Chapter 1

Malcolm Winslow knew he stood out in this crowd. How could he not? With his longish, uncombed hair, thick beard, and the tattoos displayed by the rolled-up sleeves of his plaid shirt, not to mention the fact he was armed and wore a Kevlar vest, he drew every eye the second he entered the fancy barn that was lit up like the Fourth of July.

Those closest to the open doors were the first to fall silent. Hands touched shoulders and then pointed toward him as he resolutely made his way toward the trellis constructed between horse stalls on either side of the wide space and strung with white lights and roses, where a couple in their wedding finery stood before a preacher.

A groomsman tapped the groom on the shoulder, and he tore his gaze away from his stunning bride to glance toward the aisle Malcolm strode down.

The groom's eyes widened, and he turned to his bride, dug something from his pocket, and then said, "Candy, here are my keys—run!"

The groom slapped keys on her palm, straightened his shoulders, and stepped in Malcolm's path.

Malcolm gave a single shake of his head, smacked away the groom's raised fists, then bent to ram his shoulder into the other man's chest.

The groom flew backward as Malcolm picked up his pace and ran toward the smaller back door of the barn through which the bride had just escaped.

Outside in the dusky gloom, he caught a glimpse of bright white as the bride, Candy Bodine, almost Carmichael, climbed a corral fence. He was surprised at the number of people standing on either side of the door outside this end of the barn but didn't have time to figure out why they were there because Candy had just jumped down from the fence to the other side, snagging her long train on a nail. She ran forward, but her train held fast, springing her backward and onto her butt on the dirt.

She rolled, tangling herself in petticoats and torn train, and got to her knees. She stared back at him as he jogged toward the fence, planted a hand on the cedar fencepost, and sailed sideways over the top. Yeah, his feet skidded a bit in horse poop when his boots hit the ground, but the bride wasn't so pristine now either, kind of like her rap sheet.

This time, she'd failed to appear before the judge for a drunk driving/failure to yield at a stop sign/fleeing the scene set of charges. And if Malcolm had anything to say about it, she was not heading to the private airport where Daddy had a plane waiting to fly her to some resort vacation in the Caribbean. As soon as Malcolm snicked the cuffs on her wrists, she'd be spending what should've been the first night of her honeymoon inside the detention center in Bozeman.

No amount of crocodile tears was going to dissuade him from his purpose.

He stomped toward her while two horses ran nervously up and down the fence line at the far side of the corral.

The bride pushed to her feet and reached back to magically disconnect her train from the rest of her lacy-frilly dress. Eyeing his target, Malcolm noted that, for a pretty woman, she had a rather piglike scowl.

Her glance went to the horses behind her, and Malcolm sighed. Why did skips always choose stupid over surrender? "Candy, you're not going anywhere. Do yourself a favor and put your hands behind your back."

"You couldn't have let me have tonight?" she screeched, causing him to wince from the high pitch. "It's my goddamn wedding!"

"Not my call, sweetheart. I can't let you skip the country. You should've worked out your court date with the judge between your cake tastings and dress fittings."

She glanced at the horses again and took two steps backward. Then she shot a glare to the side where her fiancé stood outside the fence. "Are you just going to stand there?" she cried out, her tone still strident.

Malcolm shook his head. No one was going to help her now. Her guests and the catering staff were crowding around the fence to watch the spectacle playing out before them. Tired of waiting for her to come to her senses, he strode toward her. But she tossed her keys at him, lifted her fingers to her mouth, and blew a shrill whistle.

One of the horses grunted and ran toward her, halting within a foot of the woman. From the corner of his eye, Malcolm saw the groom unlatching the gate just as the bride gripped a handful of the horse's mane and vaulted onto the back of the horse. With fierce kicks against the animal's sides, the bride steered her steed toward the now-open gate.

No way in hell was she escaping. He hadn't surveilled her bridesmaids for a week to figure out where he could capture her just to lose her now. When the second horse swept past him, Malcolm gripped its mane, ignored its ear-piercing whinny, and jumped onto its back, leaning over its neck as he nudged it with his heels to get it moving after the other horse.

The fiancé tried to close the gate, but another nudge of his boot had the horse slamming against it, sending the man flying back again.

