First You Run by Roxanne St. Claire was released by Pocket Star on 25 March 2008. Number Four in the Bullet Catchers series, you can read all about these sexy bodyguards at the author’s website. Today we have the first part in a series of three tantalizing excerpts. Enjoy!

Adrien Fletcher is a “Bullet Catcher” on a mission. The Australian bodyguard has been given a list of women who might have been bought and sold as infants in a black market adoption scheme thirty years earlier. The only way to tell: find the tiny tattoo that marked the baby at birth. Good thing Fletch is as good at getting a woman naked as he is at protecting her….

Excerpt: The Tattoo Hunt Begins

This was when it got squishy.

Fletch had attempted direct, with the lady in St. Louis who slammed him with an original birth certificate and papers that proved she’d already located her real parents. He’d tried sly, with the dog trainer in Detroit who also had researched her parentage, and knew plenty about the Sapphire Trail babies; she’d already found her birth mother in Pittsburgh. In Vegas, he’d thought he’d hit paydirt with a sweet newlywed by the name of Noreen, but her own birth mother had found her via the internet and they’d had a tearful reunion on her wedding day. He’d already lost ten of his thirty days.

He strongly suspected that Miranda didn’t have a clue she was adopted, since that it tended to come up rather quickly in conversation. And given that the woman in question had buttercream for skin, smoke blue eyes the color of a misty morning over Sydney harbor, and mahogany hair wrapped in a knot thick enough to hint it might be very long and quite fun to explore, all bets were off. And he had no intention of pulling out the guaranteed-to-kill-the-wine-buzz question: Are you adopted?

No. Tonight, he would do an investigation so heated by their undeniable chemistry that she wouldn’t even realize how much of her past she’d revealed. Then, after a bit of heavy pashing in the darkest corner he could find, he’d root around in the sack with her until he spotted the ink.

Then he’d tell her why he was there, and not one minute before.

Worst case? He had the wrong girl and a good time. He’d be off in a day or so for the next name on the list. There were only five left.

“So how is it,” he said, sliding into the easy opening she’d offered him. “that you were born on a plane?”

“My parents were flying home to Atlanta from Charleston.”

Charleston? Too right. “When was that?”

“July 31, 1977.”

Bingo. “So, what were they doing flying so close to mum’s delivery date?” How she answered that question would tell him exactly what she knew about her birth. He watched her expression, which was guileless and natural.

“I don’t think they had strict rules about flying back then. People did all sorts of things when they were pregnant – including drink and smoke.”

“So does your birth certificate say you were born…in heaven?”

She smiled. “I don’t think I ever noticed. Probably Atlanta. My parents have lived in the same house in a suburb called Marietta their whole lives.”

That confirmed it. If she’d never noticed something on her birth certificate, then she was in the dark about the adoption. One thing he’d learned in the past few days – adoptees had studied every crease and ink mark on that piece of paper.

Yet, Miranda Lang, daughter of Carl and Dee Lang of Marietta, Georgia, was a Sapphire Trail baby. That much he knew from his list.

“Do you have any sibs?” Had the Lang’s adopted more?

She shook her head. “You?”

“A half brother I never met.”

“You’ve never met him?”

“What can I say? My oldies are weird.”

“Oldies? Parents?”

“Sorry, bad habit. Too much strine.”

“Strine?” She waved a ginger slice on the end of her chopsticks. “Oh, I get it. Austral-yine. I like it.”

“You do?”

“You may have missed the introduction back at the bookstore. I’m a linguist, so I’m a sucker for accents.”

“Ah, right. Remind to spew a string of strine, then, just to impress you.” He winked, enjoying the flirtation.

She couldn’t hide a sneaky smile. “How long have you been over here?”

“Uh uh,” he chided, tapping her knuckles as she reached for sushi. “Your life story is on the table now, not mine.”

“Sorry, but mine makes for pretty dull dinner conversation.” She finally shed the business-like jacket she wore and he stole a glance at the silky blouse, the whisper of lace silhouetted under it, kissing a sleek collar bone and covering tiny breasts. She was bird-thin and narrow, and he wondered where the tattoo might be. He’d start where Aborigine babies were tattooed — on the bottom of her foot. And work his way up. Slowly. He took a deep drink of ice water, but it didn’t cool anything down.

“Being born on a plane isn’t dull,” he said.

“It went downhill after that.”

“The plane, or your life?”

