Buch lesen: «Bounty Hunter Honor»

“I’m so scared, Rex. What if he hurts my baby?”

“I’ll tear him apart.” Brave words.

But it was what Nadia needed to hear. She reached up and touched his face. “Thank you.”

He moved into her light caress, craving her touch. And before he knew what was happening, their lips met. Fueled by tension and pent-up feelings, the kiss was not gentle, but Rex didn’t think Nadia wanted gentle. She battled as fiercely as he did. Her hands touched him everywhere, while his got caught in that wonderful cloud of hair.

Rex didn’t know how the kiss had started, or how he’d let it get so out of hand. With Nadia invading his senses, every sane thought flew from his brain. The only thing he did know was that he never wanted it to end.

But it had to end. “Nadia…” he murmured against her mouth.

“Please don’t let go of me. If you stop touching me, the fear will crush me.”

Dear Harlequin Intrigue Reader,

It might be warm outside, but our June lineup will thrill and chill you!

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This month, and every month, we promise to deliver six of the best romantic suspense titles around. Don’t miss a single one!

Sincerely,

Denise O’Sullivan

Senior Editor

Harlequin Intrigue

Bounty Hunter Honor
Kara Lennox

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Texas native Kara Lennox has been an art director, typesetter, textbook editor and reporter. She’s worked in a boutique, a health club and an ad agency. She’s been an antiques dealer and even a blackjack dealer. But no work has made her happier than writing romance novels.

When not writing, Kara indulges in an ever-changing array of weird hobbies. (Her latest passions are treasure hunting and creating mosaics.) She loves to hear from readers. You can visit her Web site and drop her a note at www.karalennox.com.

CAST OF CHARACTERS

Rex Bettencourt—One of the country’s top bounty hunters. But the ex-marine sniper has a terrible secret he’s never confessed to anyone—a secret that could potentially get someone killed.

Nadia Penn—Granddaughter of a KGB defector, research scientist and inventor of the Petro-Nano, an exciting technology that could solve the world’s energy problems—or cause instantaneous global meltdown.

Lily Penn—Nadia’s two-year-old daughter, kidnapped from her stroller right under Nadia’s nose.

Peter Danilov—Nadia’s Russian ex-husband. Handsome, charismatic and very dangerous. He has Lily, and there is only one way Nadia can get her back—turn over the Petro-Nano.

Denise Petrovski, alias “Rat Face”—Peter’s Russian girlfriend. She is blindly loyal to her mother country and crazily in love with Peter. But could she harm an innocent child?

Detective Lyle Palmer—A cop whose incompetence is exceeded only by his ambition—and his resentment of the First Strike Agency bounty hunters.

Detective Craig Cartwright—The only cop any of the bounty hunters trust.

Lori Bettencourt—Rex’s sister and fellow bounty hunter, more clever and capable than anyone gives her credit for.

Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Prologue

Something was wrong. The certainty started as a prickling of unease at the back of Nadia’s neck. But it grew until it twisted in her gut. She glanced first over one shoulder, then the other. Nothing. Nobody.

Then she looked down at the stroller, where her two-year-old daughter had been sleeping soundly while Nadia shopped for baby clothes.

The stroller was empty.

At first, she tamped down her panic and tried to find some logical explanation for Lily’s absence. Had another shopper at the mall found the baby irresistible and picked her up for a quick cuddle? Had Lily, getting more clever with her hands by the day, unfastened her safety strap and crawled out of the stroller herself?

But a quick scan in all directions at the baby store produced no sign of Lily. Around Nadia, other women calmly sifted through tiny, pastel-hued dresses and booties, chatting among themselves. No one sensed the terrible rent in the fabric of Nadia’s reality. But her baby was gone, vanished like a mist.

Abandoning the stroller, Nadia ran out into the mall, looking frantically for her child. Nothing. Everything looked deceptively calm, sickeningly normal. No sinister persons were hurrying off with Lily in their arms.

The panic she’d kept at bay rose again in her chest, in her throat, a scream of horror threatening. No, she told herself sternly, she would not panic. Panic would not make Lily reappear. She would tell a store employee, who would make an announcement and contact security.

A gloved hand around her arm stopped her as she was about to carry out her plan. She turned to find a blond woman with sharp, rodentlike features gazing malevolently at her. The woman was well turned out, in slim black pants and a fitted silk blouse, her hair expertly cut and highlighted, but nothing could have made her pretty given the sneer on her face.

“Not a sound,” she said softly, her voice carrying the trace of cigarettes and a Russian accent. “If you ever want to see your daughter again, you won’t raise an alarm, you won’t call the police, you won’t tell anyone. Do you understand?”

