She’d hoped that nobody would be out front. The last thing she wanted was for anyone to try to get involved in her collar.
As they walked across the street, she opened her purse so she could gain access to her handcuffs. “Oh, wow, I can’t find my keys,” she said and pretended to rummage in the bottom of her purse.
“Maybe you left them in the car.” As Wesley reached the driver door he bent down to peer into the window.
Chantal yanked the cuffs from her purse and slapped one on Wesley’s wrist. It didn’t fasten. “Hey, what the hell?” He attempted to whirl around to face her, but she held his wrist and tried to get the damned handcuff to connect.
“What’s going on over there?” a deep voice yelled.
As Chantal and Wesley fell to the pavement, she was aware of the sound of running feet. It wasn’t exactly music to her ears, but she refused to release her death grip on Baker’s wrist.
“Everybody back off. This is official business,” a deep, familiar voice rang out.
A wave of dread swept through Chantal. Of all the men she wanted to see right now, Crazy Luke Coleman was the last. Just her luck that he would appear at the moment she suspected she was about to get her ass kicked.
With irritating ease, he grabbed Baker, yanked him up and cuffed him, then reached out a hand to help her up off the sidewalk. “Darlin’, you’re in way over your head,” he murmured as he held out her cuffs.
She snatched the cuffs from him and jammed them back in her purse, aware that the group of men who had begun to advance had gone back to the opposite side of the street.
She eyed the tall man who now had control of her prisoner. “I could have managed on my own,” she exclaimed.
Luke Coleman, or Crazy Coleman as he was known in the bounty business, looked as if he belonged at a biker bar. His dark hair hung to his shoulders and his jaw was covered with more than a day’s dark stubble.
His sleeveless shirt exposed not only bulging biceps but also an intricate tattoo of an eagle. His jeans were worn and fit snugly on his long, muscular legs. He looked edgy, dangerous and more than capable of taking care of himself.
The other bounty hunters who worked for Big Joey spoke of him as if he was a demigod. In the time Chantal had worked for Joey she’d found Luke Coleman to be arrogant, irritating and unsettling. He was also the most successful bounty hunter in a four-state area.
“Wait! What are you doing?” she asked as he started to lead Wesley Baker away from her car.
“I’m taking my prisoner to my truck,” he said, then turned and proceeded to walk away from her.
“Stop!” She hurried after him and grabbed him by the arm. “What do you mean your prisoner? He’s my prisoner.”
Coleman turned to look at her once again, a glint of amusement in his dark eyes. “My cuffs, my collar.”
She watched in outrage as he continued toward his truck, her prisoner in tow. “Bastard,” she hissed. He had the audacity to turn and salute her.
She remained on the sidewalk, cursing a blue streak as Crazy Luke Coleman drove away with Wesley Baker.
Chapter 2
“That bastard will never take another one of my collars,” Chantal exclaimed to her assistant as she gripped her handcuffs in her hand. “Come on, let’s try it again. Pretend you’re just walking along and I’ll grab your wrist and handcuff it.”
It was late Monday morning and the two women were in Chantal’s living room where, for the past hour, Chantal had been practicing slapping cuffs on Harrah’s wrists.
“You don’t pay me enough for this,” Harrah grumbled.
“Nonsense, I pay you three times what you’re worth. Now, come on, just one more time.”
“I go home with black-and-blue wrists and Lena will think I’m seeing somebody who’s into bondage,” Harrah exclaimed.
“Lena knows you’re devoted to her, now stop bitching and walk like a criminal.”
With a long-suffering sigh, Harrah walked in front of Chantal. Chantal grabbed one of her wrists and slapped the handcuff over Harrah’s smooth mahogany skin. Harrah twisted her wrist and the cuffs dropped to the ground.
“Damn,” Chantal muttered. She picked up the cuffs and threw herself onto the overstuffed burgundy sofa. “You know, they make it look easy in the movies, but apparently there’s a finesse to handcuffs that I still haven’t figured out.”
She frowned with irritation as she thought of how easily Coleman had cuffed Baker on Saturday night. “I still can’t believe he walked away with my prisoner. He’s the most irritating, arrogant man I’ve ever known.”
Harrah didn’t have to ask who she was talking about. Her full lips curved into a smile as she sank into the wing chair opposite the sofa. “He might be arrogant, but that bad boy is sexy enough to make me rethink my sexual preference.” Harrah was a self-proclaimed lipstick lesbian who had been in a relationship with her partner for over five years.
Chantal scowled. “He looks as disreputable as the people he hunts.”
“I hate to change the subject while you’re nursing a grudge, but I need to get those invitations in the mail today.”
“Invitations?” Chantal looked at her blankly.
“You know, the dinner party you promised your mother you’re giving next week for Mr. Barnes? They’re already going to be sinfully late. I’m going to have to overnight them. I’ve got Enrique catering and he’s also taking care of the cake.”
The dinner party was for Jeffrey Barnes, financial advisor and close friend of both Chantal and her mother. Jeffrey was turning sixty next week and Katherine had thought it would be nice if Chantal put together an intimate dinner party as a birthday celebration.
“I’ve got the list for you in my office. I’ll get it so you can get started.” Chantal got up and left the living room to go into her office off the kitchen.
The first thing that greeted her was the view, a stunning panorama of an exclusive golf course. Chantal didn’t play, but when she’d house-hunted a year ago she’d fallen in love with the four-bedroom, story-and-a-half home and the pleasant surroundings.
Besides, there was nothing better than sitting in her office on a hot summer day and watching sweaty, well-built men swing a golf club.
In addition to the floor-to-ceiling windows across one wall, the room sported a wall of bookcases that held her favorite novels and knickknacks, a massive desk and a computer with all the latest bells and whistles that money could buy.
It was in this room that she did not only her work for various charities and organizations, but also much of her bounty-hunting work. Most people thought bounty hunting was all about bursting through doors and hopping over fences in pursuit of a bail jumper, but that wasn’t reality.
Reality was long hours on the phone, using the Internet as a tool, talking to snitches and watching a particular location while fighting off sleep. The rush of a capture was the payoff for all the boring, tedious hours it took to get to that point.
She sat at the desk and opened a drawer to pull out the guest list she’d written out several days earlier. Thank God for Harrah, who managed to keep her life organized.
She leaned back in her chair and smiled as she thought of the day almost a year before when Harrah had shown up to apply for the position of Chantal’s personal assistant.
“I’m black, gay and named after my mama’s favorite casino, but I’ll be the best damned personal assistant you’ll ever have,” she’d pronounced.
She hadn’t lied. There