Page 12 of Stolen By the Billionaire
Weird. “How did you know that?”
He nodded. “Mary Varvara Bell. She is exactly what I said.”
No, this random, highly armed, and well-armed stranger was wrong. “It can’t be her. She’s very educated. Everyone calls her Dr. Bell.”
He frowned. “She’s a medical doctor?”
“No, her doctorate is in Russian history and literature. She’s a historian in New York City. That’s why she has that big fancy office on the Upper East Side. She’s very respected in her field.”
He finished brushing his sleeve down his arm and buttoned his cuff. “Right. What university?”
“I don’t know. She’s never said.”
“Usually, professors make absolutely sure you know what university they’re affiliated with. She’s not a professor.”
“My Aunt Mary is not a criminal. She’s on our side of the family. I don’t know what happened, but you have the wrong person.”
“And yet, she said she would renegotiate her demands.”
Sarah shrugged, flipping her hands in the air too much. “You were holding a machete to her niece’s throat. She would have said anything.”
“I don’t think that’s it.” He reached into one of the wide pockets of his camouflage pants, took out a thick stack of money, and laid it on the kitchen table while he looked straight at her, his eyes seeming to soften. “That should feed the horse for a while.”
For an instant, Sarah looked into his eyes, caught in his irises like Caribbean sea water, and her heartbeat accelerated to a trot.
Then she looked at the stack of freakin’ cash on her tablecloth.
Sarah dropped the spatula she’d taken out of the drawer. It fell into the utensil mess with a clatter. “Holy cow. Is that all money?”
“Fifteen thousand dollars for your time and trouble,” the man said.
Fifteen thousand was over half of what Sarah netted out of the farm for her yearly expenses.
She leaned back against the counter. “I can’t take your money.”
The man’s eyes, a striking blue in the midst of the diagonal slashes of green and black on his face, found hers again. “You didn’t sign up for this. It’s only fair that you should be compensated.”
She tried to examine his face under the camouflage makeup but couldn’t really see his features. All she could see were his eyes. “But I didn’t do anything.”
“No, but I did, and so this is only fair. Pay off some bills. Give the rest to your church or some charity if you don’t want to keep it.”
“I don’t need it.”
“Never said you needed it. I said I wanted to give it to you.”
The feed guy was going to show up next week on schedule, and she still owed Tiffany twenty bucks for her portion of Katie Williams’ wedding gift. Not panicking whenever a vet bill came in or her pickup truck needed a part would be nice. “I—um—thank you.”
“Don’t thank me. It’s yours. I’ll go now.”
He’d just given her fifteen grand, unasked for, and he was standing in her kitchen. “You don’t have to—Would you like a cup of coffee?”
“Thank you for the offer, but I don’t drink anything habituating. A caffeine habit would dull my reflexes if I’m in the field and can’t get it.”
“Why, are you really a Navy SEAL? I just thought you were trying to scare my aunt.”
“I am. Or, I was,” he said, frowning.
“So you don’t have to worry that it’s habituating anymore.”
