Black Sheep Bounty Hunter: A Texas Bounty Novel Read online

  BLACK SHEEP BOUNTY HUNTER

  A TEXAS BOUNTY NOVEL

  JACKIE ASHENDEN

  Copyright © 2019 by Jackie Ashenden

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  He’s the last man she wants to ask for help. And he’s her only hope…

  Lily Hammond, AKA Duchess, owner of Duchess Bail Bonds, is the toughest woman around. Yet when a blackmailer proves even tougher than she is, she’ll have to swallow her pride and get help from her biggest rival. The one man who gets beneath her cool exterior and makes her burn with rage…and desire.

  Quinn Redmond wants two things from life: to pull his bounty hunting business out of the red and his own way. As the boss of Texas Bounty, he always gets one, and is starting make headway with the other. But for months now he’s been obsessed with getting under the competition’s prim and proper pencil skirts. Now she’s come to him for help, and apparently ‘help’ doesn’t include exploring the chemistry that burns between them both.

  But as the enemy closes in, the heat ramps up. In Lily, Quinn might have finally found a woman tough enough to handle his demons. But unless they move fast, they might not live long enough to see the future….

  CONTENTS

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Epilogue

  About Jackie

  Also by Jackie Ashenden

  ONE

  Quinn Redmond was pissy about a lot of stuff, and he was pissy a lot of the time. But what made him even pissier than normal was being woken in the middle of the night by a loud and insistent banging on the front door of the decommissioned hotel he lived in, that also housed the offices of Lone Star Bounty, the Texas bounty hunting business he owned with his two brothers.

  He was half inclined to pretend he’d dreamed the sound and ignore it, but given the loudness and insistence of the banging, and the fact that he was on the floor above and could still hear it, whoever it was really needed to get in.

  So, only partially awake and approximately two thousand times grumpier than normal, he grabbed the Colt he kept in case of emergencies in his nightstand, then hauled his sorry ass downstairs.

  Whoever was beating his door down would be lucky if they didn’t escape with a bullet in their butt.

  The doors were glass, but it was raining and the streetlight directly opposite the hotel was on the fritz, and it was black as pitch, making it impossible to discern much except the outline of a small figure.

  What the fuck? Was it a kid? Or a really small guy?

  Quinn scowled and unlocked the doors, jerking one open.

  Then he scowled even harder as he found himself staring into the sky blue eyes of a very particular woman.

  A woman who’d been featuring in his dreams nightly, most often naked and definitely screaming his name, and whom he both wanted and hated in equal measure ever since he’d met her: Lily Hammond, AKA Duchess, and owner of rival business, Duchess Bail Bonds.

  Not that she’d done much to make him hate her except sashay around in pencil skirts that outlined her ass to perfection, as well as the kind of delicate little blouses that begged to have the buttons ripped off them. Her platinum blonde hair was always drawn up into a neat, but elegant twist, and her makeup perfect, like she’d just stepped out of a beauty salon or out of the pages of some fancy fashion magazine. Practically screaming to be mussed up and messed with. But, maybe that was just him.

  Whatever, he certainly hated that she used her undeniable sex appeal to bait him. Constantly. He’d never been a guy who let himself be led around by his dick and the fact that Duchess seemed able to affect him so badly was galling. However, that he could have handled.

  What he could not handle was how she also seemed hellbent on stealing all his business.

  Though, that wasn’t the thing on his mind right now, because Duchess was standing on his doorstep, sans pencil skirt, blouse and chignon. Instead, she was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt — both of which were very wet — with her white-blond hair plastered to her delicate skull. And she didn’t look so much like the steely, perfectly put-together owner of a bounty hunting business as she did a small, half-drowned kitten.

  He might have found that satisfying if he hadn’t been so taken aback by the fact that she was here at one in the morning, looking like she’d swum all the way from her apartment.

  Still unreasonably pissed at being woken, Quinn leaned a forearm against the door frame, making no move to let her in. “Well, well, well,” he murmured. “I would say look what the cat dragged in, but you don’t look like something the cat would bother with.”

  As per usual, she gave him nothing back but a faint, if rather patronizing smile. “Quinn.” Her voice was cool, as if she was still in her pencil skirted armor, and not in wet jeans and a tee. “Sorry to wake you.”

  “If you were sorry you wouldn’t be here, waking me.” He let his gaze rove over her undeniably lovely face, noticing a few things he hadn’t before. That although those sky blue eyes betrayed absolutely nothing, there were dark smudges beneath them and there was a strained look to her mouth. She was very pale, too, much paler than normal. And not forgetting the small fact that it was the middle of the night and she was here, looking like…well, not her normal self.

  “But you are here and you woke me,” he went on. “So, what the hell is going on?”

  “Can I come in, please? It’s raining and I’d prefer not to tell you while standing on the street.” She didn’t exactly look behind her, but there was a certain tension to her posture that put Quinn instantly on edge.

