Big Sky Wedding - Brotherhood Protectors World Page 6

  Jamie snorted. “Reaper needs a keeper.”

  “Which means you. Should I be jealous?”

  “Of course not. You’re the person with whom I want to spend every day and night for the rest of my life. But Reaper…” she shook her head, “after Tessa, he’s my best friend.”

  Sky nodded solemnly. “We really do have the best life, don’t we?”

  “Yes, friends who’ve always got our backs, a beautiful home with a view of the mountains, and each other.”

  “Have you thought any more about that other thing on our To Do list?”

  She placed her palms on either side of his face. “Sky, baby, I stopped taking the pill a month ago.”

  He drew a deep breath. “You did?”

  “Uh huh. Figured if I got pregnant, neither of us would have any more excuses left. We’d have to get married right away.”

  “Do you think…?”

  She reached for his hand then rolled over his body. “Making a baby in Hawaii would be the icing on the wedding cake we never had.”

  They kissed, and he flirted his hands along the sides of her breasts. “Guess I shouldn’t start something we can’t finish here,” he muttered.

  “Then we best get moving now, because that’s going to be hard to hide beneath a towel,” she said, rubbing against his growing erection.

  “You did that on purpose,” he growled as she rolled away and stood.

  She tossed a beach towel at him.

  He looped it around his hips, but she was right. There was no hiding what was tenting the front. Bending, he swiped up the blanket, not allowing her to fold it, and bundled it in front of his waist.

  Then they ran toward their hotel, barefoot and laughing.

  They didn’t notice the cellphones recording their publicly private moment, but soon the world would know their love wasn’t something scripted. It was true.

  * * *

  If you loved Big Sky Wedding, you might want to try New Orleans Nights, which features another very sexy SEAL. Enjoy the bonus story I’m including, “Quincy Down Under”, which is the prequel to Quincy: A Montana Bounty Hunters Story.

  QUINCY DOWN UNDER

  Delilah Devlin

  Quincy Down Under

  “Looks like a damn hickey,” the elderly beauty operator said in her raspy voice as she set the straightening wand in its metal stand.

  Tamara Adams rose from the seat at Miss Gracie’s station and leaned closer toward the marquee lights. Yup, the tender mark on her neck did indeed look like a love bite. She touched her finger to the burn and hissed.

  “A little aloe vera will fix you right up,” Miss Gracie said and rummaged through a drawer to pick up a tube that looked to be twenty years old and squeezed of all its precious cream.

  Tamara bit back a grimace and waved the woman away. “Thank you so much for straightening the back of my hair, but I’ll take care of the burn. You have a dinner at the senior center. Don’t want to be late,” she sang.

  Miss Gracie’s eyebrows shot halfway up her forehead. “Thanks for reminding me.” She quickly retrieved her purse from her bottom drawer and headed toward the door leading out of the beauty shop.

  The older woman glanced down at the cinder block holding the door open then gave Tamara a pointed stare. Tamara waved her hand in acknowledgement of the issue she still hadn’t addressed, and then held her breath as the woman slowly climbed the steep steps. Miss Gracie disappeared into the sunlight that filtered down the metal staircase—the only natural lighting in Tamara’s tiny shop.

  When she was alone, Tamara moved toward her own station, her Sketchers sticking to the misting of hairspray that always surrounded Miss Gracie’s chair, making a sound reminiscent of Squidward’s tentacles.

  She opened her own drawer, pulled out a tube of concealer, then did her best to mask the nasty red burn. So, maybe she should have treated it with antibiotic cream first, but she planned to hit Slim ’n’ Shorty’s for a drink as soon as she finished cleaning up and counting her earnings for the day.

  Tamara snorted. Wouldn’t take a minute to empty her cash drawer. Miss Gracie’s elderly clients, the ones who could make it down the steep steps, had been the only customers that day.

  Staring into her well-lit mirror, Tamara didn’t get it. She was a walking advertisement for her skills. Her messy-wavy, chin-length bob was all the rage in Hollywood. The platinum color with the lone rose-pink streak was flawless.

