after her.

And it didn’t matter if it was one of those armed gunmen or Jake, she had to run. She had to get away. She couldn’t let anyone catch her.

She couldn’t let anyone catch them.

She rubbed her palms over her belly again before she moved her hands to the ground and pushed herself to her feet. It wasn’t easy to move quickly—not now. Just getting up from a chair took a concerted effort because of the size of her belly. And it—and her baby—was still growing.

She had weeks yet to go. She couldn’t go into early labor, couldn’t risk her baby coming too soon. Or worse yet, not coming at all.

She needed to be careful. But staying behind to get shot or dragged back to jail was more dangerous than running through the woods in the dark.

Wasn’t it?

She wasn’t sure what was in the woods, either. Gran had told her that dangerous animals had recently been spotted in the area. Coyotes. Black bears.

She was less worried about the four-legged animals than she was the two, so she forced herself to keep going through the woods. Maybe she would come upon another road and a car she could wave down to drive her away. But did anyone stop for hitchhikers anymore?

She wasn’t just any hitchhiker, though. She was an obviously pregnant one. Surely, someone would take pity on her and offer to help her.

First, she had to find that road, though. The woods just kept getting thicker and thicker, the trees growing taller and closer together, the underbrush so dense she could barely fight her way through it. As she crashed into an impenetrable wall of briar bushes, her breath escaped in a hiss of pain.

But before she could turn back to find a way around that thorny wall, a strong hand wrapped tightly around her arm. She couldn’t see who had grabbed her. She could see nothing but darkness and the faint shadows of the tall trees.

She parted her lips to scream, but before any sound could escape, a palm clasped over her mouth—muffling her voice and her breath.

Was this person trying to silence her for just the moment or forever? If it was one of the thugs that Mr. Kuipers must have sent after her, it was undoubtedly meant to silence her forever.

* * *

Seymour Tuttle jumped as the phone on his desk rang. He should have been expecting it. As a bondsman, his phone rang constantly with people needing to be bailed out. Generally, they needed to wait until morning before a judge set the bail amount. But often Seymour was the first call they made from jail—so he’d be ready to post their bond when they were able to get out.

If they were able to get out...

Why had the judge granted Lillian Davies bail? Based on her family history alone, she should have been ruled a flight risk. But why had Seymour posted that bail, especially after Jake had warned him against ever bonding out another Davies?

No matter how old he was, and he didn’t want to think about how old that was, he was still a sucker for a pretty face. And they didn’t come much prettier than Lillian Davies. Although she looked like an angel with her pale blond hair and blue eyes, she was apparently a devil like the rest of her damn family. At least that was what Jake Howard believed.

Maybe this was Jake calling him with an update. The guy was good—his best damn bounty hunter.

With a sigh, he dropped his greasy burger onto his desk, wiped his hand on the polyester pants which matched the polyester suit jacket slung over the back of his chair and picked up the phone. “Tuttle Bonds...”

“Tuttle,” a raspy voice said.

It wasn’t Jake’s. His was even deeper than this guy’s, if it was even a guy calling and not someone just disguising her voice. Sometimes people did that from jail because they were embarrassed at having been arrested. And like Seymour was going to record their call and broadcast it.

He didn’t care about his clients’ reputations. He only cared about getting his money.

“Yeah, this is Tuttle,” he confirmed for the caller.

“Did you send someone after Lillian Davies?”

Speak of the devil...

Or speaking to her?

No. Her voice had been too light and soft ever to become this raspy.

“That’s none of your business,” he remarked.

“It’s a matter of public record that you posted her bail,” the voice replied. Irritation cleared away some of the fake raspiness. The caller was a man, but Seymour wasn’t sure if he’d ever heard the voice before.

Could it be one of her brothers? Or her dad? Of course, then the call would have come from prison and he would have needed to accept the charges. No. It couldn’t be one of them—at least not one of the ones Jake had already apprehended for Seymour and the courts.

“That’s public record,” Seymour agreed. “Not whether or not I sent someone after her.”

“Stands to reason you’ll want your money back.”

“Stands to reason,” Seymour agreed.

“But if you’re a reasonable man, you’ll forget about the money.”

“I will?” Now he was intrigued. Just what the hell was this caller’s agenda? To have him let Lillian Davies go?

“Yeah, I’m sure you value your life much more than you do your wallet.” The line clicked and went dead before Seymour could laugh.

Whoever had called didn’t know him very damn well. Of course he valued his wallet over his life. Without money, life wasn’t worth living anyway.

If this caller had meant to scare him off, he’d done just the opposite. He’d only made Seymour that much more determined to bring her in.

Had it been a member of her family who’d called him? But most of them knew him. They knew that he wouldn’t back down from tracing a skip. So if it wasn’t a Davies, who the hell else was involved with Lillian Davies and why didn’t he want her brought to jail?