  He flicked his attention to the darkness at her back just in case, yet nothing was there but rain.

  Something was up. Her shoulders were lifted, her jaw tight, and at last he spotted something flickering through those lovely eyes of hers. It looked like…fear.

  Okay, he might be a grumpy douchebag and really fucking pissed at being woken in the middle of the night by a woman he hadn’t been able to get out of his head for months, a woman he did not under any circumstances want to get involved with, but he wasn’t that much of an asshole that he’d shut the door in her face. Especially if that really was fear in her eyes.

  Pushing away from the door, he stood aside without a word.

  Duchess gave him a polite smile and moved past him, looping a length of sodden hair behind her ear. Her hand shook, the tiniest tremor. But he noticed. He noticed a lot of stuff about Lily Hammond, pretty much whether he wanted to or not.

  Such as the fact that she was a formidable rival, having fully taken half the jobs his own company should have had and fighting him tooth and nail for the rest.

  Admittedly they’d shared a couple of jobs recently, given each other a bit of help now and then since Quinn had taken over Lone Star after his father’s death. But Duchess was the consummate businesswoman. Nothing came for free and everything had a price

  He respected that. He respected the fact that she was a woman in a tough, male dominated industry and was in the process of making a name for herself. He respected the fact that she
took absolutely no shit from anyone, managed a bunch of hard bastards without breaking a sweat, and all the while looking like she should have a corner office in Manhattan, not a suite of rooms in a featureless building in downtown Austin.

  She had a backbone of pure titanium that was for sure and it irritated the shit out of him, though he wasn’t clear as to why, since it was obvious that the last thing Lily Hammond needed was someone to look after her.

  Not that he wanted to look after her. He wasn’t into looking after anyone. He just wanted to fuck her, a highly annoying and inconvenient fact.

  But all that aside, what the hell would make the formidable Duchess’s hand shake?

  He frowned, gave one last scan of the sidewalk outside then shut the door firmly behind her, noticing the way the tension in her shoulders eased as soon as soon as he did so.

  “It’s okay,” he said, automatically going for reassurance, which was weird since reassurance wasn’t his usual go-to. “You’re safe in here.”

  Duchess stiffened as if he’d personally insulted her, her gaze turning icy. “What? You think I’m afraid? Please, Quinn.” Reaching behind her, she brought out a compact, elegant little Sig Sauer 9mm, holding it in an undeniably professional grip. “I know how to protect myself.”

  It was not unexpected. Duchess might look like a delicate china shepherdess, but delicate china shepherdesses did not usually carry semi-automatics behind their backs.

  Still…

  “Your hand was shaking.” He wasn’t sure why he wanted to push this, then again, there was a lot about his responses to Duchess that he couldn’t explain. Such as this quite frankly annoying protective instinct. “And, baby, it’s not exactly winter there.”

  Her gaze narrowed at the use of the endearment, which he found satisfying and probably worth saying again purely for the irritation factor. “I am not now nor have I ever been your baby, Quinn Redmond.” Putting away the Sig with exaggerated care, she turned in the direction of the ex-hotel’s bar. “Let’s talk.”

  Christ, she was such a hard-ass.

  Quinn was very tempted not to let her change the subject, but she was already heading away from him, walking toward the bar like she owned the place.

  Ah well, he liked poking at her purely for the entertainment factor, but fundamentally he didn’t give a shit, right?

  Yet as she walked away, he found himself staring at the way her wet T-shirt stuck to her slender curves and the denim of her jeans cupped her perfect ass. Jesus, that shake in her hand had distracted him from what would probably be a lovely view of her tits.

  Which was a good thing, because God knew he didn’t need any more temptation. Especially since there was no way, no way in hell, he was going to make a move on her, even with their chemistry being off the charts.

  Not only was she his fiercest business rival, he’d never been into delicate little shepherdesses, no matter what kind of firepower they were packing. Plus, he liked it hard and he liked it rough, and he definitely liked to be in charge.

  Duchess liked to be in charge, too. In fact, he could only imagine what it would be like taking her to bed. She’d want to be on top, no question, and then he’d have to—

  Fuck.

  Quinn scowled at Duchess’s retreating back, reaching down to his adjust his ridiculous cock before following her toward the bar.

  Yeah, like he’d already told himself. That wasn’t happening. No matter how badly one insubordinate part of his anatomy wanted otherwise. Also, it would be kind of nice to know what she was doing here in the middle of the night.

  Making a detour to visit the bathroom off the bar, he grabbed one of the clean towels that his brother Zane’s girlfriend liked to keep in there, in one of her charming slash irritating efforts to girlify the hotel. Then he came back into the bar to find Duchess had seated herself in one of the booth seats that lined the wall opposite the bar itself.

