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“The politically correct term is bail recovery agent,” she said, the amusement in her voice telling him that his choice of topic was one she was comfortable talking about. “I’ve been around the business since I was seventeen, but I’ve only been an actual certified agent for the past two years. I went for training and my license after I quit the police force and went to work for my brother, Cole, at his investigative firm.”
Pulling a cookie from the bag, he bit it in half and lifted the other section to Jo’s mouth. When she gave him a perplexed look, he smiled and said, “You drive, and I’ll keep the supply of chocolate coming.”
She opened her mouth and accepted his offering and he deliberately let his fingers linger on her bottom lip. “Thank you,” she murmured, and chewed the confection.
“You’re welcome.” He licked the taste of chocolate and the sweetness of Jo from his thumb. “I have to say, seventeen seems kind of young to be exposed to such a rough business, considering you’re dealing with dangerous criminals.” He couldn’t imagine allowing a daughter or sister of his to take an active interest in the search and seizure of delinquents. “Or is that what your dad does for a living?”
She accepted another half-eaten cookie and shook her head. “No, my father is dead. He was a police officer, too, and was shot and killed in the line of duty when I was sixteen. For the most part Cole raised me after that, though my other brother, Noah, helped out, too, until he joined the Marines six months after my dad passed away.”
He contemplated her answer, and realized one crucial element was missing. “Where was your mother during all this?”
Her lips flattened into a grim line. “That’s a story all in itself.”
He heard the tinge of bitterness in her voice and discovered the need to understand its source. “I’m all ears.”
She tipped her head in his direction, her gaze flickering with doubt. “You sure you want to hear all the sordid details of my unorthodox family life?”
“I wouldn’t ask if I wasn’t interested.” And he didn’t think her life could be any more dysfunctional than his own had been. “Besides, you’re the one who didn’t want to talk about sex,” he reminded her, flashing an irresistible grin. “And we’ve got a good hour and a half to fill before we get to Medford.”
“All right,” she conceded, “and when I see you nodding off, I’ll know you’ve heard enough of my boring tale.”
“I can’t imagine anything about you boring me, sweetheart, but give it your best shot.” He filled her mouth with the other half of the cookie he’d nibbled on.
She chewed and swallowed, seemingly gathering her thoughts. “My mother and father divorced when I was five, which wasn’t so surprising considering they were always arguing about something. From what Cole has told me, my mom was having an affair with a guy she worked with, and when Peter Shaw was offered an intercompany transfer to Prescott, Arizona, my mother decided to end her current marriage to my dad to go with him.”
“And you and your brothers stayed with your father?” he guessed.
“No. It wasn’t enough that my mother was leaving my father for another man, she wanted to make him suffer even more than that and used me as a way to hurt my father because she knew I was daddy’s little girl. I adored my father. He was always larger than life to me.” She brushed errant cookie crumbs from her jean-clad thigh. “Anyway, my mother fought and won full custody of me, left my older brothers with my dad, and off we went to Arizona, where I was ignored for the most part because my mother was so caught up in her new marriage.”
Compassion welled up in him. “That must have been pretty difficult for all of you, being separated like that.”
She nodded. “Yeah, it was. I can remember feeling so lost and confused and homesick for my dad and brothers, but I was only allowed to see them during summer, winter, and spring vacations. That pattern went on for three years, until my mother was killed in a car accident.”
“I take it your dad was finally granted custody?”
“Not at first, and not easily.” Lightning flashed outside the vehicle, followed by an ominous rumble of thunder as the storm unleashed its fury and the black clouds overhead finally let loose a downpour of rain.
“What happened?” he asked.
“Peter held on to me for six months, fighting for custody of me in some warped way to hang on to my mother’s memory,” she went on, slowing her speed and switching the wipers to high to keep up with the steady downpour. “But he ultimately lost any rights, thank God. I was eight at the time, and when I returned to Oakland to live permanently with my dad, both of my brothers became very protective of me. Especially Cole, who was the one who took on a good part of the responsibility of raising me since our father worked varying shifts for the police department.”
He pilfered another cookie to share. “I’m not surprised that he was protective of you, considering you were the baby of the family, the only girl, and you all had been separated for three years.”
She narrowed her gaze at him, that he dared to side with her overbearing sibling. “I couldn’t even go to the bathroom without letting Cole know where I was off to,” she said, an exaggeration, Dean was certain. “Trust me, the coddling and the constant chaperoning was overkill.”
Only to a very independent, stubborn young girl who’d grown into an equally obstinate woman, he thought with a mild degree of amusement he knew better than to express.
Twisting the top off the water bottle, he took a long drink. Once his thirst was quenched he said, “Back to my original question. How did you learn the tricks of the bounty hunter trade, especially at the young age of seventeen?”
“Bail recovery,” she reminded him with a half grin. Accepting the plastic bottle he held out to her, she took a generous swallow. “Cole was twenty-one when my father died, and at the time he was going to college during the day to get his degree in criminal justice and working part-time at night as a bouncer at a local dance club. Since I was a minor, Cole had to apply for guardianship, which he was granted, but he also realized he now had to support me and my brother.?
??
“Did he quit college?”
“Cole?” Her voice held a cynical note, underscored with reluctant pride. “No, he managed to juggle school while raising me and my brother, and holding down a full-time job. He’s the most single-minded, ambitious person I know—to the point that he has tunnel vision, never deviating from his goals, or work, or what he believes is expected of him.”
Jo could have been talking about him. “Hey, I know someone like that.”
