It wasn’t until he saw her flinch that he realized what he’d said and cursed himself inwardly. But just as the heat between them had always flared near uncontrollable bounds, he instantly aimed to wound when it came to her. He opened his mouth to apologize—again—but Cameron nudged him aside.
“Cameron Murphy.” He stuck out a hand. “I’m the boss around here, and Boone Fowler, leader of the MMFAFA, is my bounty.” His tone brooked no argument. “Big Sky is collaborating with the authorities on tracking the fugitives and we’d appreciate any information you could give us.”
Isabella shook hands with him, her expression tinged with wariness as she scanned the assembly. All ex-Special Forces, the bounty hunters were an intimidating lot.
But she stuck out her chin as though leading for a punch, and said, “I help you, you help me. Quid pro quo.”
“Meaning?” Cam asked mildly while Jacob shifted from foot to foot, suppressing the urge to toss her over his shoulder, carry her back to his office and lock the window, bar the door, and nail the whole thing tight.
“Meaning I’ll give you what I have and what I know, but I want in on the search. I’m quick, smart, trained, and I have a hell of a motivation. Louis Cooper, his wife and baby girls are my responsibility. That doesn’t stop just because the kidnappers have convinced him to block my official abilities.”
“Don’t do it,” Jacob said to his boss in a near growl, though he’d never dared tell Cam what to do before. “You know what Fowler and his men are like. What about your sister’s death? What about when Fowler almost killed your wife?”
The other men shifted and glanced at each other, obviously expecting Cam to blast Jacob. But instead the Big Sky leader said mildly, “Agent Gray isn’t my sister. Like Mia, she’s trained, and unless I miss my guess, Isabella has a weapon tucked at the small of her back. That goes a long way toward leveling sexual prejudices in my book. And—” his look was less forgiving than his tone “—if Mia ever heard you say that, she’d kick your ass. Don’t forget she was a bounty hunter when we hooked up.”
“That’s neither here nor there.” Jacob’s fingers worried a plastic dart flight in his pocket. “I don’t want Isabella involved.”
“I get that.” Cam turned to Isabella. “Without knowing what is—or was—between you and Powell, let me ask. Are you going to have a problem working with him?”
Expression flat, she shook her head. “Not on your life. Whatever was between us died a long, long time ago. Now it’s just leftovers, and I can deal with leftovers.”
Ouch. Jacob’s temper flared even before Cam cut a glance in his direction and asked, “How about you?”
She’s nuts, he wanted to say. Leftovers my butt. But over the years he’d thought long and hard about what he’d done to her, what he’d said, and he’d realized that cruelty was cruelty, whatever the provocation. And he tried not to be a cruel man.
So instead he fisted his hands in his pockets and felt the dart flight crumple into a ball. “No problem whatsoever, boss. It’ll be just like working with one of the guys.”
“Fine then.” Cam extended his hand for a second shake. “Welcome to the team, Special Agent Gray. Now, let’s get to work.”
But as the bounty hunters—plus one suspended Secret Service agent—sat around the conference table, Jacob knew it was anything but fine. He didn’t want Isabella near Boone Fowler and his followers.
And he’d be damned if he was a leftover.
Chapter Three
An hour later Isabella, Jacob and two other bounty hunters headed to the Golf Resort for a recon. She let Jacob drive her rented Jeep, not because she’d felt particularly shaky, but because she’d lacked the energy to argue when he insisted.
And because the situation was so damned weird.
In the first few years after she and Jacob had gone their separate ways, one part of her had hated him like poison while another had dreamed of their reunion, how he would one day realize they’d had something special together, something he couldn’t find with anyone else.
Unfortunately the reverse had been true. Over the months and years, Isabella’s hatred had dimmed and she’d come to realize that he’d been right about some of the things he’d said. They’d been too young, their relationship too intense to do anything but burn itself out. She’d forgiven him for that, but not for the way he’d ended it, the way he’d gotten drunk, picked a fight, picked up a girl, and the next day tried to blame it all on her.
He’d faded from her conscious mind as she progressed from the Criminal Investigations Training Program in Georgia to the Secret Service Training Academy in Maryland. By the time she’d gotten herself established in her first field office, Jacob had become little more than a memory of the all-consuming, scary emotions that she tried like hell to avoid.
And she had. For almost thirteen years she’d avoided emotional hot flashes and brain-scrambling entanglements. She’d built herself a solid, steady life. It wasn’t predictable—how could the Protections Division ever be that?—and it wasn’t always safe—but the danger she’d encountered had always came from without, never within.
Until now.
When she’d made the decision to drive to the Big Sky headquarters, she’d told herself she could handle seeing Jacob again. But she wasn’t sure she could handle the wild emotions that had bubbled to the surface the moment she’d seen him, the moment she’d touched him.
She was supposed to have outgrown those feelings, damn it.
“Your head bothering you?”
She jolted at the sound of his voice, then consciously smoothed out her frown. “No. It’s fine.” She pointed at a passing sign. “Turn in here, the resort is a mile and a half up on the left. Use the second entrance. Secretary Cooper stayed in the Presidential Chalet.”
Which was sadly ironic, given that men wearing ex-presidents’ faces had taken his family.
“No problem.” He threaded the Jeep through the winding roads as though he knew exactly where he was going.
Which he probably did, she realized with faint discomfort. He’d lived in the area for close to five years now, and undoubtedly knew these roads better than she did.
But he hadn’t snapped when she’d bossed him with the directions. He would have before, she thought, then cursed under her breath. She needed to stop comparing the Jacob of today with the one she’d known in college.
“Problem?” His single word settled between them, asking so many more things than it should have.
She let out a frustrated breath. “Yeah. Problem. But it’s my problem, not yours.”
He followed the signs toward the chalet where Secretary Cooper and his family had stayed. Isabella shivered when they passed between the monstrous stone pillars edged with copper filigree. At Jacob’s sharp look, she shrugged. “The last time I turned through here, Secretary Cooper was playing patty-cake with one of the girls in the back of the limo. Hope and I were chatting about the area. It was normal. Relaxed.” Or as relaxed as she allowed herself to be on the job.
Jacob parked the Jeep in front of the chalet and waited while the SUV containing the other bounty hunters parked off to the side. Then he turned, looked at her too closely and said, “It wasn’t your fault, Isabella.”
Something shifted in her chest and her eyes burned. She wanted to lean into him, to crawl against him. Weakness. He was her weakness, the man who brought tricky emotions too near the surface and made her want to burrow