It was always important to Mom that we be raised as normally as possible. We were spanked and grounded just like other Americans, trust me. My parents believe that discipline is necessary no matter what walk of life you come from.”
Remy nodded. “I can see that.” She turned to Autumn. “You have an amazing family.”
“What about yours? Do you have family here?”
Family...
Remy contemplated avoiding that piece of conversation, putting her hands on the back of the kitchen island stool. “My mother died three years ago.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry. That must have been hard on your family.”
“It was just the two of us.” Remy was too aware of the stark contrast between this family gathering and those she’d grown up with.
“No grandparents?”
“My grandfather died when my mother was an infant, and my grandmother never remarried. My mother was an only child like me. I never had a chance to meet my grandmother. She died when my mother was eighteen.”
“What about your dad?”
“He left before I was born. I guess single motherhood runs in the family.” She smiled past her difficulty in talking about her father. Many times she’d gotten curious about who he was and had always stopped taking action to try to find him. He obviously hadn’t been interested in her, so why should she bother tracking him down? Still, the curiosity had taken root. Seeing her mother die alone hadn’t helped. Her mother had loved the father of her child, and like her own mother, had never remarried.
“Well, if you wind up in this family, you’ll probably wish you were back in the days you were an only child.” Autumn breathed a laugh.
How would she end up in this family? Why had Autumn said that? Remy looked over her shoulder at Lincoln and caught him staring, intent blue eyes and sexy, messy blond hair. His arm was resting on the table, biceps round and strong.
“He keeps looking at you like that.”
Remy dropped her hands from the back of the chair, uncomfortable.
“Are you two seeing each other?” Autumn asked.
“Oh, no. We’re just neighbors, and Maddie loves him.”
At the sound of her name, Maddie trotted over and sat, lifting a white paw, looking up with sweet eyes. Then a low growl began, puffing her whiskery cheeks, building into a soft, communicative bark.
Autumn laughed. “I was going to ask who Maddie was.” She knelt and pet the dog. “No introductions necessary. Hello, Maddie.” The dog shifted her butt so that she could put her paw on Autumn’s leg now.
“What a sweet dog.”
Remy shook her head as Maddie’s gaze moved to her, as though saying, “She likes me more than you.” “You don’t know the half of it.”
“Food’s on,” Camille said.
Remy surmised that Lincoln kept paper products on hand for events such as this. He had a big pantry full of them.
“Here you go, honey.” Camille handed Remy a plate and took one herself. “Let’s fill up.”
Oh, no. Did she mean to sit by her? Remy had no other choice than to precede the woman to the spread on the counter by the stove. She put a dog on a bun and covered it with chili, followed by a few fries.
Just as she’d feared, Camille led her into the dining room off Lincoln’s living room, where someone had lengthened the table and added a few chairs, and sat beside her.
Camille ate a few bites before using her fork as a conversational pointer. “You know,” she said, “Lincoln is my oldest.”
“Yes, he told me.” She ate a fry.
That news seemed to give Camille pause. “You two have been getting close.”
“Oh, no.” Why did everyone think that?
“Lincoln isn’t exactly an open book. Especially after Miranda.”
Remy sensed his mother testing her. Did she know about Miranda? “Who is that?”
“His girlfriend. He was going to marry her. He’s never told me that, but I know.”
“What happened?”
Camille abandoned her fork, and sadness sobered her eyes. “They were on vacation in New York, walking down a busy street when a drive-by shooting took place. The shooter was targeting someone else, but she was in the way. It was completely random.”
The violence of it caught Remy unprepared. Lincoln seemed to attract that kind of mayhem. And now Remy had dragged him into her mess.
“That’s horrible.”
“He still thinks there’s something he could have done. It happened more than seven years ago, and still he can’t let it go.” Camille shook her head with lingering sadness. “It’s the reason he became a bounty hunter.”
Remy went still. Bounty hunter? “I thought he taught martial arts.”
“He does. But he hunts bail jumpers, too.”
Lincoln entered the room with his plate, joining the rest of his family at the table and sitting on the other side, two chairs down from his mother. He caught her look and eyed his mother, clearly picking up on the somberness of their talk and not liking it.
And didn’t it just figure that he was a bounty hunter? If Remy could, she’d get up and run out of here and keep running. Her dog and fear of Tristan stopped her. Maddie sat beside her, begging for food with just a look and a string of drool hanging indecorously from her whisker-peppered cheek. She had to find a safe place for Maddie while she cleared her name.
* * *
Lincoln shut down his computer, simmering over what he’d just learned from his internet search. It hadn’t taken long.
His family had finally left after midnight, and after he took Remy over to her house for a bag of clothes and toiletries, she’d gone to bed and he’d sneaked into his office. He’d still been annoyed after trying to get his mother to tell him what she and Remy had discussed at dinner. His mother had feigned ignorance on her way out the door, claiming she had only tried to get to know his new girlfriend. Remy wasn’t his girlfriend. Nor would she ever be after what he’d just read.
Now he understood why she was so reluctant to talk to police. She was wanted for murder in Newport Beach, California. And he was drawn into the trouble.
Lincoln was furious.
Not caring about her privacy, he went down the hall and opened the guest room door. She stood beside the bed, covers in hand, ready to climb in. Freezing when she saw him, she stared, unconcerned with the spaghetti-strap, knee-length nightie she wore. Right now, neither was he.
“We aren’t going
