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  Even though the lotion had been absorbed into her skin, he still stroked her wrist. She could feel the goosebumps, and she used a question to try to distract her from his caress. “So that’s why you went to Dorrie first.”

  “Sure, it made sense you would keep in touch with your sister. You had a pending liquor license, you own a nightclub together. There were many reasons I believed that you would have some contact with your sister.”

  “So you put yourself in my place?”

  “Yes, if you want to be successful at this job, you have to know how to hide. Once I apprehended a skip by using the phone because time was imperative. I only had two days before the bounty ran out. I had to get other bounty hunters in different states to help out, but it was cost effective and successful.”

  “The modern-day bounty hunter. So before me, you’ve never lost a skip?”

  “No. Never.”

  He was going to have to get used to it, because Maxie had no intention of getting any farther away from Mesa Roja. He was about to lose her again just as soon as she could figure out how she was going to do it.

  5

  “SINCE WE’RE STUCK here, do you think I could wash some clothes? I haven’t anything clean for tomorrow and I would really rather not face everything in rumpled and dirty clothes.”

  She was now a day away from Mesa Roja, and she vowed she wasn’t going to get any farther away. It was time to plan an escape from her captor. But how?

  She had no intention of being here tomorrow morning to continue on to Sedona.

  “That’s not a bad idea. I’m out of clean clothes, too. I didn’t think it would take this much time to get you back.”

  Austin picked up both bags and they went to the small washing alcove not far from their room. Detergent was provided in vending machines and Maxie got what she needed. Austin had already loaded a machine with his clothing. “I can’t see wasting water and detergent on washing two small loads when we could combine our clothes,” she suggested.

  He nodded.

  She loaded the washing machine with her garments and got the machine going.

  “What do you want to do now?”

  “Go back to the room and wait.”

  “Wait. How boring. Can’t we do something?”

  “This is not a vacation.”

  “I know that, but do you want to sit around and look at each other?”

  “It’s safer than having to worry about losing you in a crowd.”

  They went back to the room and checked periodically on their clothes. Maxie got a jolt when their wash was on the motel-room bed for folding. Her unmentionables mixed in with his T-shirts and jeans seemed so very intimate.

  While folding their meager garments, Maxie turned on the television. A Spanish soap opera appeared and she watched it as she separated the clothing.

  A commercial interrupted the show while she put her clothes back in her bag, moving aside her small cosmetic case. She’d forgotten she’d left the zippered bag open in her preoccupation with Austin this morning. The bag spilled its contents onto the coverlet of the bed and Maxie reached to pick up the half dozen items. Her hand closed around the over-the-counter sleep aid she’d purchased. Due to the stress of her situation, she’d been having a lot of trouble sleeping lately. Her hand stilled. She glanced over at Austin, but he was engrossed in a magazine and didn’t look up. She tightened her hands around the pills and knew how she was going to escape.

  She bided her time until it was dark, and then she let it be known that she was hungry. True to form, Austin wanted to stay close to the room, so he ordered out.

  It wasn’t long before the food came with Maxie’s chance to get away. While he was in the bathroom, she opened one of the capsules and secreted the powder into his drink. The white granules disappeared without a trace.

  Now, it was time to distract him and keep him talking, until he passed out and she was home free. She needed a topic and an obvious one came to her.

  “Why a bounty hunter?”

  “Why not?”

  “Come on, Austin, don’t be flippant.”

  His long lashes veiled his honey-colored eyes. “Do you think I enjoy being a bounty hunter?”

  “I don’t know, do you?”

  “No.”

  “Then why do it?”

  “There aren’t a lot of prospects for a guy with a high-school education, a stint in the military and too few college credits under his belt. I needed money and I needed it fast.” He avoided her gaze and dug into eating his food.

  She said softly, “For your family, right?”

  Maxie was sitting in the chair next to the bed. It was a tight squeeze with Austin’s legs almost touching hers. “It’s not a crime to love your family.”

  Guilt washed over her in waves. Maybe she didn’t want to know this, not while she was trying to escape. But the look in his eyes made her hunger to know more about this stoic, tough-as-nails man.

  “So why do you need this bounty so badly?”

  “I need the money.”

  “I guessed that. What do you need the money for?”

  “You just don’t give up, do you?”

  “Nope.”

  “It’s for Jessica’s education. She has the opportunity to study in France. She’s a very talented artist.”

  Maxie felt as if someone had just kicked her in the solar plexus. He was going through all this for tuition money for his sister’s education? Struggling against the sudden thickness in her chest, Maxie tried to camouflage the unevenness in her voice when she answered. “Why do you feel such an obligation to provide for her when her father is alive and well and should be forced to pay?” she asked, her tone gently challenging.

  He jerked his head up, his gaze riveted on her. She forced herself to stare into his eyes. He reached over and picked up his drink. She wanted to grab it and stop him from ingesting any more of the sleeping aid, but she had to harden her heart. This was the only course of action she had open to her. Austin wasn’t going to let her go. She had to escape.

