Rage Factor Read Online Free PDF Page B

more rewarding.”
    “Is it the challenge? A ‘liberated female’ thing? Why do you insist on putting yourself in the middle of dangerous situations?”
    “Finding Coombs wasn’t supposed to be dangerous,” she pointed out.
    “You knew he was charged with rape and battery.”
    “The job went sour. You think a parent who’s stolen a child isn’t dangerous? Picture a mama lion.”
    He looked away from her. “Eat your omelet before it gets cold.”
    Dixie didn’t want to argue with him. Nor did she want to go to bed with the anger simmering between them. She forked up a bite, but continued to watch him discreetly from beneath her lashes. His broad shoulders were rigid with tension, his jaw rock hard, barely moving as he chewed. Parker’s concern for her was comforting at times, but she couldn’t respond to his fears by taking a desk job somewhere. And she simply didn’t know the answers to his questions. She’d never consciously decided to become a bounty hunter. It was a thing that needed doing, so she did it. After ending her career as a prosecutor, she hadn’t really planned the rest of her life. She was making it up day by day, taking on whatever seemed to need doing. Which today had included finding an accused rapist who hadn’t appeared for trial. And dammit, despite the broken foot and painful bruises, this was a day she felt good about her job. Lawrence Riley Coombs was one devil she wanted to see burn.
    Parker speared a mushroom as if to kill it.
    “I just feel so friggin impotent, not being there, like there must be something I could’ve done. Almost wish Coombs wasn’t locked up, so I could go beat the shit out of him.”
    “Thanks for feeling that way.” Dixie meant it. The male gallantry thing might be chauvinistic, but she appreciated his wanting to protect her.
    Parker shoved his plate away. “It isn’t easy loving you, Dixie. Knowing any day I might get a call that you’re seriously injured or … worse.”
    Loving
her? That’s a word they hadn’t used before.
    “How would you feel if it was the other way around?” he demanded. “If I was the one in danger of coming home in a box?”
    Dixie had dated a cop once. The worry and uncertainty had made her as mean as a homeless wasp at times, and she hadn’t cared half as much about the cop as she did about the man sitting across from her. She reached for Parker’s hand and linked a finger around his broader one.
    “Do you have any idea how good you made me feel, showing up at the ER?”
    His gaze caught hers, and his mouth softened at the corners.
    “Embarrassing, wasn’t it, all of us crowded around while a doctor poked at you?”
    “I wasn’t talking about Amy, Carl, and Ryan. I’m used to their mother-hen act. But Coombs … well, his kind of attack makes a woman feel … dirty. When I looked up and saw your big, beautiful, worried face, everything that happened in that hotel meeting room vanished like a bad dream.”
    With his free hand, he nudged a strand of hair away from her cheek. “A bad dream that left an imprint,” he reminded her.
    “It’ll heal.”
    He nodded. “This time.”
    “Believe me, tonight was not typical. These past
weeks
haven’t been typical.”
    “No?” He touched her neck where a knife wound had scarcely healed. Then he turned her hand over and rubbed the back of her knuckles with his thumb. “Figured you’d be pissed when I showed up at the hospital. But I had to come. Make sure you were all right.”
    “I was more all right after you got there.” She retrieved her hand and returned part of her attention to her food. “You know, if Lawrence Coombs isn’t convicted, he’ll go right on doing to other women what he did to Regan Salles. What he tried to do to me.”
    “Which means you’ll testify against him?”
    “How would you feel about that?”
    “Your having to say in front of a courtroom what he tried to do? Hellfire, Dixie, the sonofabitch belongs in prison. Putting him down for