LITMIR.BIZ

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street. He swung in behind a pickup parked at the curb and watched her get out. She glanced around as if worried she might have been followed. As if she had something to hide. He smiled to himself. Oh, she had something to hide all right.

      Down the block bright red and yellow neon flashed in front of one of those late-night, out-of-the-way Tex-Mex cafés found in this part of Dallas. She walked toward it.

      He waited until she was almost there before he pulled his bike back onto the street. As he cruised by, he saw her go to an outside table and sit down with a woman he’d never seen before.

      At the end of the block, he turned down the alley and ditched the bike to work his way back toward the café on foot, running on adrenaline, anticipation and enough fear to know he hadn’t lost his mind.

      He found a spot to watch her from the shadows, close enough he could see but not hear what was being said. She was crying. He could see that, crying and talking hurriedly, nervously. He’d give anything to hear what she was saying and wondered when his heart had grown so cold, so calculating. Mostly, why he believed that Amanda Crowe was lying.

      Just over twenty-four hours ago, she’d called her father to tell him that her six-month-old baby, Susannah, had been kidnapped. Her story was that she and Susannah were alone in the ladies’ room of a large department store when a man burst in, knocked her out and grabbed the baby. No witnesses were in the room. Also no cops were called.

      J. B. Crowe had insisted on handling the kidnapping himself and Amanda had gone along with him. In the Crowe compound, it was commonly believed that the kidnapping was part of some vendetta between Amanda’s father, J. B. Crowe, and Governor Thomas Kincaid. If you believed Kincaid capable of kidnapping. Crowe, on the other hand, was an altogether different animal, capable of anything. And, Jesse feared, so was his daughter.

      Jesse watched her wipe her eyes as the waiter slid a steaming plate of food in front of her and thought about the man who’d fathered Amanda’s baby. Amanda hadn’t even kept him around long enough to give the baby his name. Not that Amanda needed a husband. She was a Crowe. She’d never want for anything. Nor would Susannah, for that matter, if she was ever found.

      The other woman was talking now, squeezing Amanda’s arm, intent, leaning in so no one could hear even though there were few diners and no one at a nearby table.

      Jesse wasn’t sure why or what exactly he didn’t believe. That Susannah Crowe had been kidnapped? Or that Amanda really was the grieving mother she appeared to be? Something just didn’t sit right. His gaze narrowed as he watched her. Amanda Crowe was lying. He’d stake his life on it. He smiled at that; he’d already risked more than his life just being here tonight.

      She picked nervously at her food but the tears had stopped, her iron-clad control back, a steeliness in her that she shared with her father. Part determination. Part ruthlessness.

      A baby began to cry. Amanda turned abruptly, almost spilling her water. A Mexican woman carrying an infant sat down two tables over from Amanda, pulled the baby from its carrier and rocked it, trying to still the shrill cry. Amanda turned back to her food, apparently mesmerized by what was on her plate.

      A new thought struck him like a fist. Was it possible?

      The waiter brought out an order to go for the woman with the baby. Amanda motioned for her check.

      His pulse began to pound. The woman with the baby busily strapped the infant back into its carrier. He was too far away to see the baby’s face.

      Amanda didn’t wait for her check. She got to her feet, tossed a bill on the table, hugged her dinner companion and rushed off toward her car.

      But Jesse didn’t follow her. The woman with the baby started to leave as well. His mind roiled. What he was thinking didn’t make any sense, but with the Crowes, anything was possible.

      He moved toward the café, not letting the woman with the baby out of his sight.

      It was just some woman and her baby. No kidnapper in her right mind would bring the Crowe baby to a public restaurant. And wouldn’t Amanda have raced over to the table if she thought there was even a chance that the baby might be hers?

      Unless the woman wasn’t the kidnapper. Unless Amanda Crowe had had her own baby abducted. But what kind of sense did that make?

      The woman with the baby was leaving. He wove his way through the tables, his heart racing, as he hurried to cut her off.

      She looked up, startled and a little frightened to see him. He glanced into the baby carrier, ready to grab both the woman and the child.

      The baby was brown skinned, with a thick head of black hair and a pair of eyes to match. While close to the same age, the little boy looked nothing like Susannah Crowe.

      He stumbled back, mumbling, “Sorry,” to the startled mother as she hugged the baby protectively to her. Whatever had made him think the infant would be Susannah? Because he was convinced Amanda had done something with her baby. Made it look like a kidnapping. But why?

      Feeling foolish, he moved on through the café and out the back door to the alley. Amanda was gone. So was her companion. So much for his hunch. He was letting Amanda Crowe get to him. Letting her mess with his mind. A sliver of doubt worked its way under his skin, just as she had. What if he was wrong?

      Amanda had almost raced from the café at the sight and sound of the baby. But wouldn’t that have been the reaction of any grieving mother whose baby had been kidnapped?

      The voice in the darkness startled him. He spotted two figures at the end of the alley in the shadows, one large, one small. He flattened himself against the rough rock wall, hoping they hadn’t seen him.

      “You have to do this,” the man said quietly, urgently. “We have to do this. There is no going back now.”

      Jesse had heard the voice somewhere before but couldn’t place it.

      “Don’t pressure me,” the woman snapped back.

      “I’ll do it. I just need more time.”

      This voice Jesse recognized immediately. Amanda Crowe. But who had she met in the alley? And what did she need more time to do?

      “We don’t have time,” the man said, sounding frustrated and angry with her. “Stop stalling. You know what’s at stake. Just do it. Get it over with. Tonight.”

      Jesse heard the sound of hurried footfalls headed in his direction. He held his breath as the man stomped past him. In the light bleeding out into the alley from one of the open doorways, Jesse got a look at him. Even from the back, he recognized Gage Ferraro, the man who’d fathered Amanda’s baby.

      He swore under his breath and waited, pressed to the rock wall, expecting Amanda to follow her former lover. After a few minutes when she didn’t appear, he glanced down the alley only to find she was gone.

      He stood for a moment longer, thinking about what he’d overheard. What was Gage Ferraro doing back in town? The answer was obvious. The kidnapping. Gage and Amanda must have cooked up a plot to fleece her father. Jesse couldn’t imagine anything more dangerous. Or lucrative.

      He headed down the alley to where he’d left his bike, amazed at this woman. Amazed even more that he still found her intriguing. And, against his better judgment, incredibly desirable. It defied logic.

      A figure suddenly stepped out of a doorway a few feet in front of him, snapping him out of his troubling thoughts. Startled, he almost pulled the piece he kept at his back before he recognized the silhouette.

      Five feet four inches of spitfire, Amanda Crowe stood with her hands cocked on her hips, her feet apart, her body language nothing short of enraged.

      Physically, he could have taken her with one hand tied behind him. And lord knows he wanted to take her, all right. However, Jesse was a lot of things, but he wasn’t stupid. If he touched her, he’d be dead before daylight.

      Nor was he about to underestimate her. Quite frankly, he thought her as ruthless

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