Seymour needed to get hold of Jake and find out what the guy had learned so far. Of course, he hadn’t been on the case very long. But then Jake had never needed much time—except that last time—to track down a Davies.

He’d taken weeks to bring in Lillian’s dad and brother Dave. And Seymour couldn’t help but wonder if during those weeks, something had happened between Jake and Lillian—something that Jake hadn’t wanted to talk about.

Not that Jake ever wanted to talk.

All he wanted to do was his job. And that was why he was Seymour’s best bounty hunter. Had the hunter caught his bounty yet?

He punched in the speed dial for Jake’s cell, but the phone rang several times before finally going to voice mail. And a strange chill chased down Seymour’s spine.

How the hell had that caller known he’d sent someone after Lillian? Had he run into Jake?

Had something happened to Seymour’s best bounty hunter?

Chapter 5

Damn it!

Jake had pressed his hand over Lillian’s mouth to keep her quiet, but then his phone kept vibrating in his pocket. While the ringer was off, the vibration let off a sound—one that seemed loud in the silence of the woods.

Lillian struggled in his grasp, trying to break free of him. Then she clawed at his arms, so that he loosened his grip on her and his palm slipped away from her mouth. Partially free of his grasp, she jerked forward only to cringe and whimper as she struck that wall of briar bushes again.

The woods were full of briars and thorn bushes, and she must have lost a few strands of hair on each one. That was how he’d tracked her: every pale blond strand had glistened in the moonlight as if they were strands of light instead of strands of hair.

“Careful,” he whispered. “You’re going to hurt yourself.” If she hadn’t already...

He knew from experience how soft and silky her skin was. She probably had several scratches and scrapes. He felt a few on his arms, and his skin was hardly soft and silky. Of course, those scratches were from her nails.

He remembered how they’d felt running down his back as he’d moved inside her and she’d writhed beneath him, seeking release. Despite her sweetness, she’d been so passionate. But he knew now, she wasn’t really that sweet.

“Jake,” she gasped his name.

“Shh,” he said, as he peered into the darkness. He couldn’t see much more than shadows, but he knew those men were out there. The sharp snap of twigs breaking echoed throughout the forest. “They’ll find us.”

They must have seen that moment when the dome light had flashed on—because the van had stopped on the road. And unfortunately, he must not have hit any of them when he’d fired at them. Or they would have been heading to a hospital instead of crashing through the woods, searching for them.

Damn it!

Who the hell were these guys? They were nearly as determined as he was to catch Lillian. Or was it really her they were after? Had they seen her in the truck with him before he’d shoved her below the dash?

He’d made some enemies as a bounty hunter and even more before that, as a US marshal. But nobody had recently come after him. The only person who’d been bothering Jake was Lillian. But that was just in his dreams, when he’d managed to sleep at all the past eight months.

So Jake couldn’t know for certain who these guys were really after—unless they caught them. And he wasn’t going to allow that to happen.

“Come on,” he whispered, and he grasped her arm again. This time he led her through the woods. But as he led her, his phone began to vibrate again.

“Shh,” she murmured to him.

A curse slipped through his lips. Whoever the hell was calling him needed to give up. He didn’t have time to talk at the moment. And if he did, it was Lillian he’d talk to; he wanted to know what the hell was going on, why these men were after her, if she was the intended target.

Had Seymour subcontracted with more bounty hunters than him and the O’Hanigans? As if the O’Hanigans weren’t bad enough.

Jake was tempted to pitch his phone into the underbrush. But he might need it to call for backup. Not that he had many options. Since leaving the US Marshals, he worked alone, although he had a few old contacts he could call if he got in a jam.

But he’d never gotten into anything he hadn’t been able to get out of, except Lillian. Something had happened when he’d been seeing her; he’d felt like he was going under and that he’d never break free to the surface again.

But that was before he’d learned about her arrest and had finally been able to see her clearly. Figuratively, at least. Literally, he could barely see her now. She was just a shadow beside him, except for her silvery blond hair. That would be like a beacon drawing the gunmen toward them. He needed to find a place to hide her.

The pungent odor of pines reached his nose. And for the first time in a long time, he let in a memory from his childhood—one of hiding beneath the pines in his backyard. It was what he’d been hiding from that he blocked from rushing back. He had to stay focused right now.

He crouched low and tugged Lillian down beside him. She moved slowly, though—almost too slowly. Once she was on the ground next to him, he pulled back the low boughs of the nearest pine tree and, leaning close, whispered in her ear, “Crawl under there.”

She shivered. It was colder here—in the darkness of the woods—and damp near the ground. She might have hesitated just because she was cold, but when another twig snapped nearby, she froze entirely.

Jake reached out to push her under the bough and as he touched her waist, he felt a jolt. It wasn’t tiny like he remembered. It was swollen over her distended belly. As he slid his hand over that belly, he felt another jolt as a little foot kicked him.