Captive Star. Nora Roberts

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      Her answer was a swift flying kick to his mid section he wished he’d been able to admire from a distance. But he was too busy crashing into a table.

      Damn, she was good.

      He expected her to bolt for the door, and was up on the balls of his feet quickly to block her. But she merely circled him, eyes hidden behind the dark glasses, mouth curled in a grimace.

      “Come on, then,” she taunted him. “Nobody tries to mug me on my own turf and walks away.”

      “I’m not a mugger.” He kicked away a trio of firm, ripe peaches that had spilled out of her bag. “I’m a skip tracer, and you’re busted.” He held up a hand, signaling peace, and, hoping her gaze had flickered there, moved in fast, hooked a foot under her leg and sent her sprawling on her butt.

      He tackled her, and might have appreciated the long, economical lines of her body pressed beneath him, but her knee had better aim than her initial kick. His eyes rolled, his breath hissed, as the pain only a man understands radiated in sick waves. But he hung on.

      He had the advantage now, and she knew it. Vertical, she was fast, and her reach was nearly as long as his and the odds were more balanced. But in a wrestling match, he outweighed her and outmuscled her. It infuriated her enough to have her resorting to dirty tactics. She fixed her teeth in his shoulders like a bear trap, felt the adrenaline and satisfaction rush through her as he howled.

      They rolled, limbs tangling, hands grappling, and crashed into the coffee table. A wide blue bowl filled with chocolate drops shattered on the floor. A shard pierced his undamaged shoulder and made him swear again. She landed a blow to the side of his head, another to his kidneys.

      She was just beginning to think she could take him, after all, when he flipped her over. She landed with a jarring smack, and before she could suck in breath, he had her hands locked behind her back and was sitting on her.

      The fact that his breath was coming in pants was very little satisfaction. And for the first time, she was seriously afraid.

      “Don’t know why the hell you shot the guy, when you could’ve just beat the hell out of him,” Jack muttered. He reached into his back pocket for his cuffs, swore again when he came up empty. They’d popped out during the match.

      He simply rode her out as she bucked, and caught his breath. He hadn’t had a fight of this magnitude with a female since he hunted down Big Betsy. And she’d been two hundred pounds of sheer muscle.

      “Look, it’s only going to be harder on you this way. Why don’t you just go quietly, before we bust up any more of your friend’s apartment?”

      “You’re crushing me, you jerk,” she said between her teeth. “And this is my apartment. You try to rape me, and I’ll twist your pride clean off and hand it to you. There won’t be enough left of you for the cops to scrape off their shoes.”

      “I don’t force women, sugar. Just because some accountant couldn’t keep his hands off you doesn’t mean I can’t. And the cops aren’t interested in me. They want you.”

      She blew out a breath, tried to suck another in, but he was crushing her lungs. “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”

      He pulled the papers out of his pocket, shoved them in front of her face. “M. J. O’Leary, assault with a deadly, malicious wounding, and blah-blah. Ralph’s real disappointed in you, sugar. He’s a trusting man and didn’t expect a nice woman like you to try to skip out on the ten-K bond.”

      “This is a crock.” She could see her name and some downtown address on what appeared to be some kind of arrest warrant. “You’ve got the wrong person. I didn’t post bail for anything. I haven’t been arrested, and I live here. Idiot cops,” she muttered, and tried to buck him off again. “Call in to your sergeant, or whatever. Straighten this out. And when you do, I’m suing.”

      “Nice try. And I suppose you’ve never heard of George MacDonald.”

      “No, I haven’t.”

      “Then it was really rude of you to shoot him.” He eased up just enough to flip her face up, then caught both of her hands at the wrist. She’d lost her glasses, he noted, and her eyes were neither moss nor emerald, he decided—they were dark shady-river green. And, just now, full of fury. “Look, you want to have a hot affair with your accountant, sister, it’s no skin off my nose. You want to shoot him, I don’t particularly care. But you skip bond, and it ticks me off.”

      She could breathe slightly easier now, but his hands were like steel bands at her wrists. “My accountant’s name is Holly Bergman, and we haven’t had a hot affair. I haven’t shot anyone, and I haven’t skipped bond because I haven’t posted bond. I want to see your ID, ace.”

      He thought it took a lot of nerve to make demands in her current position. “My name’s Dakota, Jack Dakota. I’m a skip tracer.”

      Her eyes narrowed as they skimmed over his face. She thought he looked like something out of the gritty side of a western. A cold-eyed gunslinger, a tough-talking gambler. Or…

      “A bounty hunter. Well, there’s no bounty here, jerk.” It wasn’t rape, and it wasn’t a mugging. The fear that had iced her heart thawed into fresh temper. “You son of a bitch. You break in here, tear up my things, ruin twenty bucks’ worth of produce, and all because you can’t follow the right trail? Your butt’s in a sling, I promise you. When I’m done, you won’t be able to trace your own name with a stencil. You won’t—” She broke off when he stuck a photo in her face.

      It was her face, and the photograph might have been taken yesterday.

      “Got a twin, O’Leary? One who drives a ’68 MG, license plate SLAINTE, and is currently shacked up with some guy named Bailey James.”

      “Bailey’s a woman,” she murmured, staring at her own face while new worries raced in her head. Was this about Bailey, about what Bailey had sent her? What kind of trouble could her friend be in? “And this isn’t her apartment, it’s mine. I don’t have a twin.” She looked up into his eyes again. “What’s going on? Is Bailey all right? Where’s Bailey?”

      Under his clamped hands, her pulse had spiked. She was struggling again, with a fresh and vicious energy he knew was brought on by fear. And he was dead certain it wasn’t fear for herself.

      “I don’t know anything about this Bailey except this address is listed under her name on the paperwork.”

      But he was beginning to smell something, and he didn’t like it. He was no longer thinking M. J. O’Leary was dumb as a post. A woman with any brains wouldn’t have left herself with so many avenues to be tracked if she was on the run.

      Ralph, Jack mused, frowning down into M.J.’s face. Why were you so jumpy this morning?

      “If you’re being straight with me, we can confirm it quick enough. Maybe it was a clerical mix-up.” But he didn’t think so. No indeed. And there was an itching at the base of his spine. “Listen,” he began, just as the door broke open and the giant roared in.

      “You were supposed to bring her out,” the giant said, and waved an impressive .357 Magnum. “You’re talking too much. He’s waiting.”

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