  But she knew the problem was the location of her shop, and the fact she needed more noticeable signage for customers to even find it. Again, she snorted.

  Hell, a billboard wouldn’t be enough to convince women to make the trek down into her doomsday-bunker-turned-hair-salon.

  Footsteps sounded on the metal staircase, and she whirled, excited that she’d have at least one paying customer this day. However, the huge man descending the steps wiped her smile away. There was something about him that told her he was trouble. The hairs on the back of her neck prickled. She’d have to remember to take a razor to them later.

  She pasted on a polite expression. “Hello, sir. Can I help you?”

  The man’s dark beady eyes glanced around her small shop. Sure, it was economy-sized, with just two stations and a very small sitting area.

  His aroma hit her before she could clearly see his face. He smelled musty, like he’d worn the same clothes for at least a week, and she wondered if he understood the concept of deodorant.

  She gave him a tight smile as he drew closer, reminding herself she had a lighter and a can of hairspray close by. “Would you like a shave or a haircut?” He was sorely in need of both. His long beard looked matted like a dog’s after a week in the woods, and his stringy hair nearly met his shoulders.

  He walked toward her chair and eyed it.

  “It’s old, but it won’t collapse,” she murmured then held up her hands. “Not that I’m saying you’re fat or anything.” Her face suffused with heat. “It’s sturdier than it looks.”

  He sat, which brought him down to eyelevel with her. The pockmarks on his cheeks and the dark, deep-set eyes made him look even more sinister.

  “Shave the beard, and I need a cut,” he said, “and I need to change the color.”

  She blinked. Maybe he’d realized he’d never get a date unless he made an effort with his appearance. Bathing regularly would also greatly increase his odds. “I can help with that. Do you have anything in particular in mind?”

  His mouth curved, but the smile didn’t lessen her nervousness, so she began to set out the implements of her trade and bent to pull a fresh cape from the stack on the shelf beside her station.

  She started with his beard, telling herself not to rush, because the last thing she wanted to do was nick him. She trimmed away the excess hair then slathered on shaving cream. When she picked up her straight razor, he reached out and gripped her wrist. Alarmed, she shot him wide-eyed glance. “It gives the closest shave,” she said, and gave him another inane smile. “I’m going to lean your chair back so I can reach you.” When he let go of her wrist, she lowered his chair and leaned it backward.

  His gaze drilled into her, and she read the silent warning in his narrowed eyes.

  After taking a deep breath to still the tremor in her hands, she shaved him then patted his pink cheeks with an aftershave. The scent helped to mask his odor, and she felt a little more confident as she returned him to an upright position and turned the chair to face her mirror. She met his gaze in the glass. “Now for the cut. Do you want it short?”

  He nodded.

  “And you mentioned color,” she said, eyeing his dirty brown hair. “Would you like the tips highlighted?”

  “Bleach it all.”

  “Oh.” Her eyebrows rose, because she couldn’t imagine blond hair against his swarthy complexion. “Are you sure?”

  “Just do it.”

  She swallowed. “I’ll give you a cut first. Then I’ll bleach your hair.”

  When he didn’t object,
she picked up her scissors and began snipping away his lanky locks. She glanced at the clock. It was nearly five. She wasn’t going to have time to change before she headed to the bar. She’d hoped to be there early to get a seat close to Mason Jernigan’s usual table. She hadn’t had a date in forever and hoped to catch his eye. While she wasn’t looking for love, she did hope for a hookup. A girl needed a little attention to keep her confidence up. She’d recently turned thirty and had been a little depressed over the fact her life plan wasn’t shaping up the way she’d thought it would when she’d been younger.

  After she trimmed away the bulk of his hair, she used her electric razor to fade the sides. She left the top spiky, because she figured the height would make his face look less round. At last, she pulled out the products she needed and quickly mixed the bleach in a bowl.

  Forty-five minutes later, she used wax to spike up his newly washed hair and watched his expression in the mirror. She couldn’t tell if he was pleased or not, but she wasn’t counting on a fat tip from her surly customer. “All done,” she said and swept away the cape. “Since you’re the last customer of the day, I’ll cut you a break. It’s just sixty-five dollars.”

