The Bounty Hunter's Baby Surprise

Branches slapped Lillian in the face, making her gasp in shock and pain as she rushed through the underbrush. Twigs snapped beneath her feet and briars caught her pants, tugging on the thin knit maternity leggings. She heard fabric tear and felt the sting of the thorns scratching her skin.

Tears stung her eyes at the pain. But she rushed ahead, even though she had no idea where she was going. She didn’t even have any idea where she was. She might keep running and fall right off a bluff into Lake Michigan.

This wasn’t smart. But neither was staying where men were shooting and trying to run her off the road. Had they been looking for her at all? She hadn’t been in the cottage. And they couldn’t have known that she had been in the truck with Jake. Nobody had been around when she’d jumped into it.

So who were they really after?

Since they had shown up at her grandmother’s cottage, she suspected it was her—just as Jake had claimed—and he had just gotten caught in the cross fire. But she couldn’t trust him to protect her. He’d already proved that she couldn’t trust him at all.

Briars and brush tripped her, and she stumbled forward, falling onto her knees. A curse slipped through her lips as she reached for her belly, pressing her hands over it. She hadn’t fallen on the mound that was her baby, though. And she hadn’t hit the baby bump on the dash or the door while the men had been crashing into the truck and Jake had been driving like a mad man.

He was mad now.

She’d heard him shout her name just as she’d slipped into the trees and the darkness. She needed to get up and keep running. But her lungs burned and she struggled to breathe.

It wasn’t just the exertion from her run that had stolen her breath away. It was fear.

Men had been shooting at them.

Trying to run them off the road.

She’d suspected before how much danger she’d been in. That was why she’d spent the past six months awaiting her court date hiding out in Florida. But now she knew for certain. Somebody had literally come gunning for her. And it hadn’t been just Jake.

Jake...

The baby leaped beneath her palms. He was doing somersaults, just like Lillian’s heart was within her chest. Every snap of a twig or branch made it flip again. Somebody was coming after her.

And it didn’t matter if it was one of those armed gunmen or Jake, she had to run. She had to get away. She couldn’t let anyone catch her.

She couldn’t let anyone catch them.

She rubbed her palms over her belly again before she moved her hands to the ground and pushed herself to her feet. It wasn’t easy to move quickly—not now. Just getting up from a chair took a concerted effort because of the size of her belly. And it—and her baby—was still growing.

She had weeks yet to go. She couldn’t go into early labor, couldn’t risk her baby coming too soon. Or worse yet, not coming at all.

She needed to be careful. But staying behind to get shot or dragged back to jail was more dangerous than running through the woods in the dark.

Wasn’t it?

She wasn’t sure what was in the woods, either. Gran had told her that dangerous animals had recently been spotted in the area. Coyotes. Black bears.

She was less worried about the four-legged animals than she was the two, so she forced herself to keep going through the woods. Maybe she would come upon another road and a car she could wave down to drive her away. But did anyone stop for hitchhikers anymore?

She wasn’t just any hitchhiker, though. She was an obviously pregnant one. Surely, someone would take pity on her and offer to help her.

First, she had to find that road, though. The woods just kept getting thicker and thicker, the trees growing taller and closer together, the underbrush so dense she could barely fight her way through it. As she crashed into an impenetrable wall of briar bushes, her breath escaped in a hiss of pain.

But before she could turn back to find a way around that thorny wall, a strong hand wrapped tightly around her arm. She couldn’t see who had grabbed her. She could see nothing but darkness and the faint shadows of the tall trees.

She parted her lips to scream, but before any sound could escape, a palm clasped over her mouth—muffling her voice and her breath.

Was this person trying to silence her for just the moment or forever? If it was one of the thugs that Mr. Kuipers must have sent after her, it was undoubtedly meant to silence her forever.

* * *

Seymour Tuttle jumped as the phone on his desk rang. He should have been expecting it. As a bondsman, his phone rang constantly with people needing to be bailed out. Generally, they needed to wait until morning before a judge set the bail amount. But often Seymour was the first call they made from jail—so he’d be ready to post their bond when they were able to get out.

If they were able to get out...

Why had the judge granted Lillian Davies bail? Based on her family history alone, she should have been ruled a flight risk. But why had Seymour posted that bail, especially after Jake had warned him against ever bonding out another Davies?

No matter how old he was, and he didn’t want to think about how old that was, he was still a sucker for a pretty face. And they didn’t come much prettier than Lillian Davies. Although she looked like an angel with her pale blond hair and blue eyes, she was apparently a devil like the rest of her damn family. At least that was what Jake Howard believed.

Maybe this was Jake calling him with an update. The guy was good—his best damn bounty hunter.

With a sigh, he dropped his greasy burger onto his desk, wiped his hand on the polyester pants which matched the polyester suit jacket slung over the back of his chair and picked up the phone. “Tuttle Bonds...”

“Tuttle,” a raspy voice said.

It wasn’t Jake’s. His was even deeper than this guy’s, if it was even a guy calling and not someone just disguising her voice. Sometimes people did that from jail because they were embarrassed at having been arrested. And like Seymour was going to record their call and broadcast it.

He didn’t care about his clients’ reputations. He only cared about getting his money.

“Yeah, this is Tuttle,” he confirmed for the caller.

“Did you send someone after Lillian Davies?”

Speak of the devil...

Or speaking to her?

No. Her voice had been too light and soft ever to become this raspy.

“That’s none of your business,” he remarked.

“It’s a matter of public record that you posted her bail,” the voice replied. Irritation cleared away some of the fake raspiness. The caller was a man, but Seymour wasn’t sure if he’d ever heard the voice before.

Could it be one of her brothers? Or her dad? Of course, then the call would have come from prison and he would have needed to accept the charges. No. It couldn’t be one of them—at least not one of the ones Jake had already apprehended for Seymour and the courts.

“That’s public record,” Seymour agreed. “Not whether or not I sent someone after her.”

“Stands to reason you’ll want your money back.”

“Stands to reason,” Seymour agreed.

“But if you’re a reasonable man, you’ll forget about the money.”

“I will?” Now he was intrigued. Just what the hell was this caller’s agenda? To have him let Lillian Davies go?