Bounty Hunter Read Online Free PDF

dawn to pick, he kept
     his eyes trained on sorting the pieces of wood into usable lumber and scrap. “Yes.
     I did.”
    She didn’t respond right away. “Well, then, thank you.”
    “No problem.” He was done sorting and knew he couldn’t go on with his work without
     looking at her. He mentally cursed himself for his cowardice. Cloud Dancer would have
     been vastly amused to see her stoic grandson behaving like an untried brave, hiding
     his face for fear some soft emotion shone in his eyes. That thought alone brought
     his head up and his gaze to hers.
    Business. This was just business as usual.
    “Do you still need to go in the fields?” he asked, his voice more terse than he’d
     intended.
    “For an hour or so.” She smiled and lifted the bucket a bit. “This will cut at least
     an hour of work off my day though.”
    He nodded and said, “If it’s okay with you then, I’ll go inside and check out the
     rooms.”
    If he hadn’t been studying her so closely, he would have missed the slight blush that
     briefly colored her cheeks. Was she so used to her wealthy lifestyle that she was
     embarrassed for him to see herhumble surroundings? She hadn’t made any excuses the previous night at dinner.
    “Is there any part of the house that needs to be worked on first?” She fidgeted with
     the bucket handle, and another thought occurred to him. “Or a part you’d rather me
     not go into?”
    She blushed again. And damn if he didn’t respond. So, she was uncomfortable with the
     idea of him invading her privacy. He wondered what in the hell she’d do if he told
     her just how privately he’d thought about invading her space. His thoughts must have
     flashed in his eyes, because she stepped back.
    “Ah, no, you can go anywhere you want.” She laughed a bit dryly. “And as to what needs
     to be fixed, take your pick.”
    “This place looks as if it’s survived for quite a while.”
    She smiled softly. “I guess it has. Grandpa Fielding died just after he and Grandma
     had homesteaded this property. That was over fifty years ago. Grandma tried for years,
     even after my mom married and moved away, to make it into a working proposition, but
     it never panned out. I’d been here only once before. I was about seven. My folks dragged
     me and my brother up here to try to convince Grandma to come and live with us. It
     took us a few weeks, but she gave in. No one’s been back up here since.”
    “Why didn’t they sell it?”
    “I don’t know. Maybe my folks never got aroundto it, or maybe no one wanted it. After they died, neither Matt nor I really gave
     it any thought.”
    Until she needed a place to run to. Kane thought about the picture in his saddlebag.
     He knew what she’d looked like around age seven. He knew because he’d searched her
     brother’s apartment and found an old black-and-white photo of them standing together
     under the Lazy F sign that still hung over the entrance to the long, winding driveway.
     Elizabeth Ann Lawson, the child, had been all blond pigtails, freckles, and scuffed
     knees. He hadn’t known she’d never been back since, but it had been his only lead.
    And Elizabeth Ann Lawson-Perkins, the grown woman, had just handed him a golden opportunity
     to get a confession as to why she’d run in the first place. Run from a man who was
     paying him to bring her back.
    “What made you come back here after all that time?” He watched the lovely pink hue
     on her cheeks fade to white. He swallowed the urge to apologize for upsetting her.
    Instead he silently watched her struggle for control.
    She tilted her chin and pasted a spectacular and patently false smile across her face.
     “I guess I got tired of the rat race and decided to get back to nature for a while.
     You know, get in touch with my feelings and all that.” She glanced around her. “Of
     course, I didn’t want to touch nature quite so closely, but this was the only place
     I knew to go.”
    She’d been all