The Bounty Hunter's Forbidden Desire. Jean Pichon Thomas
on, we’re getting there.”
Chase stopped again on the trail, this time to discover a willow goldfinch flitting from holly bush to holly bush.
“Waiting,” Haley sang.
He turned his head to favor her with a grin. “I’m gonna bore you with some more history.”
“How much?”
“Probably more than you’re going to like, but it’s necessary.”
“Going back how far?”
“To when I was very young. I have no memory of my biological father. He walked out on us when I was a baby. The only father I knew was the man my mother married when I was about four. Brian Matthews was everything my biological father wasn’t. I got every kind of attention a kid could want from both him and my mother. That all threatened to change when I was eight years old. Are you cold? It’s a little chilly out here still.”
“I’m fine. Go on. What happened when you were eight?”
“Mom and Dad told me there was going to be a baby, that I was going to have a brother. I figured I wouldn’t have all the attention anymore. Or maybe any attention at all. I hated this kid before he was even born.”
“I detect that didn’t last.”
“I had very smart parents. They knew I was jealous, and they knew what to do about it. Not long after the baby came home from the hospital, they sat me down and placed him carefully in my lap. They said his name was Josh and that I was to be someone very important in his life. I would matter to him. Matter? I wanted to shove the little intruder right back at them.”
“And did you?”
“I would have, except before I could do that, this tiny thing looked up at me with...well, I don’t know that I could call it anything like trust. I don’t suppose the vision of a baby that young is developed enough to be capable of any sort of recognition of that kind.”
“Probably not.”
“Didn’t matter. He looked up at me, I looked back at him, and I was lost.”
“Magic?”
“Yeah, an instant connection. You understand it, huh?”
“I don’t know why I should. I’m an only child. No siblings.” But she did understand. She remembered the photograph he carried in his wallet of a teenage boy helping his young brother to ride a horse. “So, from then on?”
Chase nodded. “I looked out for him. Came to his rescue when he needed it.”
And you’re still doing that, she thought. No wonder you came home and stayed home.
Josh had mentioned that his mother had died of breast cancer some years ago. Now their father was gone, and the brothers were the only family left.
The whole thing was clear to her now. Chase was convinced his brother was missing and in trouble, and that had him wild with worry. He was willing to do anything to find him—including what could easily be defined as kidnapping an unarmed woman.
* * *
After checking out of the motel, they filled the SUV with gas and started back to Portland. Now that Haley had her cell phone back, she called a couple of her closest friends who might have been worried about her absence. She was ready to explain it as business, but they hadn’t known she was gone.
Chase was silent during these calls and silent for some minutes after. She couldn’t be unaware of his sidelong glances and the speculative look in his eyes.
“I seem to be the subject of your thoughts. You’re wondering something about me. Do I get to know what it is?”
“It’s just that I shared practically everything with you about my past except the crush on Miss Sheldon I had in the second grade. Heck, I still remember how I admired her breasts in a certain blouse she wore.”
Haley affected what she considered to be a genuine case of shock. “In the second grade!”
“What can I say? I guess I was a budding lech even back then. But Miss Sheldon did have an impressive bust. Anyway, to get back to the moment... It occurred to me I know nothing about your background.”
“What’s to know? It’s nothing as dramatic as yours. I already mentioned I’m an only child. Both my parents are retired high school teachers living now in Arizona where it’s dry. My father used to complain about the damp, raw climate in Portland. Living in Seattle, you know what that’s like.”
“Yep, going whole winters without seeing the sun.”
“Exactly. Dad is as happy now as a hound on the scent of a possum. You see, all very ordinary and boring.”
“Maybe, but I think there are depths to Haley Adams she’s not sharing.”
“She aims to fascinate, all right.”
In truth, Haley concluded, Chase McKinley was the one who currently fascinated. She still wondered about that scar near his eye. It would have been easy enough just to ask him about it, except she didn’t want him to think she was interested in him like that. Bad enough she couldn’t stop inhaling that heady, masculine scent of his and she liked the way he quirked one eyebrow whenever he was questioning the veracity of something.
They were silent again. Haley might not consider it safe to get personal with him on any man-woman basis, but she couldn’t stop thinking about his relationship with his brother. She had told herself earlier it wasn’t her business or something he would appreciate discussing in any depth.
Now she couldn’t resist risking it.
“Chase?”
“Huh?”
“About Josh.”
“What about him?”
“I was just wondering how he feels about you still playing the big, protective brother. I mean, he’s—what?—well into his twenties and on his own now. I was just, you know, wondering.”
“Don’t wonder.”
There was a bite to his words that bordered on the severe. She’d been right. He didn’t like anything that approached criticism about his concerns for Josh.
Haley immediately dropped the subject.
* * *
Chase parked in front of Haley’s terrace house, shut off the engine and went around the SUV to see her to her door. The trip back to Portland had been as uneventful as the one before it had been action-packed. As far as he knew, she had been honest with him, giving him everything he’d asked for about Josh and his brother’s departure from Portland. Chase had no reason to linger, but he suddenly found himself reluctant to part from her.
He knew that examining that reluctance would be a mistake. It was better just to apologize for having wrongly apprehended her, thank her for helping him and leave her here and now before making a fool of himself.
She was digging her house keys out of her purse when he remembered something. “Would you mind taking this?” he asked her, removing one of his business cards from his wallet and handing it to her. “My address and phone number are there. I’m thinking that if you should hear from Josh, you’d do me the favor of contacting me. There’s no guarantee that he’ll write or call me, but you...”
“Yes, of course,” she said, accepting his card. “And having my own address and number as you did before you turned up here yesterday, maybe you’d return the favor if Josh should get in touch with you first. I would like to know he’s all right and how he made out with the big story he was so eager to hunt down.”
“I’ll do that,” he promised her.
She had the key inserted in her door and was unlocking it when a woman with a helmet of tight curls and a