Fugitive Heart - By Bonnie Dee Page 0,70

He turned to face her in front of a pool table covered with red felt. “She practically snaps like an electrical fence hit by water whenever I get near you.”

“Cassavechias look out for each other. Anyway, your mom isn’t exactly a study in Southern hospitality.” She looked at the pool table. “Isn’t Brunswick a bit fancy to hide away in a dungeon?”

“Keep my secret. Even my mother doesn’t know this baby’s here.” He handed her a cue. “Do you play?”

“A little.” Sugar studied the room. “Why are we down here?”

“I told you,” Jake said, “I’m sharing my deepest, darkest secret with you.” He sighted down the length of the cue, nodding with satisfaction. “I own Bait and Burgers. This is my private office. None of this info is known by anyone except my partners who cover for me, so if you share, I’ll have to enact landlord penance on you.”

“Terrifying, I’m sure, considering you’d probably never find another sucker to rent the lusty family domicile.” Sugar looked at him. “So this is your Bat Cave. Interesting.”

“You mean man cave.”

She shook her head and walked over to break. “My guess is you hide down here from the bats that inhabit Pecan Creek.”

He laughed. “Just keep my secret.”

“So you wanted me to know this so I won’t be mad at you for trying to dump your mayor’s job on Mom?”

“Yeah.” He leaned against the black vinyl bar and grinned, too sexy for words. “I’m a very busy man. This is your chance to have leverage with me.”

“Got it.” She broke the rack, and balls flew in every direction.

“Not bad.” He got up to study the table.

“Not so fast. Let me see if I can figure the subtext out.” She looked at him before leaning over the table to line up her shot. “The little red ball is going to go first, by the way.”

She made that shot, and went on. “So what you’re trying to tell me is that you’re not an absolute ass for shifting your responsibilities. You own a restaurant, and you rent the family home, and you don’t want your mother breathing down your neck all the time.”

He grinned. “Not bad.”

“Purple-striped ball is history.” She made that shot and moved to the opposite side of the table, near Jake. “Excuse me.”

He raised a dark brow. “Sugar, I think Maggie can handle my mother any day of the week. What are you protecting her from?”

Sugar leaned over. “Rats.”

He turned her toward him. “I honestly am not a rat. I’m not using Maggie.”

“Do not try to mess up my rhythm.” She pulled herself away from Jake with an effort. “Green.”

He waited until she made the shot, then he took her cue from her, setting it down on the table. “I get it. You’re nobody’s fool. You don’t want to be taken advantage of.” He kissed her, his lips warm on hers, but not demanding. Something hot and welcoming surged into Sugar, something she hadn’t felt in a long time, didn’t know if she wanted to feel now. She pulled away, resisting the urge to press her fingertips to her lips to feel the echo of his kiss.

“I’ll keep your secret, Jake.” Sugar looked in his dark eyes, thinking that he was handsome and hot—and oh, so not what she needed in her life. “You don’t have to seduce me to get what you want.”

“I wasn’t seducing you.”

She let his statement hang in the air.

“I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’d seduce you in a minute if I thought I could.” He looked at her for a long moment. “The truth is, I’m pretty sure you’re so far out of my league, Sugar, that all I’m hoping for is a good relationship.”

She slowly shook her head. “Let’s just stick with the tenant/landlord thing. It works for me.”

Fugitive Heart

Bonnie Dee and Summer Devon

Love is always in the last place you’d think to look.

Between her steady waitressing job and less-steady gigs designing websites, Ames Jensen is scraping together enough money to buy the old farmhouse that holds most of her most treasured childhood memories.

When a complete stranger buys it right out from under her nose, she stomps over for a neighborly visit, prepared to dislike him on sight. Yet even after he nearly brains her with a shovel, she finds herself more attracted than alarmed.

Falsely implicated for stealing from the Esposito crime family, Nick Ross is frantically in search of his supposed accomplice, Elliot Jensen, or at least the money and information the man took. Elliot’s hometown seems the perfect place to look—and the last place the Espositos will look for him.

Elliot’s cute, vivacious sister is an unexpected mother lode of clues—and smoking-hot distraction. But when she does a little digging of her own, the truth threatens to send their love—and their lives—down in the crossfire.

Warning: Contains a secretive man with a shady past and a woman from a small town where no one can keep a secret. If they fall in love, sneak a kiss or two, and have a little hot sex in a shabby farm house, well, it’s nobody’s business but their own.

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This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.

Samhain Publishing, Ltd.

11821 Mason Montgomery Road Suite 4B

Cincinnati OH 45249

Fugitive Heart

ISBN: 978-1-61921-468-2

Edited by Linda Ingmanson

Cover by Angela Waters

All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

First Samhain Publishing, Ltd. electronic publication: April 2013

www.samhainpublishing.com

Table of Contents

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

About the Author

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