Total pages in book: 64
Estimated words: 60360 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 302(@200wpm)___ 241(@250wpm)___ 201(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 60360 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 302(@200wpm)___ 241(@250wpm)___ 201(@300wpm)
It wouldn’t have saved them. Caleb’s father would have hunted them down and killed them both, even if they’d had anywhere to go. So they stayed, with Caleb’s mother taking most of the beatings for both of them. Izzy’s father must have been that sort of parent, a parent that protected his kids no matter what.
My father died last year,” Izzy told Tildy and the others. “He taught me the business.”
“Was he killed?” Tildy asked, horrified.
Izzy shook her head. “No. It was a heart attack. He died at home. I haven’t found anyone to replace him.” She seemed to reconsider, though. “Well,” she amended, “I haven’t really looked, either.” Izzy swept her fingers over the bruise above her eye. “I got nailed while Caleb was with me.”
All the women gasped, but it was Chris’ wife, Sarah, who scolded him. “You let her get hurt?” she demanded.
Before Caleb could answer, Izzy defended him. “It was my fault, ” she told him. “I thought he’d cleared the room. I guess I’ve gotten too used to working alone.”
“It’s really dangerous to be alone, isn’t it?” Tildy asked. “Should… should you keep doing that?”
Izzy sighed. “No. This case is kind of an emergency,” she explained. “The guy I’m looking for kidnapped a teenage girl from a gas station. She needs to be found. And rules, regulations, and red tape aren’t going to get her home safely.”
“You think she’s still alive?” Shooter asked.
Izzy shrugged. “For her sake, I’m going to assume she is. Even if she’s not, the reward should get me through most of the next year. After that I’ll take jobs that are less dangerous. Which will suck, because bounty hunting is all I’ve ever done. It’s all I’ve ever wanted to do.”
“Even when you were little?” Tildy asked.
“All the Bouchers are bounty hunters. My father and his father and so on. We’ve done some good work. Isaiah Boucher brought in Manfred Durst. He killed over thirty men and robbed two banks before he was taken down. Isaiah caught up to him in Las Vegas. Shot him in the leg and dragged him into a jail cell.”
“Rule number one,” Tex replied, grinning. “For bounty hunting, anyway.”
“Rule number one,” Izzy confirmed.
“I’m from Vegas,” Abby declared. “But I don’t remember hearing about that.”
Izzy grinned. “Well, it was a pretty big deal. In 1909.”
“1909?” Tildy asked. “Seriously?”
“Like I said, the Bouchers are bounty hunters. Always have been.” Izzy looked at Abby. “So, you’re from Vegas?”
“Born and raised.”
Izzy hesitated. “You heard about the Duke Casino robbery?”
Abby nodded. “Huge deal. It happened just a few years ago. Inside job. They were supposed to get away clean, but a guard came back early from his dinner break and they shot him. I remember there was a shootout at a warehouse when they were caught.”
Izzy wrinkled her nose. “Wasn’t much of a shootout. Two of them popped the third guy for a bigger split of the money. They were too busy arguing over whether it should be 50-50 or 60-40 when I came up behind them with a shotgun.”
Tildy gasped.
“One of them got a shot off, but he missed. They went down pretty easy, all things considered,” Izzy said.
“Oh, my God!” Abby breathed. “I didn’t know bounty hunters had caught them! There wasn’t anything in the news.”
Izzy shrugged. “I don’t want to be famous. I just want to do my job.”
“So, no plans for your own reality show?” Hawk asked.
Izzy rolled her eyes. “It’d make surprise takedowns nearly impossible if they recognized my face, wouldn’t it?”
“What was the hardest…uh…takedown… you’ve ever had?” Abby asked her.
“Hmm,” Izzy replied. “I’ve had a few doozies. There was one all the way in Alaska once.”
Izzy spun a tale of snowshoes and hunting rifles as the women, and the men for that matter, listened with rapt attention. For the rest of the evening, she seemed to fit right in with the rest of the group. Caleb admired her ability to make herself comfortable almost anywhere, from a honky-tonk bar to a semi-stranger’s kitchen, to a large group of people she’d never met before. She didn’t seem fake in any way to him, though. Every Izzy was the authentic Izzy, her brash and flirty good nature apparent in every carnation.
Things eventually wound down. Caleb noticed she’d won a bit more often than she’d lost, and they grabbed their jackets as they headed toward the driveway. He slapped her ass and she yelped on her way out the front door. She rolled her eyes at him. “I think they bought it, Barnes,” she said. “Don’t oversell it.”
Caleb grinned at her. “Oh they know you’re not my girlfriend.”
Izzy stopped and gaped at him. “What?”
He chuckled. “I told them yesterday afternoon.”
“So me being all touchy feeling and practically making out with you every ten minutes was—?”
“Pretty nice, I thought. Best poker night I’ve had in a while, anyway.”