Once she was no longer wearing only a towel and John still hadn’t reappeared, she realized she was breathing hard with exertion and felt a little ridiculous for the urgency she’d felt just moments earlier. Her second thought was curiosity about where he’d gone. Knowing that she wouldn’t be able to sleep with John roaming the house, possibly finding out personal and embarrassing things about her, she left her room to hunt him down.

He wasn’t anywhere on the second level. She’d even peeked into the twins’ room, finding only a heavily sleeping Cara. As she descended the stairs, she realized that she was tiptoeing and mentally scolded herself for being so tentative. She was a big, bad bounty hunter, for Pete’s sake. She should be stomping down the stairs in steel-toed boots and leather pants, not sneaking along on bare feet with rainbow-colored toenails.

Despite her mental lecture, she jumped a foot when a huge form separated from the shadows cloaking the kitchen entrance. “Sorry,” she said once she’d recovered her composure and realized that it was just John. “I should’ve asked if you were hungry when we got home. I hope you helped yourself to whatever you found in there.”

His teeth flashed white in the dim light. “Thanks, but I’m not hungry. I was just making sure everything was secured.” The humor left his voice as he added, “I’ll get my buddy over here to install a security system first thing tomorrow.”

Molly was about to protest that they didn’t need the help, but she swallowed the words. At this moment, they did need the help, and her prideful objections wouldn’t do anything to keep her family safe. Besides, John did owe her for the bounties she’d missed out on when he’d stolen skips out from under her nose. She ignored the voice in her head that reminded her that she’d pilfered more out from under his nose than he’d ever dreamed about taking from her. “Thanks,” she replied belatedly. Taking a deep breath, she said something that she knew—just knew—was going to come back and bite her hard in the ass. “I’ll owe you one.”

That Cheshire cat grin showed up again. “Oh? That’ll be fun.”

“No.” She huffed, turning toward the stairs to hide the way her mouth wanted to twitch up at the corners. Stupid John Carmondy and his stupid infectious smiles. “That won’t be fun. Not at all.”

Chapter 13

“Pax. Pax, wake up.”

She tried burrowing deeper into her pillow, tugging her covers up around her ears in a futile attempt to block the voice invading her dreams. Unfortunately, John didn’t stop. “Pax, get up!”

She groaned into her pillow. It was still dark, for Pete’s sake. Was this her punishment for being a bad person? Was karma going to send him to her every morning to rudely wake her at an ungodly hour until she’d made amends for whatever horrible thing she’d done? What could her sin have been to be bad enough to call for this miserable a penance?