  She experienced a painful little twist when he took a few swallows of the drink. “It’s true that I should force her father to pay, but I don’t want anything from that jerk. He abandoned Jessica and my mother.” He rubbed at his temple. “I went to the reservation and met my kid sister for the first time. She’s much younger than me.” He stopped talking. He shook his head as if trying to clear it.

  “I remember the day I walked up to the shack they were living in. The first time I laid eyes on her.”

  “Why was that the first time you saw her?”

  “She’s my half-sister from the union of my mother and stepfather.”

  “Go on.”

  “I was angry that I’d lost touch with my mother. Angry that I hadn’t thought to find her and see how she was doing. After my stepfather left, they returned to the reservation.”

  Maxie couldn’t stand the self-reproach in his voice. She sat forward in the chair, brushing against his knees. Reaching out she put her hand on his bare forearm. “It’s not your fault.”

  “I felt responsible. I joined the army after high school. It doesn’t pay much, but I was well fed and sheltered, while they were destitute. My mother needed to see a doctor and both of them hadn’t been eating enough.” His fist clenched and he dropped his hand to his side. “I wanted to kill my stepfather for his neglect and abandonment.”

  “So you supported them.” Maxie prompted in her vain attempt to steer him away from reliving that anger.

  “I needed a lot of money fast. My M.P. training prepared me for law enforcement, and I could have gone to the police academy, but bounty hunting was more lucrative. I took on the more dangerous criminals, sometimes ones that other bounty hunters wouldn’t touch. When my mother got better, she got a job and helped out. Then, my grandmother got ill and we also took her in. She wanted to sell her crafts, so we all moved to Sedona.”

  “But, Austin, it sounds as if they’re not dependent on you anymore.
”

  “I have an obligation to them.”

  “Austin.”

  He scarcely heard her. “I would do it all again to save them. I would give my life for them. They mean the world to me.”

  “Austin, please don’t.”

  “I want you to know that I understand your bond to your sister, but I have no choice. This is the way I support them. This is a job. They are my responsibility.”

  And she wondered what hopes and dreams he’d had to put aside to support a family he obviously loved.

  “What did you have to give up?”

  He looked at her skeptically, the knowledge that she’d read him so well clearly shook him. She could see it in his surprised eyes.

  He swallowed and put down the carton of Chinese food. He shifted on the bed and his knee bumped hers. He breathed. She breathed. His slightly out-of-focus honey-colored eyes met hers, exchanging meaning, awareness, intimacy and knowledge, which she fought.

  And lost.

  She shouldn’t be probing him right now. It wasn’t fair. He was losing some of his inhibition because the medication was starting to take effect. Why oh why couldn’t she have met him in a more normal environment? Then, perhaps they would have had a chance to build something strong and lasting. Her time had run out and she felt a reluctance to leave. But, of course, she had no choice. She’d never had a choice from the moment they came to her home and arrested her for a crime she hadn’t committed.

  “I wouldn’t ever turn my back on my family. Sometimes I…”

  He trailed off as if he suddenly realized he was revealing more than he had to anyone in his life. He looked at her again with a dazed look in his eyes.

  “Resent them?” she guessed, probing his eyes with her own.

  He looked away and sighed. “In unguarded moments and never for long. They need me.”

  “So what did you give up?”

  “The FBI.”

  “A G-man?”

  “Yeah. I thought that being part of the law enforcement agency that protected the whole of the United States would be something that my father could be proud of. There was really no contest between a job and my family. It was tough to give it up, but it was worth it.”

  “Was it a job or a dream, Austin?”

  “More a dream. But it didn’t work out.”

  “Why did you have to give it up?”

  “My family is tied to the land, and the training was in D.C. I couldn’t leave them.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Do you know,” he said “that my first bounty took me all the way to Washington. I must have stood outside the FBI building for almost an hour. I stood there and watched agents going in and out. I did feel regret. A sea of regret and then I was ashamed of myself.”

  “Oh, Austin, I’m sorry you had to give up so much.” How was she going to go through with this? She’d had no idea he’d sacrificed this much for his family. His very dreams. Closing her eyes, she pressed her hands against her forehead, the horrible sinking sensation made her feel sick inside. Paralyzed by a horrible, churning feeling, Maxie wanted to cry. She whispered, “Where have you been all my life, Austin?”

  “I don’t know.”

  A stark realization hit her. Dorrie was a lot like Austin. There wasn’t a time in Maxie’s memory that her sister hadn’t stuck up for her. “You make me realize how lucky I am to have my sister to help me out of scrapes. Selfishly, I never thought about how she struggled to help me.” Afraid she was going to cry, Maxie wrestled with the tightness pressing down on her chest. And regardless of the pain she felt in duping him again, it firmed her resolve to do what she had to do, so that she wouldn’t let her sister down. “I wish we could have met under better circumstances.”

  He slid off the bed and knelt on the floor in front of her, startling her with his nearness. “You mean that?”

  “I always say what I mean.” Her need to comfort him overwhelmed every other thought in her head. He took everything so seriously, and she felt regret that she wouldn’t get a chance to find out why. Something in his past had made him that way and she hungered to find out everything that made him the man he was.

