Hero for Hire Read online

  Please, Terry, please be okay.

  With a soft oath, Rick lifted his feet off the table, setting his chair back down. “Here.” He shoved the cup of water beneath her nose. “Drink.”

  She sniffed and shook her head.

  “Damn it, not again. Drink.”

  “No.”

  “You just said you were thirsty, and now you’re not? Women!”

  “This has nothing to do with my being female.”

  “Then what’s your problem?”

  “What is my problem! I worked sixty hours this week, and now it is the middle of the night and I am so tired I can hardly see straight. Oh, and yes, I am handcuffed to a kidnapper.”

  “I am not a kidnapper.”

  He looked genuinely horrified, which made her let out a short laugh. “Right. A terrorist, then. I am handcuffed to a terrorist. My apologies.”

  “And I’m not a terrorist!”

  “Then let me go.”

  “Tell me where Terry is.”

  “So you can terrorize her for the jewels you think she embezzled? She is dead! Dead, I told you.” Her voice cracked on that last word and she shut her mouth. Then she let out a long breath, her shoulders sagging as exhaustion came on like a freight train. She looked at her feet, her bare toes void of toenail polish and toe rings—as Terry’s would not have been. “And I feel very alone, if you want the truth. Alone and...” She wouldn’t say frightened, she wouldn’t admit that much.

  Slowly he uncoiled and came to his full height, forcing her to stand, as well. Slowly he looked her up and then down, reminding her that she was not dressed, not even close.

  Her nipples hardened, though she wasn’t cold. She crossed her arms over her chest, but he’d noticed, he’d definitely noticed, and something in his eyes shifted, warmed. Even his voice sounded husky. “I’m not a kidnapper, and definitely not a terrorist,” he said in a tone that made her knees wobbly. “I’m not a stranger, either. I introduced myself.”

  Standing so close to him, so close she could see the light reflecting in the depths of his spectacular green eyes, could see his long, dark lashes and a small but jagged scar over one brow, she felt an odd unfurling in her belly. A heat.

  She should step back, wanted to step back, but was unwilling to let him see he could wrangle a reaction from her.

  Even if she didn’t understand that reaction.

  It was the oddest thing—she was quite literally bound to him, but she felt...free. It had been so long, so very long, since she’d been able to let herself go, to react as she wanted.

  Actually, she’d never let herself go. Had never let herself react, except in a way that had been completely acceptable to her family.

  A little stunned at the realization, she stared at him.

  Frowning, he lifted their joined hands, clearly misinterpreting her expression. “I would let you go for the truth. It’s important.”

  “I should tell you everything I know, while you tell me exactly nothing.” It felt good to say what was on her mind, to not hold back. “That is fair, right?”

  He was not nearly as pleased with her “freedom” as she was. “Are you twisting this all around on purpose? I told you I wouldn’t hurt you. And I wouldn’t hurt your sister.”

  “No, actually you never did tell me that last part.”

  He stared at her for a long moment. “I beg your pardon. Let me tell you now. I would never hurt your sister. Are you admitting she’s alive?”

  He’d very nearly caught her, hadn’t he? He was very, very good.

  She would have to be better. “I am admitting nothing. And neither have you.”

  He inhaled deeply, then slowly let out his breath. “Okay. Fine. You win. The man who hired me to find Terry, he’s the man in the picture I showed you.” He took the Polaroid out of his pocket with his free hand and held it out.

  She grabbed it, looked down at it into her sister’s happy face and felt her heart crack. “This is at Carnival.”

  “Yes, a year and a half ago.”

  “I was in London.”

  “And she was with him.”

  “She did not have a boyfriend, she never did. She enjoyed men, too much to stick with just one.”

  “They were lovers.”

  “Only for one night then.”

  “Yes,” he agreed. “Only for the one night. He woke up and she was gone, without even sharing her name. ‘It’s all in the eyes’ was all she’d told him when he asked.”

  “Terry truly believed the eyes were mirrors to the soul.”

  Rick rewarded her with a smile that quite simply stole her breath. Meu Deus, but she hoped he didn’t use that weapon often.

  He looked at the picture again. “Mitch went back to the States the next day, but he’s never forgotten your sister. Things were busy in his life and work for a while and he was injured on the job. But now he’s free, and he wants to find her.”

  He wasn’t looking at her, and she knew there was more, much more. “To sleep with her again?” she asked.

  “I think he wants more than that.” He met her gaze then. “It seems very important to him.”

  Could he be distracting her with sentiment to get information?

  Would he?

  His eyes were deep and full of mysteries. His face blank. He was a ruthless, dangerous man, not to be trusted. She looked at the picture again, too. Terry and the man were gazing into each other’s eyes with more than just the lust of the Carnival and good drink. There was affection with all that heat, and seeing it, when Terry hadn’t been overly fond of sharing her heart, made Nina want to believe.

  It would feel good to have an ally in this terror, but to admit that seemed weak.

  Yet even more disturbing was the fact that while she was truly terrified for Terry, she was not terrified for herself. Even shackled to this man and half-naked, she wasn’t afraid of him.

  How horribly revealing.

  “What?” he asked quietly, tipping up her chin with his thumb when she wouldn’t look at him. “What are you thinking?”

  That he was devastatingly sexy. And that she couldn’t, shouldn’t be having such thoughts about a man who’d stop at nothing to get what he wanted.

  She shouldn’t be having those thoughts period! She was not a woman prone to such things as—as heat and need and lust. She never had been. “Nothing.”

  “Oh, I think it is something.”

  She had to smile at his formal speech. He was mocking her again. “Now you are a mind reader?”

  “I’m a bounty hunter, same thing.”

  “Have you always hunted people for a living?”

  “Have you always so neatly avoided talking about yourself?”

  “It is a skill.”

  “See?” He shook his head. “You’re good. Very good. Was your sister as good as you?”

  “Not nearly, but only because she liked to talk about herself.” Nina found herself smiling with fond memories. “Her zest for life and her way with the business were legendary. Everyone at All That Glitters misses her. I miss her.” Sadness crept back. “All those hopes and dreams of hers, left unfulfilled.”

  “What about your hopes and dreams?”

  Nina looked up at him, startled. “What?”

  He leaned even closer, the sound of metal on metal reminding her they were still joined.

  She’d actually nearly forgotten.

  He lifted his free hand and tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. The touch of his finger on her skin sent a shiver racing down her spine.

  “All you talk about is Terry,” he said. “Her life, her dreams.”

  “They were important.”

  “Yes. But what about your life? Your dreams? Surely you have some for yourself other than living in the shadow of your sister.”

  No one—not her father, not her own sister, not a single friend—had ever asked Nina about her hopes and dreams, not once.

  That this man, a perfect stranger, a professional bounty hunter to wh