Frozen inside, all Nadia could do was nod. “Is this Peter’s doing?” But she already knew. After her divorce, she’d spent months watching her rearview mirror, screening phone calls, checking the locks on windows and doors. All that time, there’d been no word from her ex-husband. Just within the past couple of weeks, she’d finally begun to feel safe.

She’d been a fool.

The blond woman didn’t answer her question. Instead she handed Nadia a folded piece of paper. “The nonnegotiable terms for Lily’s safe return are here. Follow them to the letter and your daughter will not be harmed.”

Nadia accepted the paper, her hands numb, her whole body turned to cold lead. This wasn’t happening. This could not be happening. She should grab this woman, scream for help. But even as the woman strode confidently away, out of the store and into the mall where she quickly blended in with the crowd, Nadia remained mute, fears for her daughter’s safety paralyzing her.

She opened the folded paper, though she was already pretty sure what the terms would be. She had access to something Peter wanted very badly, and it wasn’t his daughter.

Chapter One

A fugitive with millions of dollars and a group of loyal and capable bodyguards wasn’t the easiest criminal to catch. But the price on Jethro Banner’s head—fifty thousand dollars—was enough to make more than one bounty hunter try.

Most quickly abandoned the quest. But Rex Bettencourt was not the type to give up easily. As a sniper for the Marines’ Maritime Special Purpose Force, he’d learned all he needed to know about patience. He’d once lain on his belly covered with camouflage for two days without food or water, sweating in the intense, steamy heat, letting fist-size bugs crawl over his body without a twitch as he waited for a target to emerge from his secret bunker. Compared to that terrorist warlord, Jethro Banner was a cakewalk.

Sheer doggedness and some hefty bribes in the right circles had yielded Jethro’s location, in a heavily fortified mansion near San Antonio, Texas. A week of surveillance, waiting for an opportunity to take down Jethro when he was alone and vulnerable, was about to pay off. The freelance bomber had broken his molar on a macadamia nut—according to the pool boy on Rex’s payroll—necessitating an emergency trip to the dentist.

Jethro’s bodyguards could not possibly make the dentist’s office totally secure on short notice.

What was even better, Rex had gotten to Jethro’s dentist and persuaded him to inject his patient with a mild tranquilizer, ensuring he would be easy to apprehend.

By the time the fugitive arrived, whining like a six-year-old about the pain, Rex was already waiting in the exam room next door to Jethro’s, wearing a mask and scrubs in case anyone checked. Jethro didn’t question the hypodermic the dentist shot into his mouth—he cared only for his comfort. Within a couple of minutes he was feeling no pain and had a dopey grin on his face, every muscle in his body relaxed.

Rex slipped into the room with Jethro. “I’ll take it from here,” he whispered to the dentist, who nodded. He and his receptionist—the only employee who hadn’t already evacuated—left through the back door.

“Open your mouth, please,” Rex said in what he hoped was a soothing voice. Jethro did as asked, utterly compliant. Rex stuffed cotton into the fugitive’s mouth—enough to muffle his cries of panic when he realized what was going on. His bodyguards were only a few feet away, in the waiting room.

When Jethro resembled a hamster with its cheeks packed with seeds, Rex lifted the armrest on the dentist’s chair and in one swift move pushed the man forward and bent his right arm behind him. “Make a sound and I’ll tear out your shoulder,” Rex said calmly as he captured Jethro’s other arm and cuffed him. There was no resistance and not a peep from the formerly formidable fugitive. Man, whatever the dentist had given him, it had worked.

Rex hauled Jethro to his feet. The man stood precariously for a moment, then toppled like a child’s pile of blocks. Rex caught him before he could hit the floor. “Jethro?”

Easing him down, Rex pulled some of the cotton out of Jethro’s mouth, not wanting to suffocate an unconscious man. Jethro smiled. “Where we goin’, Mama?”

“We’re goin’ for a ride,” Rex answered in a falsetto. “Then some nice FBI agents are going to put you in prison, where you’ll get to be the girlfriend of some guy named Bubba.”

“Okay.”

Rex saw no way around it—he would have to carry the bulky Jethro Banner out of the dentist’s office. The fugitive wasn’t going anywhere under his own steam. He only hoped Lori had brought the Blazer around to the back door as he’d told her to do. His little sister was smart and tough—for a girl—but she was green as a mountain meadow when it came to bounty hunting. He’d only brought her along on this job because at least he could keep an eye on her when she was working with him.

With a sigh he heaved Jethro—who was not a small man—over his shoulder and headed for the storage room, which had a door leading directly to the parking lot.

