“Have you had enough to eat?” she asked.
Perry was already pulling the blankets back on his bed, keeping her in his arms while adjusting their bodies until they lay next to each other in his bed. “I have for now,” he growled, nipping at her ear. “You should take a nap, too. You’re going to need to be rested. I have a feeling I’m going to wake up a starving man.”
“There will be plenty for you to eat when you wake up.” She cuddled in next to him, the warmth of his body enveloping her and assuring her once again she was home, for good.
Home was where her heart was, and she had known she’d find it if she came back.
Read on for an excerpt from the next book
by Lorie O’ Clare
Coming soon from St. Martin’s Paperbacks
Greg King loved not having to worry about getting a warrant. But if he shot to kill, he would face murder charges. He really did hate some of the laws on the books.
Keeping his Glock pointed to the ground, he hit the street, humidity causing his shirt to cling to him like a second skin. It wasn’t even light out yet. It would be another scorcher, tolerable only if he nailed the fugitive they’d been tracking since two AM before the sun got too high in the sky.
And they said life would be boring once he retired from the LAPD.
“Marc, you in place?” he hissed into his Bluetooth.
“Yup,” Marc whispered in his ear, sounding somewhat winded. “Stationary and ready for fireworks.”
“Jake, what’s it like out front?”
“All quiet. He’s still in there.” Jake’s anxious tone sounded as if he were running high on adrenaline.
But then, weren’t they all. It had been one hell of a night.
“I’m going in,” Greg informed his sons.
Marc and Jake both loved the kill, although technically no one died. Or they weren’t supposed to. Greg and his sons were only paid when they brought their prey in alive. A dead fugitive was no good to the bondsman who’d hired them, or in this case, bondswoman.
Greg knew the craving to make the bust, bring down the fugitive, and slap on those cuffs, ran strong enough in his blood that both of his boys would get high from the adventure just like he did. Pulling all-nighters like this never got old. Dealing with the bureaucratic red tape that forced him to wait on judges’ signatures and stalling until he got the go-ahead from his senior officers got old as hell. Those days were behind him now. Being a bounty hunter allowed him freedom to do exactly what he planned on doing right now, and would have killed to do for the past twenty years.
Greg cut between the dilapidated house and the house next door where Charlie Woods supposedly lived, moving silently in spite of his size. Size did matter. No one would convince him otherwise. But Greg knew how to move his over-six-foot-tall body-six foot four inches to be exact-without disturbing a soul. There wasn’t any reason to wake the entire neighborhood simply because Pedro thought he could jump bail and make a run for it. Charlie was a known member of the Hell Cats, a gang Pedro Gutierrez had once belonged to. According to reliable sources, Pedro was hiding out at Charlie’s. Greg wouldn’t learn the truth by simply knocking on the door.
He reached the backyard and hurried across the lawn, slowing when he reached the metal screen door. He kept his gun down, pulling the door open with his left hand, then braced it with his body as he turned the handle on the door.
“Are you in?” Jake demanded, his whispered question sounding as if he stood right behind his father.
Greg took his hand off the doorknob and adjusted the earpiece so his son wasn’t yelling in his ear.
“It’s locked,” he growled, having half a mind to shoot the fucking doorknob off the door. “I’m trying the windows.”
“We’re coming in through the front,” Marc decided, breaking in on the conversation.
“Like hell,” Greg said, keeping his voice to a barely audible whisper. “He’s fucking armed and dangerous. We’re working against a ticking time bomb. You two wait for my go-ahead.”
Already he was around the back of the house, edging his way to the nearest window. It was probably a bedroom window and quite possibly where their guy might be hiding out. Greg stared at the dark window, blinds, possibly curtains, or even a mattress, that were making it impossible to see inside. The storm window was up, though, and the window wasn’t so high off the ground or too small that he couldn’t haul his rather large frame through it if he moved quickly. The element of surprise was his only advantage right now.
“Go ahead and call in backup,” Greg told Marc.
“I’m on it,” his son announced.
Greg didn’t bother asking if that meant they were already on their way or not. They would get here when they got here. Greg wasn’t waiting.
Sliding his gun into his holster, Greg pulled out his pocketknife and flipped it open. It wasn’t the kind of knife most fathers carried around with them. The razor-sharp blade would cut through the metal of the screen frame if he wanted it to. Instead, he sliced the screen, imagining their fugitive would probably try suing if he owned this dump and charging him for breaking and entering plus vandalizing his home. It wouldn’t be the first time.
Maybe he didn’t get the protection offered when he wore the uniform. He had to be careful how he went about making his arrests. But at least today red tape was something he would slice through with his handy little pocketknife. Greg ran his own show these days. All that mattered was that the bonds company got their fugitive and Greg got his check.
He sliced the screen, starting in the top left corner and gutting it down the middle, then cutting along the bottom until the screen peeled to the side for him. Greg reached through it, feeling it scrape his damp flesh above his leather glove, and pushed the window up. It lifted with a whiny squeak, obviously complaining from lack of use.
“I’m heading in,” he whispered to his sons. “Move now!”
Greg King wasn’t a small man. More than once in his life, living in Los Angeles, people had asked if he was a professional wrestler. His size didn’t bother him, and it wouldn’t slow him down now. Snapping his pocketknife shut and sheathing it into the leather case attached to his belt, Greg hoisted himself through the window, feeling the wooden frame of the window rake over his shoulders and then his legs. He fell to his side on a dirty wooden floor and immediately pulled his gun, forcing his eyes to adjust quickly to his surroundings as he looked around.
Other than a box spring and mattress that didn’t have a sheet or blankets on it, there wasn’t any furniture in the room. Crumpled fast-food bags and crunched beer cans gave the room the appearance of being one big trash dump.
“Did you hear that?” a man asked from the other room.
“Sounds like we have company.” The thick Hispanic accent sounded just like Pedro Gutierrez, a well-known drug lord and arms dealer who’d been arrested last month and yesterday afternoon failed to show up for court. His probation officer couldn’t find him and the bondswoman was getting nervous.
It was a stupid move on Pedro’s part. He obviously didn’t check the statistics before deciding to run. No criminal ran from Los Angeles and got away. This was his town and Greg was too good. His track record spoke for itself.
“Who the fuck is back there?” the man roared, obviously not afraid at all of the boogeyman being in a dark bedroom.
Nor did he turn on the bedroom light as he stormed in, which was just fine with Greg.
“Hello, Pedro,” he said calmly, pointing his gun straight at the man’s face.
Pedro apparently had no manners. He didn’t return the greeting but instead hauled ass toward the other end of the house. Greg charged after him, feeling the house shake from the two of them running through it.
It wasn’t a long hallway, but Greg didn’t catch the shadow in time that appeared from the bedroom across the hall. He saw the baseball bat, heard the whooshing sound when it sliced through the air.
“Son of a bitch,” he wailed, turning and raising his arm. He braced himself for the pain he’d experience in the next moment as he planned on smacking the bat out of his assailant’s hands.
Intense pain shot across his shoulder and down his spine. The bat hit the side of his neck, just above his
