Dreaming of the Wolf (Heart of the Wolf #8)(7)

And she didn’t have a choice. It was her life or theirs. Simple as that.

But she didn’t need any man questioning her abilities with regards to bounty hunting. She’d been fingerprinted and had her background checked. She had never committed a felony—she was one of the good guys—and she’d completed her bail-fugitive-apprehension training, which was necessary to become a bounty hunter.

Working for a licensed bail agent, she’d arrested several fugitives in the past few months, although none that were Mob-related. But the others had only been practice before she went after the ones that really counted.

Trying not to sound waspish, she said, “Sure I know how to use a gun. My first…” Alicia paused. She had not intended to talk about that mistake.

The look on Jake’s face was one of rabid curiosity. She was about to tell a secret, and he was dying to know the truth. She sighed. She’d already let the proverbial cat partway out of the bag. “My first husband taught me how to shoot at a firing range. He was in the army—military police.”

“Ah.”

“I went hunting, too,” she said defensively, then was annoyed with herself for explaining her qualifications to him as if she owed that to him.

Jake’s frown didn’t fade. “What did you kill?”

She looked down at her hands, now strangling the linen napkin in her lap. “Nothing. Irvin was lousy at hunting. We never could find anything.”

“So Irvin was your first husband?”

“Um, no.” She hadn’t planned to let on that she’d had two, but mentioning that the first was… she sighed, first, indicated she’d had more than one, even though she’d meant to say ex-husband.

Jake raised his brows. She had not planned on telling him her whole blasted life story. “My second husband,” she said, in way too small a voice.

Jake’s lips curved up just a hint. “Is that all of them?”

She gave him an annoyed look. “Yes.”

“You can’t be all that old.”

“Twenty-seven.”

“And what happened to the husbands?”

“Both of them were big mistakes. The last one was out of my life three years ago—after a year of marriage.”

Jake sat back in his chair. “Sure there aren’t any more of them?”

This time she smiled. “No. I had an aunt who’d had eight of them, though.”

He whistled softly.

She chuckled. “Luckily, no children and only her death stopped her from having more husbands. I swear I’m not going down the same path as my aunt. I’ve strictly sworn off men. What about you? Been married before? Currently married or engaged? Your age?”

“Thirty. Never been married, engaged, or otherwise.”

“You’re kidding.” She hadn’t meant to sound so skeptical, but he seemed a trifle amused by her reaction.

“No.”

She wondered how that could be, as good looking as he was. But then the sinking realization he might be gay hit her, and she didn’t say anything more.

Jake finished his coffee, set his cup down, and pointedly said, “You’re wondering why I’m thirty and have never been married.”

Hating to be put on the spot, she waffled. “Not everyone marries as many times as I did before the age of twenty-three.” As soon as she said that, it sounded lame to her. He was thirty, not twenty-three.

“I like women, Alicia.” He gave her a pleasantly amused smile. “I’ve just never found the right one to convince me to settle down.”

Alicia’s grim expression softened. “I never found the right guy either, but that didn’t stop me from marrying two times. I’m cured of my impulsiveness now, though.”

That’s why, Jake thought ruefully, she had become a bounty hunter. Nothing impulsive about that. At least he managed to curb the urge to shake his head. He had imagined that she was a trained weapons expert, knowledgeable in the martial arts, maybe ex-military or an ex-cop. Not a former cashier in a department store.

Before he could ask her why she was a bounty hunter—figuring maybe for the excitement, for some sense of adventure, or because it paid better—she posed a question. “What were you doing at the art gallery?”

The notion she was in the business of asking questions and getting answers made him think she was like a police officer on a mission.

This got tricky, though. Only his pack members knew about his hobby of photographing flowers in the wild. Even if anyone thought it wasn’t a macho thing to do, no one let on. At least not to his face. As no-nonsense as she seemed, he imagined she’d think his hobby was foolish. And as much as he told himself that shouldn’t matter, he did care what she thought.

He shrugged.

She didn’t miss a beat. “You have paintings you’re leaving off, right? Nude women? Old girlfriends? New girlfriends?”

He laughed. The woman was precocious. “I’m afraid that if I told you, I’d ruin your image of me.”

“Ahhh,” she said, drawing out the word. “I see.”

“What do you see?”

“Landscapes, then.”

He smiled and shook his head, but he was still thinking of where he wanted to go next with Alicia. In an instant, she had changed his mood from annoyed at having to hang around town until the gallery opened and then spending a fortune on a meal to being possessively chivalrous and wanting to just spend some time in town enjoying the day with a woman like her.