And the excerpts keep rolling! This is the third excerpt from Then You Hide, the fifth book in Roxanne St. Claire’s Bullet Catchers Series (Pocket Star, 24 June 2008). You can find the first excerpt here and the second, here.
When Bullet Catcher Wade Cordell is offered a cushy assignment to track down a woman on vacation in the Caribbean and persuade her to meet her birth mother, the secret ops sharpshooter decides it’s the perfect antidote to his stressful job. Except spirited and sassy Vanessa Porter isn’t on vacation, she’s on a hunt for a friend who has disappeared. Wade’s news doesn’t faze a woman who swims with the sharks on Wall Street — Vanessa knows she’s adopted and has no intention of meeting or helping the woman who gave her up in a black market scheme. But as it becomes clear that her missing friend is deep in hiding and deeper in trouble, Vanessa strikes a shaky bargain with the sexy bodyguard who’s an expert at finding people who don’t want to be found. How high a price will she have to pay the Bullet Catcher willing to put his life on the line for her? Will she sacrifice her pride . . . her heart . . . even her life?
Excerpt #3
“Fine.” Vanessa automatically raised her hands, as if there was a snowball’s chance in the Caribbean that she was armed. “I’m going to step away now, okay?” Please don’t shoot.
She kept her gaze straight ahead, not willing to make eye contact with whoever held a gun to her back.
“I, um, I let the cab go.” Or rather, it bolted, leaving her in the Armed House-o-Male Prostitution in a skanky part of town up a deserted dirt road and a good mile from what passed for civilization. Son of a bitch, Clive was so dead for doing this to her.
If she didn’t die first.
“Go.”
She heard the gun cock, felt it shift against her back, and slowly walked toward the front screened door, where sunlight poured in, along with freedom and safety.
She glanced over her shoulder at Bones, who’d followed her, but he looked at whoever was behind her, and nodded. Oh, Jesus. What did that mean? Go ahead and shoot her?
She dove for the screen door and thwacked it open so hard it hit the house. Just as she stepped outside, a bright yellow cab screamed around the corner, coming to a gravel-spitting stop in front of the house.
“I’ll take that!” Clive was right –the cab gods were freakishly good to her.
The cab door flung open just as the screen door slammed, making her jump.
“Go!” Gideon lumbered onto the wooden porch, the boards groaning under his enormous weight. Then he looked over her shoulder, and a major smile broke across his face. “Oh, hello.”
Vanessa whipped around. Speaking of the gods — this one had dropped down from Olympus in person to deliver her cab. Six seriously solid feet of…gold. Close cropped sun-kissed hair, tanned, chiseled, square features, broad shoulders in buttery yellow cotton, and eyes the precise color of the sea and sky behind him.
A customer, no doubt, of Gideon Bones. Reminding her of another inside joke she shared with Clive. You guys get all the good ones.
She pointed to the cab. “I’m taking that back into town.” She practically leaped off the wooden porch to the dirt drive.
The golden man merely stepped aside, then held the door for her with a quiet, “Ma’am.”
She muttered thanks and dove in, dragging her bag across the seat. “To Basseterre, please,” she said to the cabbie. “Really fast.”
Golden Boy slid right in next to her.
“I’m sorry.” She added a smile, just tight enough to let him know she’d fight for the cab if she had to. “I have an emergency and I need to take this cab to town.”
He nodded to the driver. “Take us to town, please.”
“But…” She glanced at the house. “I’m sure he’ll get you another cab when your, uh, done.”
“I’m done.” He settled into the seat and calmly rested his arm across the back, giving her a look that was as reassuring as it was sexy. “I’m going where you go.”
Through the dirty cab window, she saw black eyes bore a whole through her from the porch.
“Thanks a lot. He didn’t like me before, and now he really hates me.”
“Why’s that?” He stretched out long legs, drawing her gaze to the muscular thigh covered in crisp khaki pants.
“Because I asked questions he didn’t want to answer, made him mad enough to sic his hit man on me, and now I’m taking his hot, new john away.” She tapped the driver’s seat. “I’m really in a hurry, if you don’t mind. Basseterre. Stat.”
“I’m not a customer,” he said.
“You were sightseeing up a deserted hill, and just happen to cruise by the best li’l gay whorehouse in St. Kitts? Sorry, don’t buy it.”
“I came up here for you.”
“Excellent pick up line, stud, and if I weren’t running for my life at the moment, you might have a chance.” She nudged the seat in front of her. “The Ballahoo Restaurant, please. Now!”
Finally, the cab took off, kicking a few stones at Bones to seal her fate as his lifelong enemy. She looked out the back window to see him on a cell phone. God, did everyone on this stupid rock get service but her?
“Did you find whatever it is you’re looking so hard for?”
His question threw her almost as much as the sharp downhill curve. She hung onto the cracked vinyl seat to keep her balance, the picture of Clive still clutched in her other hand.
How did he know she was looking for something?
“No,” she said. “But I pissed off the madame.”
“I saw that.”
Something in his voice sent a little shiver over her skin. Smooth and sweet and from way below the Mason Dixon line, and a little too damn sure of himself.
“Yeah? Did you catch that ‘I’m gonna kill you?’ look he saves for his favorite customers?”
“No, I caught the barrel of a Walther 99 in the second floor window pointing right at your head.”
“And that’s why you got in the cab?” He was either extremely chivalrous or as scared as she was of guns. She took a quick trip over his rock solid shoulders, his corded neck, his washboard flat stomach. She’d bet on chivalry, cause this dude wasn’t scared of anything. “Well, thank you, but I don’t need an escort.”
“I didn’t join you to be an escort.” He added a smile, which under any other circumstances, would be classified as killer, and would be returned. Whatever he was doing at Bartholomew Nine, he wasn’t gay. No way. This guy drank testosterone for breakfast, chewed nails for lunch, and then made a meal out of any whatever lucky lady offered herself up on a plate for dinner.
“What’s the hurry?” he asked.
She shrugged. “That’s how I roll. Fast.”
“I noticed.”
He noticed? Was he some kind of stalker? “When?” she asked warily.
“About two minutes after you got off the boat.”
She let out a half-choke of surprise. “You followed me here?”
“You’re Vanessa Porter, right?”
Apprehension pushed her away, into the door. She could jump out if she had to; they weren’t going very fast.
“How do you know my name?”
He reached out a hand to shake hers. “Let’s make it official, ma’am. My name is Wade Cordell, and I’m in St. Kitts to find you.”
She didn’t know whether to laugh or pop the door handle and risk a bloodied knee. Was he serious?
“Who are you and why are you following me?”
“I plan to tell you outright, ma’am, but I’ll warn you, it might be a little upsetting.”
What could he possibly tell her that could make her day any suckier?
“Hit me, pal. I’m in a hurry.”
“All right.” He straightened and turned to look directly at her. “I’m here on behalf of your birth mother.”
White lights flashed behind her eyes like she’d been punched in the head.
Oh, yeah. Her day just got seriously worse.
Next, a steamy, sexy bonus!
