Story Excerpt
Clint

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Detective Bobby Allen lifted his head and peered up at the light hanging from the ceiling. It was one of those industrial lights, long and metal with a tube shaped bulb thing. It was also extremely bright.

He tested the ropes keeping him tied to the chair. They were around his wrists and his legs. They were holding tight. He didn't feel any give in them. Every time he moved his wrists, the rough ropes grated against his skin.

Bobby sighed as he tilted his head back and stared up at the ceiling. "This is what you get for following your gut, you schmuck."

He had just walked into the restaurant for lunch, nothing more. He should have eaten and left. Easy peasy. But no, he had to see a man standing by the back kitchen door that made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. Instead of leaving it alone, he had gone out to his car and waited until dark when the restaurant had closed.

And then he did something truly stupid. He started snooping around.

Bobby knew he should have learned his lesson from the last time he had started snooping around. Not only had he been called off the case he'd been working, but he'd been transferred to another division and a letter of reprimand had been placed in his file.

He'd never get promoted.

He still believed he had been following a good lead when he went looking for Dominick Eli and Patrick O'Leary. Both men were wanted for questioning in the death of a young woman who had been the surrogate for O'Leary's son. Her body had been found floating in San Diego Bay a week after she gave birth to a healthy baby boy. Eli and O'Leary, plus the infant, had all disappeared.

Bobby had full belief that they were still out there somewhere, and he was still looking for them. He just couldn't follow normal channels to do it. If he got caught looking into the case again, he'd lose more than his job. He'd probably do time.

Of course, if he didn't figure a way out of here, doing time would be the least of his worries. He still wasn't sure who the guys were that had jumped him, but they had been crazy pissed. One of them had taken quite a bit of delight in slicing little lines down Bobby's arms. He looked as though he had tried to fight off a weed whacker.

He didn't look as if he had won the fight, but it sure explained why the light was so bright and his head was woozy. He was slowly bleeding out.

Bobby's head snapped up when he heard the door handle turn. He really hoped it wasn't the guys coming back to finish the job. He wasn't expecting the man who stepped inside the room and held a finger up to his lips.

He especially wasn't expecting the guy to be so damn good looking. The man had a rugged look about him, almost as if he could toss someone up against the wall and make their toes curl.

Yum.

If the man's massive height didn't do it for Bobby—and it did—the muscles rippling under his dark clothing would have. The short sandy brown hair and neatly trimmed beard didn't hurt either.

Bobby's jaw dropped when the man squatted down next to him and pulled out a knife before starting in on the ropes tying Bobby to the chair.

"My name is Clint," the guy said in a very low tone. "I'm here to get you out."

"Bobby."

The grin was surprising. "Yes, I know. The little girl told me."

Bobby's heart slammed in his chest. The second his hands were free, he grabbed at Clint's shoulder. "We have to get her. They're holding her for ransom."

"Already done." Clint started cutting at the ropes on Bobby's ankles. "I got her out before coming for you."

Bobby blew out a relieved breath. "Oh, thank god."

"Don't thank me yet," Clint said. "We still need to get out of here."

The ropes snapped and Bobby went to stand up only to find that his legs weren't as steady as he had hoped. They trembled so much, Bobby had to sit back down. He chuckled nervously. "Getting out of here might be harder than we thought."

"Come on, I'll help you."

Bobby tried not to lean too much into Clint when the man wrapped an arm around his waist and pulled him to his feet, but he smelled so good. It wasn't aftershave. There was no chemical signature. It was something else, something wild. Bobby liked it. He knew he probably shouldn't. He was being rescued, not hooking up for a date.

"How do we get out of here?" he asked, trying to distract himself from that wonderful smell.

"I haven't figured that part out yet," Clint said. "But I'm working on it."

Bobby heard a crash from out in the hallway. "Work faster."

When the door started to open, Clint pushed him behind the door. Bobby grunted as he hit the wall. Clint was a lot stronger than he looked.

He heard a quiet gasp and then Clint was pulling one of Bobby's captor's into the room and lowering him to the floor.

"Shit! Did you kill him?" As much as these guys deserved a little payback, Bobby was still a cop and killing was still against the law.

"No."

Bobby frowned. "What are you looking for?"

Clint was going through the man's pockets.

"Anything that can tell us who these guys are working for."

Bobby's eyebrows rose. "You think there's someone higher up than these morons?"

Clint glanced up. "You said it. They're morons. There has to be someone higher up, pulling their strings."

Okay, that actually made sense.

"Are you a cop?" Bobby asked.

"No."

Bobby waited for more, but Clint didn't say anything else, which kind of pissed Bobby off. The one word responses were getting irritating.

Bobby's jaw dropped when the man handed him the gun he took off the kidnapper. He hadn't seen a weapon on Clint, so it didn't make sense to give up the only one he had.

Just who was this guy?