When he opened the door to the storage room, he stopped cold. Two muscle-bound gorillas stood waiting for him; one of them held a .44 pointed at Rex’s head.

“Going somewhere?” the gorilla with the gun asked.

Hell. Jethro’s bodyguards must have gotten tipped off somehow. Rex dumped Jethro onto the carpet. He could have ducked back into the hallway and drawn his Glock from the holster at the small of his back… His gut twisted at the prospect. He was pretty sure the bodyguard wouldn’t shoot him, he reasoned. A messy murder would only draw unwanted attention to him and his boss, and his prime directive would be to protect Jethro.

“Get Mr. Banner,” the gunman instructed his friend. Gorilla No. 2 stepped over to his inert boss and tried to coax him to his feet, but it was no use. Jethro was barely conscious.

“I can’t carry him by myself,” the bodyguard whined.

“Drag him, then,” the gunman said sharply. “Unless you want to go back to prison.”

This seemed to motivate the second man. He grasped Jethro under the arms and dragged him toward the door. The gunman, his weapon still trained on Rex, opened the door. He’d only gotten it open a couple of inches when it slammed the rest of the way with the force of a cannon shot. In an instinctive move, Rex dived for the floor.

The door hit the gunman square in the face. Lori burst in, deflected his weapon, then did something so fast with her hands that they blurred. The gunman’s weapon flew through the air and landed on a pile of cardboard boxes.

Before the gunman even knew what hit him, Lori had swept one of his feet out from under him. He fell face-down on the floor.

Rex didn’t waste too much time watching his sister in action. He went for Gorilla No. 2, who was so shocked by Lori’s entrance that he didn’t even make a move for his own weapon. Rex came at him full speed, knocking him in the chin with the heel of his hand and snapping his head back. The bodyguard dropped Jethro—who didn’t seem to mind—and stumbled back against a set of shelves. A small box that apparently contained something heavy fell on the goon’s head, stunning him further. Then it was a simple matter for Rex to drag him to the ground and secure his wrists behind him. Thank God he’d thought to bring some zip ties, just in case.

He turned to help Lori but found she already had the first bodyguard neatly hog-tied.

“You were supposed to stay in the car,” Rex growled.

“You’re welcome,” she said sweetly. “Think these other two are wanted for anything? If so, this one’s mine.” She nudged her takedown with her foot.

BACK IN PAYTON, TEXAS, Rex sat behind his desk at the First Strike Agency, plowing through neglected paperwork like an Uzi through balsa wood. He hated paperwork, but it was a necessary evil. He sustained himself through the tedium by picturing himself on a beach in Tahiti, sipping a mai tai, a bikini-clad woman smoothing suntan lotion on his shoulders as he listened to the soothing sound of the surf.

He’d already made the reservations. As soon as he finished here, he was heading to the airport for a long, long overdue vacation. With the reward money from recovering Jethro Banner, he could afford to do it up first-class.

He became so engrossed in one particular mental picture that he closed his eyes to more fully enjoy it. It was only when he opened his eyes again that he realized he was no longer alone in the office. A petite brunette stood in front of his desk, an expectant look on her pixie face.

Images of the bikini woman vanished as reality intruded—although he had to say, in this case, it wasn’t a bad trade-off. The woman staring at him with beseeching dark eyes was small and slender, with a mop of dark curls cascading in defiant disarray around her head and shoulders. Her huge green eyes, topped with dramatically straight, dark brows, were her best feature, but her straight nose and full, pink lips all contributed to a face that was an odd mixture of boldness, intelligence and an undeniable frailty.

She’d probably look okay in a bikini, too.

Unfortunately, he couldn’t miss the terror that lay just beneath the surface of her demeanor, which could mean one of two things, or possibly both: abusive husband-boyfriend, or missing child.

He was not in any shape to take on either of those types of cases right now. One, they didn’t pay enough. Two, in about five minutes he was officially on vacation.

But, damn it, he was the only one at the First Strike office. Everybody else was out working cases, even Lori.

“I’m looking for Rex Bettencourt,” she said, her voice soft, sure, but not without a tiny tremor.

It figured she’d be looking for him. He considered denying all knowledge of any Rex Bettencourt, but he couldn’t turn his back on a woman in trouble. Never had been able to. “That would be me.”

“I read about you in that magazine. They say you’re the best.”

“I am the best,” he confirmed, not out of any need for an ego trip, but because it was true. In the four years since he’d come to work for First Strike, the agency co-founded by his father and his father’s army buddy, Ace McCullough, he’d amassed more reward money than any other bounty hunter in the country. Mostly he managed to do it working in conjunction with law enforcement, so police and federal agents not only welcomed him, but sought him out on tough cases. His success sometimes afforded him unwanted publicity.