As Malcolm followed the bride into the pasture, he heard a female shout behind him. "Can we get a cameraman on a horse? I need a damn horse now!"

He didn't have time to figure out why someone would want a cameraman on a horse. What weird fucking wedding photographer would want to capture something like that? His focus was on the bright white skirt fluttering behind his target.

In the distance, he heard an engine roar, likely a mule or an ATV from the sound of it. If the fiancé thought he was going to rescue her now, he obviously wasn't thinking with his head.

Needing to distract Candy's horse long enough for his horse to catch up, Malcolm put his fingers in his mouth and let go his own shrill whistle.

The horse ahead of him skipped on its feet and turned its head toward the sound.

Candy was leaning over its neck too far to turn with the horse and flew off its bare back, landing in a bush.

Malcolm pulled back on his horse's mane and jumped off before it had come to a complete halt and ran toward the woman. When he reached her, he bent with his hands on his knees as he dragged in deep breaths. He glared at Candy, who was fighting her skirt again, trying to tug it away from a bush's barbs.

"If you haven't already guessed it," he ground out, "I'm a Fugitive Recovery Agent, and I'm taking you to jail."

"You fucking, low-life bounty hunter!" She gave up fiddling with her skirt and stomped her feet. "You ruined everything."

"Have your daddy take it up with the judge. I'm sure they know each other well by now."

"Asshole!"

He strode closer toward her, pulling his multitool from his web belt.

Her eyes widened when he flicked open the blade. "What?—"

He ignored her and stepped behind her to begin hacking the dress from the bush's barbs. ATVs arrived just as he turned her to place the cuffs on her wrists. "Maybe if you ask one of your guests nicely, they'll give us an ATV so we can ride back to my truck instead of you having to walk all the way back."

An unfamiliar voice called out, "I'll give you a ride if you sign a contract to let us use the footage."

Malcolm blinked in surprise and looked around at a woman striding toward him. She wore her brown hair in a braid and had a makeup-free, freckled face. She held out her hand. "I'm Rachel Cabot. I was filming here with the Montana Bounty Hunters as they were getting ready to sweep into that wedding you just crashed."

Malcolm glanced at the men and women piling out of the ATVs and groaned. He recognized many of them because he'd watched several episodes of their cable TV show. It wasn't half bad. "I am not sharing this bounty, folks. I got her first."

The man standing behind Rachel held up his hands. Malcolm didn't recognize him. He might have been with the film crew or was a new hunter.

"I'm Jackson Black from MBH. We aren't planning on horning in on your capture. Your takedown was very entertaining, by the way. That's why Rachel's not pissed we didn't get to Candy first." He tipped his hat to Candy. "Nice to meet you, by the way. Great wedding."

Candy snarled and tried to jerk free of Malcolm's hold on the chain between her cuffs.

"No use fighting," Malcolm said, resting a hand on her shoulder. He was glad she didn't know how little of her skirt in the back remained.

A very burly man stepped up behind Jackson. Malcolm recognized him instantly. This was Cage Morgan, the man in charge of the Dead Horse branch of the Montana Bounty Hunters.

Cage's mouth curved in a crooked grin. "Malcolm Winslow, we'll give you a ride back. And if you don't mind, I'll accompany you to Bozeman. I have a proposition…"

So long as that proposition didn't entail sharing the very generous bounty Malcolm had just earned, he was willing to listen. He wasn't surprised Cage knew his name. They'd crossed paths before during takedowns. Satisfaction filled him because he thought he had an inkling of what Cage was going to say, and frankly, Malcolm was ready for a change.

An hour into the drive, Candy finally fell asleep in the back seat, which gave the men's ears a rest from her constant complaining and tears.

Cage grimaced and palmed his left ear, which had taken the brunt of Candy's wailing. "Good Lord, that woman has a set of lungs."

Malcolm grinned. "So, you wanted to talk to me about something? A proposition, you said?"

"You know who I am, right? Who those folks at the back door were…?"

"The Montana Bounty Hunters from the Dead Horse office, yeah. I've seen your show."

"Well, the man who owns the whole shebang, Fetch Winters, is thinking about opening a new office in Yellowstone."

Malcolm's eyebrows shot upward. "He's already got offices in Dead Horse, Kalispell, and Bear Lodge. Does he really need another?"