  He smiled and her heart suspended in her chest. She’d seen him give her a tight smile, a sexy, teasing smile, and a sarcastic smile, but this smile was genuine. It came deep from inside him, lit his eyes and literally took her breath away.

  Hunger, deep and fierce, gnawed at her bones. Pleasure, sweet and lingering, full of anticipation made her insides turn to mush. Impossible emotions careened inside her. It seemed as if she hadn’t been alive until this moment—this wonderful moment.

  His eyes darkened and he leaned forward, his hips bumping against the edge of the chair she sat in. “I want to stay away from you, but I can’t seem to help myself.”

  Her arms slipped around his shoulders, hands slid beneath his hair, cupped the back of his neck.

  Her fingertips enjoyed the hard contours of his muscles, the smooth, male feel of his hot skin so wonderfully different from hers.

  Her nostrils flared at the scent of him. The spicy masculine smell was quite sexy. She breathed him in and let him wash through her lungs, relishing his scent, savoring the flavor.

  Strands of his hair brushed the backs of her hands. She moved her eager fingers through the thick, glossy tips.

  Her breasts felt full, tingling, and her breath caught and held at the sensual promise. Her fingers tightened in his hair. Want skipped through her pulse, sent hot, jumbled need along her nerves, and trembled in her lungs. Her only coherent thought was that she wanted him even in a temporary way, even though, right now, her heart was full of him and what he’d done for his family. She wanted to pretend it was just sex, but she knew deep down in her heart it wasn’t.

  He rose and brought her up with him, against him, belly to belly, breast to chest, heart to heart. Oh damn, she couldn’t do this. She should break away and insist that they sleep—do something. But she couldn’t seem to, and as the guilt intensified inside her, so did her need for him.

  As if he sensed her inner turmoil, his arms tightened around her, and his hands slid down her back to her hips and lower, pulling her against him, trapping her safe inside the dangerous embrace. His lips brushed along her cheekbone and he made a deep, rumbling sound.

  His hot tongue traced errant patterns toward her ear. Awareness buzzed through her and made hungry, stabbing forays into her breasts, her belly, between her thighs.

  Again that rumbling, deeper and more urgent this time. His mouth became more restless, tongue more voracious, hands more bold, cupping her buttocks, and pulling her tight against the hardness of his erection. Lost in the spell, the moment, she arched her neck into his mouth and turned her face slowly toward his.

  His cheek was hot against hers, his mouth voracious and inviting. She wanted it on hers, now, this instant, wanted thoughtlessness and total sensual devastation and plunder.

  He took her mouth and all thoughts spun away. She forgot about escaping, forgot about her sister, her problems and on-the-run status. She forgot her own name.

  Pleasure, deep and sinking, was melting her bones and turning her muscles to jelly. Hunger, hot and intimate, impatient, burned away inhibition. The world was elusive and distant. For now they were all that existed, and she existed only where their mouths meshed and clashed; where his arms fit around her, squeezing her tight; where hers clung to him. Their bodies tried to get even closer.

  Their lungs shuddered and trembled trying to catch enough air. Pulling their mouths away to breathe, Maxie’s insatiable fingers tunneled Austin’s hair away from his face, caressed his neck, his cheek, his chest. “This isn’t a good idea,” he said his voice breathless.

  “No,” she agreed, trying to think while his furious hands swept up her sides to the outside of her breasts, sliding away.

  Maxie pressed closer, lifting her chest, inviting his touch. “You’ll still bring me in.”

  “Yes.”

  “I would
n’t expect anything less.” His thumbs traced her jaw, moved with slow precision down her throat, brushed the curve of her breasts, skirting the fullness and the center and avoiding the crest with a sensual teasing that almost made Maxie come out of her skin. Moaning, she slid her hands roughly down his chest, around his sides, brushed his hips.

  “I want you.”

  Groaning, Austin squeezed her to him hard. “Yes.”

  She eagerly opened her mouth under his. He thrust his hot, velvet tongue between her teeth and she met him with sensual movements of her own. Bringing her thigh hard against the aching demand inside his jeans, his hands slid down, rounding the slope of her buttocks. With a moan, he pressed himself to her with what felt like an uncontrollable rocking of his hips.

  It drove Maxie crazy and she couldn’t get enough of him as her hands moved mindlessly over him, touching him everywhere. Beneath his shirt, the hard muscles of his chest were smooth and tantalizing to her touch.

  Somewhere deep, something sizzled inside her, bringing with it a tingle of fear, an intense appreciation of danger. She had an enthusiastic craving to take risks, command the flame with her naked hands, make it do her will and bring Austin into the flame with her, immerse him until he was burning, incandescent, one with her.

  It was a familiar sensation, this untamed part of herself. Yet, recklessness never came with this brand of fear—this intrepid fear of getting caught in her own desire, of needing too much. Austin was the seducer and the savior for both the fear and the need. She’d known that the minute she’d laid eyes on him, known sooner or later that he was the man that could take down her defenses and leave her emotions bare, while he forged a path to her soul.

  He’d become part of her thoughts without her consent, her knowledge.

  But it was only sex, not a commitment, not a hope. Only sex. She had to believe it. And let it become emblazoned on her heart, because she needed to believe it, even if it was a deception.