“My daughter has been taken.”

Score one for Rex’s instincts. “By her father?”

The woman nodded.

“Why don’t you let me refer you to one of my—”

“No. I want you. You’re the best.”

“The best doesn’t come cheap,” Rex said. Though the First Strike office was his home base, Rex was an independent contractor. Ace, sole owner of First Strike since the death of Rex’s father almost two years ago, let all the bounty hunters charge what they wanted and pursue the cases that interested them, paying a small percentage to the agency in return for an office and administrative support. So long as each brought in a certain minimum—and Rex always far exceeded the minimum—they could handle the job any way they chose.

“I’m prepared to pay whatever it takes,” the woman said.

“I charge five hundred dollars a day plus expenses.” He figured that would scare her off.

She didn’t even blink. “It’s not a problem. Just get my daughter back.”

Rex sighed. He couldn’t say no. The case sounded routine enough. Maybe he could wrap it up in a day or two. He got up, dragged over a chair from a neighboring desk and situated it next to his, rather than on the other side of the desk. He didn’t want any barriers, physical or emotional, between him and his potential client. If he took on her case, they would have to trust each other completely. He refused to work any other way.

She sat down, clutching her brown leather purse in her lap so tightly her knuckles turned white.

Rex picked up a pen and a legal pad. “Your name?”

“Nadia Penn.”

“Tell me what’s going on, Nadia. After I hear your story, I’ll decide whether I can help you. Do you have legal custody of the child?”

“Yes.”

“And the child’s father?”

“My ex-husband. He gave up all parental rights when we divorced six months ago.”

That admission gave Rex pause. What kind of man gave up all rights to his children?

“He was abusive,” she said without hesitating a beat. “He sent me to the hospital with a broken jaw. No court was going to give him custody, and he didn’t want to pay me child support.”

The thought of any man using his fists on such a delicate, defenseless creature made Rex’s gut churn. It was that sliver of compassion he felt for the fairer sex that had ruined him, ended his military career.

“Legal rights aside, has he had contact with his daughter prior to this?” Rex asked. “Have you allowed him to visit?”

“Peter Danilov has no personal interest in Lily. He cares nothing about her. He took her to blackmail me. I have access to something he wants very badly, and he intends to barter for it with my child’s life.”

Good Lord. So much for the simple, straightforward case he’d envisioned. “So, whatever it is, give it to him. Nothing is worth a child’s life.”

“It isn’t that easy.”

He sighed. “This sounds like a matter for the police.”

“Do you know how many children are kidnapped by noncustodial parents? And do you know how little the police care? Anyway, I couldn’t risk it.” Nadia opened her purse and pulled out a plain white sheet of paper, folded. She handed it to him.

He took the paper gingerly by one corner. Ah, hell, why bother? She’d probably already destroyed any potential forensic evidence.

“You can touch it,” she said. “It’s already been analyzed. No prints but mine. Common photocopy paper, Canon Inkjet ink. Nontraceable.”

“I thought you didn’t go to the police.”

“I didn’t. I work in a research lab. I did the analysis myself.”

“Ah.” He tried not to show his surprise. He wouldn’t have pegged this delicate, fairylike creature as a hard-nosed scientist, though he ought to know by now not to let anyone’s outward appearance surprise him. His last stint in Korea should have burned that message into his brain once and for all.

He read the note, which set forth the terms she would have to meet if she wanted to see her daughter alive again. She would be required to deliver a package to a certain place at a certain time, then leave. The package would be picked up, the contents verified. Only then would the child be released at an undisclosed location. She would be notified after the fact.

If she agreed to these terms, she was to go today at 3:00 p.m. to the Forest Ridge Mall food court wearing a red shirt and wait at least fifteen minutes, after which she would be contacted as to where and when to make the drop.

Peter Danilov obviously liked cloak-and-dagger games. Such an affinity for drama could be used against him.

Rex asked Nadia the obvious. “What does Peter want from you?” The note simply referred to a “package,” which Rex assumed meant Nadia knew what it was.

“I can’t tell you that.”

“And I can’t win this game playing with only half a deck.”

“I can’t tell you without breaching the security of the United States,” she said quietly. “But suffice it to say, it’s something very dangerous. I could never put it into Peter’s hands. Which is why I need you to get my baby back.”

National security? Dangerous?

“Whoa, wait a minute. You don’t by any chance work for—”

“JanCo Labs.”

Ah, hell. JanCo Labs was a huge facility tucked away in the piney woods of East Texas a few miles from Payton. The lab worked almost exclusively on top secret government contracts—everything from gene splicing to weapons technology.

