Just Eight Months Old...

Hannah dropped her arms from where they were crossed over her chest. She didn’t know what shocked her more: the reappearance of Chad in her life or Elliott’s atypical behavior. She decided Chad definitely came out a painful first.

“Like I said, it was a favor.” Elliott glanced at his recently chewed fingernails. “Look, I could go on all day about how this was a first offense. About how they had worked for the company for ten years and all that, but I won’t.” He paused. “The fact is I put up the bond and they skipped.”

Hannah drew in a deep breath and slowly let it out, trying to come to terms with everything that had happened in the past ten minutes. Ten minutes. Six hundred seconds. Such a short time, really. A short time she was afraid would affect every minute of her life thereafter.

Elliott wasn’t joking when he said he was in danger of closing down. If made to pay the amount of the bond, not only would his office be history, but Elliott himself would probably be paying off the debt for his next two incarnations.

“Why call Chad in?” She recrossed her arms over her chest.

“He’s the best there is, aside from you.” His expression was earnest. “Hannah, I need every ounce of manpower I have for this one. I swear, if I lose this place you might as well dig a hole for me six feet under. And don’t think I’m exaggerating. As much as I complain and manipulate, this business is my life.” Elliott shifted uneasily. “So…what do you say? Will you postpone your plans for Seekers and take this last one on?”

Hannah thought about her daughter, the cost of the day-care center she’d wanted to enroll her in and the one she’d chosen instead because it was more reasonably priced. If she succeeded in this trace, she’d be able to afford to send Bonny to the other one…plus a whole lot more.

“Does it mean working with Chad?”

Relief colored Elliott’s ruddy features. “That’s up to you.”

“You have files on these guys?”

He pushed a thin manila folder across the desk. “Here. Only they’re not both guys.” Hannah looked at him. “One is a woman.”

“What is this?” She examined the single sheet of paper in the file. The application form was skimpy at best, half the blanks left empty.

“Like I said, this was a favor.”

“Yes, you said that. What did you do? Just sign the bond without the normal paperwork? This isn’t like you, Elliott.”

“Believe me, if I had known this was going to happen, I would have got more.”

“It says here that the jumpers put their houses up.”

“Expensive houses, too. The only problem is they’re mortgaged to the hilt. Not worth the dirt they’re built on to me.”

“I don’t know, El…” She stepped away from the desk and chairs, pulling down the front ends of her vest. “Finding these two would be like finding—”

“I know, I know. Like finding needles in a haystack the size of Europe.”

Accepting the case meant more than postponing the opening of Seekers. It meant working with Chad again. A very risky prospect indeed. She wouldn’t even consider working against him. She might be afraid of what the man could do to her personal life, but she wouldn’t make the mistake of misjudging his professional talent.

She slid her hand into her pocket, fingering the message inside. Anyway, maybe it was time Chad knew the truth. The thought alone choked off her breath.

“Exactly how much money did you say there’d be in it for me?” she asked.

Elliott named an absurdly high figure.

“I’m in.”

“Good.” Elliott leapt to his feet. “You have four days.”

“Four days?”

“If you don’t bring them in within four days, you miss out on the money and I lose my business. Hell, I’m lucky the judge even rescheduled the hearing.”

Four days wasn’t much time, Hannah thought. That came out to two days apiece to find each bail-jumper.

“No problem.”

Chapter Two

Heat pressed in on Hannah from all sides as she left Blackstone Bail and Bonds. But the external heat didn’t concern her half as much as the emotions expanding inside her. She drew to a stop, as much to adjust to the change in temperature as to face Chad where he leaned against the building.

It was like someone had clipped an image from her memory and pasted it right in front of her: his right shoulder casually propped against the brick of the building; his hands stuffed into the pockets of his faded jeans; his legs crossed at the ankles, emphasizing the dusty cowboy boots he always wore.

Even as she compared him to the image, she noticed some changes that didn’t match up. Details that went beyond the physical.

When she’d known him before, there had been a sadness about him, a grief she’d later learned stemmed from the death of his wife and child in a car crash he’d refused to go into detail about. Now? Well, now he looked…more distant, somehow. Harder.

“Elliott really bought himself one this time, didn’t he?” Chad’s gray eyes focused on the cars streaking by on the ten-laned Queens Boulevard. “What was he thinking?”

The sun slowly sank behind the western skyline. Hannah gazed at it, then at him again. “Obviously he wasn’t.”

Hannah walked toward the battered Ford LTD. Chad picked up his duffel bag and followed, grasping on to the passenger’s door handle at the same time she opened the driver’s side. Her hand froze on the hot metal.

“Where are you going, Chad?” Her voice came out little more than a whisper.

“With you, of course.”

Her stomach plunged to her feet. “I don’t recall inviting you.”

He squinted at her against the sunlight. “Since you agreed to take the case, I thought we’d be working together. Are you saying you want to go out on your own?”

She wondered why her throat suddenly felt like sandpaper. “And what if I am?”

“I know you better than that. We each know exactly what the other is capable of. I’m certainly not interested in working against you.”

Hannah recognized her own thoughts only minutes earlier.

Chad drew in a deep breath and slowly let it out. “Look, I just got in from Florida and took a taxi from the airport. If you want me to catch another one, let me know.”

Hannah remained silent, half tempted to take him up on his offer. She could do without him slipping back into her life right now. She wanted, needed time to grow accustomed to his being back, even if it was only in an official capacity.

But time was something she didn’t have. Besides, she suspected no amount of time would lessen the empty ache in her chest…or change the reality standing in front of her in the shape of Chad Hogan.

She leaned against the car.

“Okay, Chad, I’ll work with you.” She ignored his probing gaze. “But it doesn’t mean side by side, night and day. I just mean I won’t work against you.”

He spread his hands on top of the roof and drummed his thumbs against the hot metal. “You’re telling me aside from sharing information, you would rather not lay eyes on me. Is that it, Hannah?”