Captive Star: the classic story from the queen of romance that you won’t be able to put down

“Look, it’s only going to be harder on you this way. Why don’t you just go quietly, before we bust up any more of your friend’s apartment?”

“You’re crushing me, you jerk,” she said between her teeth. “And this is my apartment. You try to rape me, and I’ll twist your pride clean off and hand it to you. There won’t be enough left of you for the cops to scrape off their shoes.”

“I don’t force women, sugar. Just because some accountant couldn’t keep his hands off you doesn’t mean I can’t. And the cops aren’t interested in me. They want you.”

She blew out a breath, tried to suck another in, but he was crushing her lungs. “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”

He pulled the papers out of his pocket, shoved them in front of her face. “M. J. O’Leary, assault with a deadly, malicious wounding, and blah-blah. Ralph’s real disappointed in you, sugar. He’s a trusting man and didn’t expect a nice woman like you to try to skip out on the ten-K bond.”

“This is a crock.” She could see her name and some downtown address on what appeared to be some kind of arrest warrant. “You’ve got the wrong person. I didn’t post bail for anything. I haven’t been arrested, and I live here. Idiot cops,” she muttered, and tried to buck him off again. “Call in to your sergeant, or whatever. Straighten this out. And when you do, I’m suing.”

“Nice try. And I suppose you’ve never heard of George MacDonald.”

“No, I haven’t.”

“Then it was really rude of you to shoot him.” He eased up just enough to flip her face up, then caught both of her hands at the wrist. She’d lost her glasses, he noted, and her eyes were neither moss nor emerald, he decided—they were dark shady-river green. And, just now, full of fury. “Look, you want to have a hot affair with your accountant, sister, it’s no skin off my nose. You want to shoot him, I don’t particularly care. But you skip bond, and it ticks me off.”

She could breathe slightly easier now, but his hands were like steel bands at her wrists. “My accountant’s name is Holly Bergman, and we haven’t had a hot affair. I haven’t shot anyone, and I haven’t skipped bond because I haven’t posted bond. I want to see your ID, ace.”

He thought it took a lot of nerve to make demands in her current position. “My name’s Dakota, Jack Dakota. I’m a skip tracer.”

Her eyes narrowed as they skimmed over his face. She thought he looked like something out of the gritty side of a western. A cold-eyed gunslinger, a tough-talking gambler. Or…

“A bounty hunter. Well, there’s no bounty here, jerk.” It wasn’t rape, and it wasn’t a mugging. The fear that had iced her heart thawed into fresh temper. “You son of a bitch. You break in here, tear up my things, ruin twenty bucks’ worth of produce, and all because you can’t follow the right trail? Your butt’s in a sling, I promise you. When I’m done, you won’t be able to trace your own name with a stencil. You won’t—” She broke off when he stuck a photo in her face.

It was her face, and the photograph might have been taken yesterday.

“Got a twin, O’Leary? One who drives a ’68 MG, license plate SLAINTE, and is currently shacked up with some guy named Bailey James.”

“Bailey’s a woman,” she murmured, staring at her own face while new worries raced in her head. Was this about Bailey, about what Bailey had sent her? What kind of trouble could her friend be in? “And this isn’t her apartment, it’s mine. I don’t have a twin.” She looked up into his eyes again. “What’s going on? Is Bailey all right? Where’s Bailey?”

Under his clamped hands, her pulse had spiked. She was struggling again, with a fresh and vicious energy he knew was brought on by fear. And he was dead certain it wasn’t fear for herself.

“I don’t know anything about this Bailey except this address is listed under her name on the paperwork.”

But he was beginning to smell something, and he didn’t like it. He was no longer thinking M. J. O’Leary was dumb as a post. A woman with any brains wouldn’t have left herself with so many avenues to be tracked if she was on the run.

Ralph, Jack mused, frowning down into M.J.’s face. Why were you so jumpy this morning?

“If you’re being straight with me, we can confirm it quick enough. Maybe it was a clerical mix-up.” But he didn’t think so. No indeed. And there was an itching at the base of his spine. “Listen,” he began, just as the door broke open and the giant roared in.