Rex was intrigued despite himself.

“Do you have any way to contact Peter?”

“No.”

“Do you have any idea where he might have taken your daughter?”

“No, I’m sorry. I’ve had no contact with him for months.”

“Do you believe he will actually harm Lily?”

She hesitated. “He never physically hurt her before. But I do know one thing. If he suspects even for a moment that I’ve come to you or anyone for help, he will spirit Lily off to Russia with him, and I will never see her again.”

NADIA ENDURED the next hour of tedious questions solely because she knew Rex Bettencourt was her only hope.

She hadn’t been too sure when she’d first walked up to the First Strike Agency. She’d read of his impressive success rate in a national magazine and had considered it an extremely lucky break that the bounty hunter was based in her own backyard. But when she’d seen his place of business, with its faded, tattered awning and grimy windows, she’d been less than impressed. First Strike was in a bad area of town to begin with, sandwiched between a bail bondsman and a pawnshop. But even if the neighborhood hadn’t discouraged her, the office itself would have.

Narrow and deep, the office housed a half-dozen mismatched desks scattered haphazardly around the room. There didn’t seem to be a reception desk, or anything to welcome a walk-in customer. In the back corner was a home gym setup and some free weights.

As she tiptoed across the ripped indoor-outdoor carpeting toward the only occupied desk, she’d taken in the gallery of Wanted posters with darts protruding from the faces and the stacks of magazines—Soldier of Fortune, Guns & Ammo, Fast Car—decorating the desks.

The only computer in the room was a big, beige clunker grimy with fingerprints.

But then she’d seen Rex. Although his face had not appeared in the magazine article she’d read, she’d somehow known instantly that the man seated behind a desk at the back of the room was Rex Bettencourt. With military-short, sun-bleached hair and a deep tan even in the dead of winter, his posture had communicated the sort of supreme confidence she was looking for. And from the moment he’d opened his mouth to speak, she’d known he was the man who could get her little girl back safe and sound. His impressive muscles made him look dangerous, but the intelligence behind his green eyes assured her he was also capable.

“You haven’t given me much to work with,” Rex said when he’d run out of questions. “A description of a woman who smokes with a rodent face and an accent isn’t much help. Are you sure you’ve never seen this woman before?”

“I know I’ve never met her. But now that I’ve had a chance to think about it, to go over it in my mind, she seems familiar somehow. I may have seen her before—at a party, in a crowd.”

“She might have been following you.”

Nadia shivered at the idea of being watched. Her Russian grandmother had risked her life to come to this country, where she could be free, where her movements were not constantly monitored or her motives challenged. Nadia had been raised to appreciate her freedom, her relative safety.

Peter had taken that away from her.

“I know I haven’t given you much,” Nadia said. “But someone will be at the mall to spot me. Maybe it will be the woman again. You could follow her.”

“If you spot her. Or if he doesn’t send someone else, someone you wouldn’t recognize.”

“When he contacts me again, then,” Nadia said.

“Peter probably won’t send another messenger with a piece of paper. He’ll try something different this time, maybe a phone call from a throwaway cell phone.”

“He’s bound to drop some kind of clue,” Nadia said. “And if he doesn’t, you can follow whoever picks up the package after I make the drop.”

“If you aren’t planning to give Peter what he wants, what will you put in the package?”

“Something that will look real enough that it will fool him for at least a while. He’ll have the contents verified, but it will take some time. We have to find her before he discovers the truth.”

“We’ll do the best we can.”

She searched his eyes, hoping to find reassurance there. But his expression was grim. “You’re thinking he might have already hurt her.”

“We have to consider all possibilities.”

Nadia’s eyes swam with tears. She did not want to hear this, yet she knew Rex spoke the truth. Peter was not honorable. He was a spy, a traitor to a country that had given him a chance, offered him sanctuary, embraced him as one of its own. He had no reason to keep Lily alive or deliver her unharmed, even if she gave him the Petro-Nano.

“I’m not trying to scare you,” Rex said. “I’m just making sure you understand the terrible position we’re in. He has all the cards. We have to find a way to upset the balance of power. And the first thing, I think, is to force him to open two-way communications.”

“But I have no way of forcing him to do anything,” Nadia said, calming down. Rex’s commanding presence was almost comforting, despite the fact he was big and powerful and a little bit scary. Her experience with Peter had taught her just how much pain a man could inflict on a small woman like her. And Rex was taller, larger, undoubtedly stronger than Peter.

“We will find a way.”

“Does that mean you’re taking me on as a client?”

He looked slightly bemused. “I’m sure talking like that’s the case.”