"The Yellowstone office will be in West Yellowstone and still in Montana, but he's looking to widen our reach into Wyoming and Idaho. He wants to start the office with folks he already knows and trusts, so some of my guys are considering the move, but he'll need new talent there, too. I'll need hunters to backfill my losses. That's where you'd come in. You could take a position with me in Dead Horse or in Yellowstone, your choice."

Malcolm drew a deep breath and nodded, keeping his gaze on the highway before him. He knew this opportunity would be lucrative, and he wasn't averse to making some money. "You know anything about me?"

"My ops person, Fig, has worked on resumes for bounty hunters I can interview for the job. Your name was already on the list. It was downright polite of you to save me the bother of hunting you down."

Malcolm chuckled. "I've worked with a couple of other outfits. The experience wasn't great."

"I know who you're talking about, and I can promise you, we don't save the best takedowns for ourselves, and we pay on time, every time. Plus, there's the opportunity to work with Rachel Cabot, the cable TV show-runner whom you met. She'd be eager to sign you beyond that release she requested for tonight's work. My people have earned a shit-ton of cash from the show and merchandising."

"Doesn't fame make your job harder when you need to blend in to get close to a skip?"

"It makes us work smarter. We still get the job done."

Malcolm lifted his chin toward the sign indicating they were approaching Bozeman. "Let's get our girl locked up tight, and we'll talk." He was already sure this was what he wanted, but it wouldn't hurt to be a little cagey, just so the boss knew he wasn't a pushover.

Candy stirred in the backseat. "My daddy's gonna sue your ass," she said grumpily as she straightened and aimed a glare at him in the mirror.

Malcolm raised an eyebrow. "We'll be arriving at the detention center soon."

"I won't be there long," she said, then frowned, her gaze moving to the window beside her. The sound of her shifting on the leather seat behind them was followed by, "Hey, where's the rest of my dress?"

An hour later, Cage and Malcolm slid into seats at an all-night truck stop restaurant. Cage got quite a few looks from the staff and the truckers. Malcolm was pretty sure he'd be approached for autographs any time now.

They placed their orders, and the waitress returned with a carafe of black coffee and two cups. Once they were settled, Cage pulled out his phone, tapped the screen several times, and turned it to face Malcolm.

"This is what Fig put together and sent me just now."

Malcolm picked up the phone and frowned as he scrolled down the screen. The top included a couple of photos, one that appeared to be his DMV photo, the other a picture of him standing with his buddies in Afghanistan, smiling for the camera. His hand was bandaged. The others had various stitched scars and bandages. One was leaning on a pair of crutches. They were smiling, but their gazes appeared haunted. They'd just set out the boots of two of their fallen comrades, lost in a recent mission.

He scrolled down, past the list of his medals and military assignments, to the list of the hunters he'd learned his new craft from.

At the bottom was a big red checkmark and a note in red Sharpie—Hire him!

"We were both SEALs," Cage said. "We can talk about missions another day over a lot of booze, but I just wanted you to know that most of the guys I've hired are prior military, too. You'll find a family with us. Not all of them had the privilege of being SEALs, but all were battle-tested and the best people you can have at your back."

Malcolm looked at the document again, then closed out the screen and sat back in his chair. "So, you did your homework." He drew a breath and narrowed his eyes, his mouth twitching at the corners. "I've got a question. Did you really have cameras set up inside that barn?"

Cage's chest shook as a crooked grin stretched. "That was all Rachel's idea. She bribed the wedding photographer to allow her to use his live feed. He also placed hidden cameras around the barn for the film crew so we could see what was happening inside. The photographer told the bride's daddy it was all part of his special package to memorialize the event. That's how we saw you arrive. We were just getting ready to flood inside but decided to hold back and see what happened."

"Was holding back Rachel's idea?"

"Nope, Preacher and I told her we should see how it played out. That we could jump in if you needed a hand."

"That was a lot of prep work on your part to sit on your hands when I made my move."

"We were getting paid whether we made the collar or not. Plus, all our guys were eager to see how you handled yourself."

The waitress arrived with their breakfast plates, and they fell silent as they ate.

Malcolm cut a slice of steak, layered it with egg, and then paused before lifting it to his mouth. "So, when do I start?"