She laughed again, completely relaxed now. “Not downhill, exactly, but really not that interesting. I was raised in a suburb, home schooled until I was sixteen, fast tracked into Emory University, where I spent the next ten years amassing degree after degree, taking the occasional trip for post docs and research, and finally getting an offer for an adjunct position at Berkeley. Last year, coinciding with the sale of my dissertation to a major publishing house, and much to my colleague’s dismay and disdain, I made assistant professor. End of story. Now you.”

He ignored the suggestion. “I don’t know much about the Uni system in this country, but I guess a professor at a school like Berkeley is tall poppies in the field.”

“Not such tall poppies.” She imitated his accent nicely. “Assistant professor is pretty much the first floor of the ivory tower, and the way up is steep and crowded with competitors. Few of them are willing to make room for a thirty-one year old who hit the publishing lottery instead of toiling away in classrooms for decades.”

He nodded, mildly interested in the politics, but anxious to get back to where she was born and who gave birth to her. Or not. “So does your mum tell you the story of how you were born on a plane? I imagine it’s rather spiffy, as birth tales go.”

“My ‘mum’ does not. She says it traumatized her. But then lots of stuff traumatizes my mother – like her baby moving to California. She’s still not sure I can cross the street alone, let alone the country.”

“Overbearing, is she?” Wouldn’t that be just like an adopted mother who doesn’t want anything to happen to her illegally obtained daughter?

“More like overprotective. In fact, if you look that up in Websters, you should find a nice picture of her.”

“What’s she protecting you from?”

Her smile was slow, and it hit the mark in his gut. She reached across the table, and with one finger, lifted the sleeve of his T-shirt, revealing the spiky swirl of the black axe blade the decorated his bicep. Her touch hit a mark a bit lower than the gut.

“She’s protecting me from…” She let the shirt sleeve fall back and leveled a gaze at him. “Men like you.”

He grinned and nodded enthusiastically. “Good call, Mum.”

Some lovely electricity arced as they held their eye contact. It would be so easy to ask her now. What about you, Miranda? Got ink?

But he knew better. Direct questions would put her off and if she had no clue she was adopted, which she obviously didn’t, she’d freak and his plan to go tattoo hunting would end as fast as this dinner. Instead, he moved closer, trailed a finger over her knuckles, and watched her eyes darken in response.

“And Dad?” He offered her the last piece of unagi, and she took it. “Does he protect you from the wrong kind of man?”

Her smile was wide and genuine and just too pretty. “My dad is amazing. He’s the greatest guy. I’d have lost my mind with my mother if I hadn’t had him. I always say that’s why God gives you two parents.”

Or four, as the case may be.

Which reminded him of a cold, ugly fact: if he had the right woman, he was truly about to wreck what was probably an ideal childhood. But he had a job to do, a friend to help, and a point to make.

Besides, a full body inspection of wouldn’t hurt either one of them, judging by the sparks crackling between them. If he didn’t find the tattoo, he’d never mention what he knew about her real birth and she would continue on her merry way, with nothing more than a blissful memory of a man who’d attended her book signing and gave her an unforgettable night.

“Miranda,” he said softly, taking both her hands this time. “Let’s get out of here.”

He felt her pulse jump under his fingertips. “No more sushi and small talk?”

“You’re leaving tomorrow morning. Do you really want to spend one more minute with a table between us?”

He watched her chest rise and fall with a slow, unsteady breath. “Where are we going?”

“If you have to ask, maybe we’re not going there after all.”

She wet her lips, inhaled, gave him a long, direct gaze. “I’ve never slept with a stranger.”

He stood, placed a few twenties on the table, snagged the book, and then helped her out of the chair. “Then let’s keep talking, so won’t be strangers anymore.”

He wrapped his arm around her to guide her to the door, pulling her into his flank, and settling his hand over a slender, but nicely curved, hip.

“Is it my turn to ask questions, now?” she asked.

“Absolutely. What would you like to know about me?”

She gave him a sly, flirtatious smile. “Anything I should know before we walk out of this restaurant together.”

“Fair enough. Let’s see…I’m a former member of the Tasmanian Special Ops police, the best kicker on my rugby team, a stellar bodyguard, an exemplary employee, a trustworthy mate, a half-decent surfer, a lousy cook …” He pushed open the restaurant door, walked her around the corner and pressed her against the brick wall. “And a helluva good kisser.”

FIRST YOU RUN

Copyright Roxanne St. Claire