Are you in the middle of that mad dash for love? Are you looking to strengthen your relationship with the special one in your life who makes your heart race? Did you know studies have shown people who read romance are more statisfied with their own love lives?
And guess what? I write romance! Welcome to my cyber home where romance and adventure lurk around every corner. My tales of romance celebrate the excitment, the danger, and the value of building a loving relationship from the ground up. Kick back and enjoy yourself. ~Dorothy McFalls
Are you in the middle of that mad dash for love? Are you looking to strengthen your relationship with the special one in your life who makes your heart race? Did you know studies have shown people who read romance are more statisfied with their own love lives?
And guess what? I write romance! Welcome to my cyber home where romance and adventure lurk around every corner. My tales of romance celebrate the excitment, the danger, and the value of building a loving relationship from the ground up. Kick back and enjoy yourself. ~Dorothy McFalls
It's nothing personal...
Blond, beautiful bounty hunter Vega Brookes is on the hunt for her latest skip trace. Her prey, ex-special forces officer Grayson Walker, is ruthless, a killer. She shouldn't feel attracted to him. Even so, the closer she gets to finding Grayson, the louder her instincts shout that things are not what they seem.
It's only murder...
Grayson Walker is dangerous...and determined. Someone is killing those closest to him, and he's desperate to find out why. When a firecracker of a bounty hunter comes close to capturing him, he fights back and ends up shooting her. Yet not even a gunshot wound can cool the sparks that fly between them whenever they're together. Soon, his life turns into a deadly race to earn Vega's trust, track down a killer, and avoid falling in love.
"I know who you are, Grayson Walker." It wasn't her job to judge him. She just needed to deliver him back to the justice system. "I know what you've done." She raised her gun. She'd do well to remember he'd already killed one bounty hunter. "It's time to return to Atlanta and face responsibility."
She heard him suck in quick a breath. "Tommy said you smelled like a cop. I should've believed him. Since when does a cop look like she belongs on the cover of a fashion magazine?"
He didn't seem to notice the gun in her hand, a weapon that could easily leave several gaping holes in the center of his chest. Or if he did notice, he didn't care. He walked casually toward her, arms spread wide.
"I'm more dangerous to you than the police, Grayson. I'm a bounty hunter. I don't get paid unless you get captured."
He laughed in the darkness, a rather pitiful sound. "The fourth one, I believe. I wonder what makes you think you can succeed where those other brainless goons have failed? Are you planning to seduce me into surrendering?"
Without warning, he lowered his head and rushed her, tackling her, tossing her to the ground as if they were playing a game and she was holding a football not a loaded pistol.
Her breath whooshed out of her lungs. Grayson could remain where he was, straddling her torso, his hands pinning her arms, for the moment. She tightened her hold on the pistol he was working so doggedly to wrench from her grasp.
Pulling in a deep breath to calm her muscles and focus her strength, she visualized her first move. Her first approach, her attack, was crucial since everything that would follow would be born from instinct.
"Hope I didn't hurt you, sweet," he whispered in her ear. "But I couldn't give you the chance to shoot me, either."
His lips curled into that killing smile. "You're really very pretty."
Those eyes of his, eyes she'd memorized from the photo posted in her office, were nearly hypnotic in the darkness. He leaned forward. She heard his breath hitch. "I haven't had a woman like you in..." His lips covered hers. She could taste the raw hunger in the forced kiss.
"Sorry," he said, ripping away.
"Get off me or I'll really hurt you."
He laughed. He actually laughed.
In a fluid move, she twisted to the side, upsetting his balance, and pushed against the asphalt to propel herself up. He tumbled to the ground.
He didn't stay down long. She swung her fist, hitting his jaw as he sprang back to his feet. She didn't need brute strength when he was so obliging in connecting his face to her fist with such force. She stood back and watched as he staggered, tripping over a cypress knee that had grown up through the broken asphalt.
Her fingers produced one of the two pairs of handcuffs she carried in her jacket pocket. Capturing him, a former Special Ops officer, seemed far too easy. He stared up at her, dazed, his eyes hazy and unfocused.
"You've put up a good chase, Grayson." She locked a metal ring over his left wrist.
He let out a light groan as she rolled him over onto his stomach. With her knee pressing onto the center of his back, she reached for his right arm. His hand shot out and captured her wrist as strongly as his left wrist had been ensnared in the trap of the handcuff.
"I don't want to kill you," he said gruffly. Which was really a funny thing for him to say since she still had him on his stomach with his face pressed into the pavement.
She held his left wrist with her left hand. He held her right wrist in his right hand. She wracked her brain, trying to remember which side he favored.
"I'm left-handed," he said, startling her. He yanked his arm out of her grasp and swung with incredible speed back and up, slapping her in the face with the metal handcuff still hooked to his wrist.
She reared back, unwittingly giving Grayson an opening. Before she realized what he was doing, he'd snagged her pistol and twisted around to point it at her.
"Oh, no you don't!" She wasn't ready to let him win that easily. She lunged for her gun. The barrel flared red in the darkness as it fired.
The force of the bullet's impact at such a close range sent her flying. She hit the ground with a heavy thud.
Great, just great. Braving a backwoods medical facility to be sewn up by a doctor who probably doubled as the local veterinarian was not her idea of a pleasant Christmas.
Her shoulder burned, and her arm had already turned painfully numb. Gulping air, she focused all her energies on Grayson. It took everything she had to hug her throbbing arm to her chest and charge him. She prayed he wouldn't have time to take careful aim and fire again before she could knock the gun from his grasp. She had nothing to lose. He'd already killed one bounty hunter, and she had no doubt she was about to be next.
She staggered--the back wall of the bar must have just collapsed--surely that was a wall that had just fallen on her.
Clutching her splitting head, she sank to her knees.
"Damn," was the last thing she heard.