  He laughed as he pushed up from his seat.

  She drew a deep breath and stepped back, once again wary of the menace in his demeanor. “I can take cash, check, or credit card. I have the Square…”

  Only, he was already moving toward the door.

  “If you’re not happy, I’ll knock the price down to fifty,” she called after him.

  He never glanced back, and she chewed on her lip, trying to tamp down a sudden flare of anger. She’d spent an hour and a half on the bastard and used her expensive products. She deserved to be paid.

  At the stand beside the door, he picked up the telephone. Her land line—the only phone that worked in the bunker because the thick metal ceiling prevented cellphone signals from coming through.

  She held her breath as he drew back his arm and pulled the cord out of the wall. “Son of a bitch,” she muttered under her breath, but she didn’t move toward him. Her gaze cut to the small bathroom door in the corner. If she had to, she’d barricade herself inside.

  Apparently, he wasn’t planning to attack her. He paused and glanced down at the cinderblock doorstop she’d placed to keep the door open…because the door latch locked from the outside…

  He kicked it away, and she heard his low, cruel laughter as he slammed the door closed.

  * * *

  Quincy James drove slowly past the small single-story house, his gaze flicking over the home and the neat yard, and then zeroing in on the gold Buick parked in the driveway with a license plate number that matched his target’s to a T. He passed the house and parked in front of one farther down with an empty driveway, hoping there’d be no one home to make any noise about him leaving his truck in front of their yard.

  He grabbed his cellphone from the cupholder and hit the auto-dial for the office.

  “Montana Bounty Hunt—wait, that you, Quincy?” Brian Cobb, the agency’s office manager said.

  “Yeah, Bri. Guess his cousin wasn’t lying about his intentions. I found Clay Horner’s Buick. Took your advice and hit the beauty shops in Amity, though I’m not sure the address was right for this one… But it’s his car. Plate matches.”

  “Okay, you hold tight. Reaper and Hook are still in Whitefish.”

  Quincy’s eyes narrowed. He might be new to the Montana Bounty Hunters, but he’d been working this gig for seven years. Solo. He wasn’t waiting a damn hour for reinforcements to arrive. For the hundredth time, he wondered why the hell he’d agreed to sign on with the agency. He liked working alone and liked even better keeping all the money he earned—not splitting it with team members.

  Horner’s bounty would bring in a cool ten grand. To his mind, a three-way split was only a good thing when it had something to do with gymnastic twins.

  Still, he’d seen the big ticket takedowns the agency had been making lately, so when he’d been approached by Reaper, he’d said he’d give it six months to see how things worked out.

  “You’re not much of a team player, are you?” Reaper had asked over their third round of beers.

  Quincy grunted. “I quit being a team player when I left the Army.”

  Reaper’s mouth stretched into a grin. “My wife’s ex-Army. The man who owns the agency is ex-Army. You might find it easier than you think being a part of this team.”

  Well, he’d only been an MBH hunter for a couple of weeks, so he’d been surprised when Reaper had sent him on his own to Amity to look for leads. He’d been riding along with Hook since he’d hired on. Maybe they’d finally realized he knew his shit when they’d beat the bushes for Roddy Wainwright last weekend out in Glacier. Quincy had been the one to find him. When the rest of the team arrived after he’d radioed, he’d been drinking coffee from the metal coffee can Roddy had rigged over his fire, casually shooting the breeze with the grizzly poacher, who was cuffed, but otherwise appeared none the worse for wear.

  Quincy let himself out of out of his truck. He passed the mailbox. It matched the address he’d pulled off the internet when he’d Googled “beauty and barber shops in Amity.” However, it wasn’t until he snuck around the house, peering into windows without seeing a soul, that he happened upon a small sign with an arrow pointing toward “Curl Up & Dye.” The scissors that substituted for the ampersand looked as though a child had drawn them.

  Around the back of the house, he found a flagstone pathway leading to a metal staircase that descended into the ground. He drew his weapon and slowly crept down to the closed metal door, stepping over a cinder block before reaching out to pull on the door handle.