  The room still looked like the hotel bar it had once been. Large shelves piled high with alcohol bottles behind the bar itself — mostly bourbon — and one incongruous plastic box that contained the ashes of Joe Redmond, his dearly departed father. Booth seats down one wall, a few chairs and tables scattered around, the pool table his brother Rush had bought only the week before for ‘fun times’ down one end.

  It was a shabby but comfortable room, wearing its age like a once-beautiful courtesan wearing a moth-eaten fur coat. An elegant reminder of good times past.

  Except at one in the morning, in the glare of the lights, there wasn’t much sign of that elegance, not anymore. Now all you could see were the cracks in the facade and how deep they went.

  Kind of like you, asshole.

  Quinn ruthlessly shoved the thought aside. He was doing just fine thanks. Sure, the business wasn’t doing as well as it should be, but it wasn’t his fault his prick of a father had left it virtually on the edge of bankruptcy. Or that the market had become increasingly difficult, no thanks in part to the small blonde sitting in her booth seat like an empress on a throne.

  “Oh, poor baby,” Duchess murmured as he approached. “Did I interrupt your nap?”

  Quinn wiped the scowl off his face and tried to ignore the irritation and lust that were coursing through him, his inevitable response to Duchess’s smart comebacks. Instead, he thrust the towel in her general direction and tried not to think about how much he’d like to show her exactly why she needed to watch her mouth around him.

  “Here.” He tried not to make it a growl. “Dry yourself off.”

  Her gaze fell to the towel. “What a gentleman. I don’t suppose you got yourself a T-shirt in the process? I don’t really want to stare at your chest for the next half an hour.”

  Sure, she didn’t. He knew she found him irresistible, just like he knew that the chemistry between them was something they both struggled with. But not talking about it, pretending it wasn’t there, and sniping at each other was the only way to deal with it, a lie they were both complicit in.

  The only alternative was to give in, which wasn’t going to happen.

  Didn’t mean he couldn’t be an asshole about it, though. In fact, being an asshole had been his go-to for the past decade and Quinn had yet to see any reason to change.

  Especially not at one A.M. after very little sleep.

  Ignoring her, he slid into the seat opposite. “Since you’re only going to be here for five minutes, I’m sure you can cope with my chest.” He met her gaze. “What’s going on, Duchess?”

  DO NOT STARE at Quinn Redmond’s chest.

  The thought was loud and clear in Lily’s brain, but no matter how many times she repeated it to herself, she couldn’t seem to help the way her gaze kept being drawn to the very bare torso of the man sitting opposite.

  It was certainly better than thinking about how the rest of the evening had gone, that was for sure, and anyway, she hadn’t seen it before. In fact, now she put her mind to it, she hadn’t seen a man’s bare chest for years, period. And Quinn’s was… Well. Magnificent was the only word that applied.

  His shoulders were wide, the unforgiving lights of the hotel bar outlining every muscle. It was covered in smooth tanned skin, with a sprinkling of crisp dark hair, the dark ink of an eagle and trident tattoo emblazoned across it, the legacy of his years as a Navy SEAL.

  There was so much strength in that torso. So much power…

  A visceral kind of shiver went through her that she had a horrible suspicion was excitement.

  God, she really needed to stop looking at him. And she definitely needed to stop imagining what his skin would feel like under her hands, what he would taste like if she put her mouth to the hard ridges of his impressive six pack and licked down all the way to—

  What. The. Hell?

  What the hell indeed. But thinking about Quinn’s chest was better than thinking about what had happened earlier that evening and certainly much better than thinking about the last couple of months. About the emails and the money and the footage and the demand—r />
  Lily grabbed at her flailing brain and forced it into submission, then she gave Quinn a cool smile, hoping like hell her wayward thoughts weren’t showing on her face.

  She shouldn’t have mentioned the getting a shirt thing. That had been a mistake. And it certainly wasn’t why she’d come to the Lone Star office in the middle of the night.

  She’d come to the Lone Star office in the middle of the night because Quinn Redmond was the only person she could think of to go to for help. Even though help was the last thing she wanted from anyone, and most especially him.

  She had no choice though. She’d been battling this thing alone for the last few months and the situation hadn’t changed. If anything, it had gotten worse. And now here she was, with everything she’d worked so hard for at risk…

  As much as it galled her to admit it, she couldn’t do this alone anymore.

  If it had only concerned herself, she would have soldiered on. But it didn’t. It concerned her sister Rose, too, and she couldn’t put Rose’s life at risk simply for her own pride. Yes, she was proud — too proud sometimes as she’d be the first to acknowledge — but she knew when enough was enough.

  Rose came first and always would.

  “Well,” Lily said carefully. “It’s a delicate matter.”

  Quinn’s straight black brows arrowed down, his eyes narrow slits of emerald. “I’m not really here for ‘delicate’. Not at one in the morning. Just fucking spit it out.”