“You were supposed to bring her out,” the giant said, and waved an impressive .357 Magnum. “You’re talking too much. He’s waiting.”

Jack didn’t have much time to decide how to play it. The big man was a stranger to him, but he recognized the type. It looked like all bulk and no brains, with the huge bullet head, small eyes and massive shoulders. The gun was big as a cannon and looked like a toy in the ham-size hands.

“Sorry.” He gave M.J.’s wrist a quick squeeze, hoping she’d understand it as a sign of reassurance and remain still and quiet. “I was having a little trouble here.”

“Just a woman. You were supposed to just bring the woman out.”

“Yeah, I was working on it.” Jack tried a friendly smile. “Ralph send you to back me up?”

“Come on, up. Up now. We’re going.”

“Sure. No problem. You won’t need the gun now. I’ve got her under control.” But the gun continued to point, its barrel as wide as Montana, at his head.

“Just her.” And the giant smiled, floppy lips peeling back over huge teeth. “We don’t need you now.”

“Fine. I guess you want the paperwork.” For lack of anything better, Jack snagged a can of tomato sauce on his way up and winged it. It made a satisfactory crunching sound on the big man’s nose. Ducking, Jack rushed forward like a battering ram. It felt a great deal like beating his head against a brick wall, but the force took them both tumbling backward and over a ladder-back chair.

The gun went off, putting a fist-size hole in the ceiling before it flew across the room.

She thought about running. She could have been out of the door and away before either of them untangled. But she thought about Bailey, about what she had weighing down her shoulder bag. About the mess she’d somehow stepped in. And was too mad to run.

She went for the gun and ended up falling backward as Jack flew into her. She cushioned his fall, and he was up fast, springing into the air and landing a double-footed kick in the big man’s midsection.

Nice form, M.J. thought, and scrambled to her own feet. She snagged her shoulder bag, spun it over her head and cracked it hard over the sleek, bullet-shaped head.

He went down hard on the sofa, snapping the springs.

“You’re wrecking my place!” she shouted, and smacked Jack in the side, simply because she could reach him.

“Sue me.”

He dodged a fist the size of a steamship and went in low. Pain sang through every bone as his opponent slammed him into a wall. Pictures fell, glass shattering on the floor. Through his blurred vision he saw the woman charge, a redheaded fireball that flew up and latched like a plague of wasps on the man’s enormous back. She used her fists, pounding the sides of his face as he spun wildly and struggled to grab her.

“Hold him still!” Jack shouted. “Damn it, just hold him for a minute!”

Spotting an opening, he grabbed what was left of a table leg and rushed in. He checked his first swing as the duo spun like a mad two-headed top. If he followed through, he might have cracked the back of M.J.’s head open like a melon.

“I said hold him still!”

“You want me to paint a bull’s-eye on his face while I’m at it?” With a guttural snarl, she hooked her arms around the man’s throat, clamped her thighs like a vise around his wide steel beam of a torso and screamed, “Hit him, for God’s sake. Stop dancing around and hit him.”

Jack cocked back like a batter with two strikes already on his record and swung full out. The table leg splintered like a toothpick, blood gushed like water in a fountain. M.J. had just enough time to jump clear as the man toppled like a redwood.

She stayed on her hands and knees a minute, gasping for air. “What’s going on? What the hell’s going on?”

“No time to worry about it.” Self-preservation on his mind, Jack grabbed her hand, hauled her to her feet. “This type doesn’t usually travel alone. Let’s go.”

“Go?” She snagged the strap of her purse as he pulled her toward the door. “Where?”

“Away. He’s going to be mean when he wakes up, and if he’s got a friend, we’re not going to be so lucky next time.”

“Lucky, my butt.” But she was running with him, driven by a pure instinct that matched Jack’s. “You son of a bitch. You come busting into my place, push me around, wreck my home, nearly get me shot.”

“I saved your butt.”

“I saved yours!” She shouted it at him, cursing viciously as they thudded down the stairs. “And when I get a minute to catch my breath, I’m going to take you apart, piece by piece.”