  The door creaked open, and he peered inside. The interior of the shop was darker than outside, so he moved even slower, letting his eyes adjust to the dimness inside. Behind him, he heard the door creak as it slowly swung closed.

  It was then he heard a click and fire shot toward him. He stumbled backward, tripping over something beside the door and landing on his ass.

  Blinded, he raised his gun. “What the fuck?”

  “Drop the gun or I’ll fry your ass!” came a garbled voice. Another click sounded, and more flame shot toward him.

  This time, heat curled the hairs on his forearm. “All right,” he said, cussing under his breath. He slowly laid his gun on the cool concrete floor.

  “Now, get up,” the voice said, this time more clearly. And definitely a woman’s voice. “Head toward the lighted mirror.”

  He raised his hands and strode toward the bright lights. “Lady, I’m not looking for trouble.”

  “And all the other asshole wanted was a haircut,” she said, bitterness in her tone. “You can take a seat.”

  He sat and glanced into the glass to find a very pretty woman wielding a can of hairspray. He almost smiled, but he was intrigued. “I’m a bounty hunter. Was that other asshole a big guy with a beard?”

  Her eyebrows lowered. “You’re a big guy with a beard. Show me your badge. For all I know, he sent you to get a cut and bleach, too. He owes me sixty-five bucks.”

  He began to lower his hands, but she quickly raised her spray can higher. “Badge is on my belt, ma’am,” he ground out.

  “Just no funny moves. Better yet…” she said, reaching sideways and pulling what looked like clothesline cord from a shelf. “Put your hands behind you.”

  Quincy conceded it might have been smarter to wait for that backup. “You don’t have to tie my hands. I swear I’m a bounty hunter. Just call Montana Bounty Hunters in Bear Lodge—”

  “Can’t call. The asshole tore out my land line.”

  “Don’t you have a cellphone?”

  “Yeah, smart ass, but you can’t get a signal through a metal roof and six feet of dirt.”

  He put his hands behind him and let her wind the cord around and around his wrists. When she’d finished tying him, he surreptitiously pulled against his restraints and realiz
ed the woman knew her knots. “Okay, now will you go outside and make that call? I’m not going anywhere.”

  In the mirror, he watched as her lower lip began to tremble.

  She spun away. “Can’t call. We’re stuck here. The door locks from the outside.”

  Quincy blinked. No fucking way. Reaper and Hook would bust their guts laughing when they arrived.

  “We’ll be here until tomorrow morning when Miss Gracie comes to work.”

  He opened his mouth to reassure her they’d be rescued soon, but instead, pursed his lips. He didn’t know her. Maybe she was involved with Clay Horner. “The asshole you mentioned before…”

  She sniffed and raised her free hand, likely to wipe away a tear or two, then turned to meet his gaze in the glass. “He came in just before closing. Said he wanted a shave and cut. Then he asked me to bleach his hair.”

  Quincy nodded. “He give you a name?”

  She shook her head. “I was too nervous to ask for one.” She sniffed, and her mouth settled into a straight line. “He was big, with a scraggly beard nearly to his chest and shoulder-length hair. And he had small beady eyes, like a pig’s.”

  Quincy let out a deep breath and settled back in his chair. “That’s Horner, all right. You’re lucky all he wanted was a cut. He’s wanted for armed robbery.”

  “Probably knew I hardly have a dime,” she said, the corners of her mouth drooping. “He stiffed me for the bill then locked me inside.”

  “Look,” he said, “I have a badge. It’s on my belt.”

  Her gaze narrowed, but she moved closer.

  Once she was within reach of the bright lights from the multitude of bulbs surrounding the mirror, Quincy’s eyes widened before he blinked and recovered himself. He’d thought her pretty before, but her soft-looking wavy hair with its cotton-candy pink streak made him wish his hands were free to touch it. Her skin was pale, her eyes an unusual blue-gray, framed by dark lashes. Her brows were dark, but they only heightened the appeal of her pretty eyes. Her mouth was a soft, pale pink, with a very full lower lip.