Chapter One
Elle
Daddy wanted a son but he got me. I’d worked my ass off to be the son he’d wanted, and for the most part I’d succeeded. I’d spent most of my childhood playing at Jackson Bonds while Daddy worked—the bail bonds and retrieval business was in my DNA—I was the fourth generation of Jackson to carry on the family tradition. I made sure I outperformed every person in the company, including my father.
I hurried into my office, threw my jacket over my black desk chair, and flipped on my laptop, brushing dust off my glass desk, a useless gesture. The screen came to life and I navigated to the Dallas PD website. I skimmed through last night’s arrests online to see if anyone caught my eye. I was the best bonder in our company because I shopped for clients instead of waiting for them to come to me. A lesson Daddy had taught me when I was only a girl.
Despite trying over and over for sons, I remained his only child. In fact, we’d fought because after years of treating me like his business equal, now all he wanted to discuss was marriage and babies—my marriage and babies. I had a vague plan to produce the next generation of Jacksons, but my timeline and his didn’t align. Daddy would never do this to his son.
I snorted at my own stupidity for letting myself go down the familiar trail of pity. Elle Jackson didn’t do that—I refused to be that stupid. I had my shit together and no one doubted my skill or my experience. Shutting the door on my doubts, I triple locked and chained the door before shoving it deep in the recesses of my mind.
My phone buzzed showing Doris, my father’s secretary, on the display. Doris had been a mother to me—the constant female presence in my life since Daddy whipped through women like some people traded in cars. Blunt, blustery and hard as nails, she’d taught me how to survive in our male-dominated profession.
Acid churned in my stomach eating another hole in the lining. I hated ulcers but had lived with them most of my life. Shoving all the shit down deep had consequences, ones I happily paid.
The phone trilled a third time and I swept up the handset. “Ellie, your father wants to see you, pronto,” Doris greeted me.
“Hello, how are you, Doris?” I didn’t want to see my father.
“Grouchy and old, now get your butt over here.” She hung up.
Daddy had turned into someone I didn’t know. Six months ago, he’d suffered a light heart attack, it’d scared ten years off my life. It had changed him, and not in a good way. He’d whisked his latest girlfriend, five years older than me no less, off to Vegas and made her Mrs. Jackson number four. Not stopping there, he had transformed from this badass bounty hunter I’d grown up with into this grandbaby-crazy man who only called me to talk about getting married. Of course, his harping triggered the Jackson stubborn gene, now I wasn’t sure I ever wanted to pop out a kid.
I crossed the carpeted cubicle farm between my office and Daddy’s. It wasn’t far, but to me, every step felt like a hundred. No doubt he planned to revisit his plan for me to marry. Like I’d ever get married? Nope, not in a million years. Marriage was a joke and my father was its latest punch line.
“Hey, Elle.” Janice, one of our bond assistants, stopped me. “Sign off on the three bond contracts we completed last night?” She held out a tablet for my signature.
“Morales, Juarez and Jones?” I’d read the update before I’d left my townhouse this morning.
“Yeah. We did good last night.” She winked at me.
And she was right—those three bonds generated $20,000 in revenue, once the repeat customers made their court appearances.
“You headed to see him?” She nodded to the door behind me. The black door had Jack Jackson, President embossed in gold lettering.
“Unfortunately,” I sighed.
She glanced around and then pulled me closer to her. “I heard him trying to convince Sal to ask you out yesterday.”
Dammit. “Sal?” Disgust coated my mouth like the scum you woke up when you had a tequila hangover. Sal was thirty pounds past two hundred, oily, ten years older than me, and in command after Daddy and me. “How can I get him certified insane?”
Janice giggled. “I dunno, but maybe you have a case.”
Closing my eyes, I searched deep for some calm. I had my daddy’s eyes and his temper—the rest he said I got from my mama. She’d died giving birth to me, so all I had was his word on that.
“Luckily Sal would never give up his strippers for you.” Janice walked past me back to her cube.
This lunacy was out of control; the whole office knew about his crazy scheme to marry me off. It could be funny except it threatened my position, made me a punch line to a joke instead of someone to respect. And I wasn’t horseflesh to auction off to any bidder. My eyes stung and I blinked away the idea of tears. No matter how Daddy betrayed me, I refused to give in to the tears of frustration, rage, and hurt. No, I wasn’t hurt. He couldn’t hurt me because I’d turned my heart into a Teflon organ that no insult, no matter how horrible, would touch. How long before others began to see me as no more than a baby factory? It had been a long struggle to earn respect in this testosterone-filled business, now my own father sabotaged me.
Reminding myself I would ride out this phase of stupidity, I blanked my face. Never show an opponent your hand. One of Daddy’s many rules of bounty hunting. Rules he’d repeated so often they were part of me. I just never thought my father would be the enemy.
I opened the door into Doris’s domain. Neat, tidy and smelling of peppermint, just like always.
She eyed me over the rim of her small rectangular frames. “Took you long enough.”
I squeezed my lips into a tight line and bit back the sarcastic retort. “Is he ready?”
“That’s why I called.” She turned back to her computer. “Get in there.”
I walked into his office, a place that once was synonymous with safety.
“Sugar dumpling, how are you today?” Daddy stood, arms out for a hug.
“Good, Daddy, what did you want?” I inhaled the scent of fresh tobacco that hung on him. He’d been smoking his pipe in the office again.
“Come and sit down. You want some coffee or water?”
I shook my head and sat at his walnut table that matched his huge desk. The same desk and table he’d always had. I’d grown up playing in this office while he worked from morning to late into the night. The closet probably still held the toys he’d kept here for me when I was a child.
“Now, you know Doris is retiring in three months, and I’ve decided I can’t do this without her. I’m going too.”
I’d suspected this announcement. Since his heart attack, he spoke more about what we were missing in life. I didn’t agree that I was missing anything. He’d spent 29 years grooming me to head this business, and I wanted the challenge. More, I had new ideas that would take our company to a whole new level. I’d leave my mark on the company, just like my ancestors had.
He leaned forward and grabbed my hands. “It’s time the Jacksons gave up bail bonds for a quieter life.”
I pulled back, frowning. What did he mean? I broke out in a sweat. He said we, didn’t he? Well, he was in for a shock. I was just getting started. He’d hinted at retirement, but what did that have to do with me. This company was my past, present and future. It stood for us—the Jacksons.
How dare he try and steal this from me? I wanted to follow in my family footsteps, and I’d do anything to make that happen.
I tried to read his blank face.
Unable to discern a damn thing, dread built low in my stomach, climbing up my torso until it was hard to breathe.
“I’m not quitting.” That should be clear.
He stared into my eyes and his lips tipped into a sympathetic grimace. “You won’t want to work for strangers after I sell the company.”
He blew me away with that bombshell. I fortified myself so I didn’t show the devastation he’d wreaked with one statement.
“Sell the company?” My voice hitched from the way my throat had constricted. Anger warred with the confusion inside me. We’d talked about me taking over when he was done. Maybe he was truly impaired—like bat-shit crazy—if he’d rather sell our family business to strangers than pass it on to his own blood. Every move I’d made since I was a child had been toward running the business. I’d spent years by his side learning everything he had to teach, earned my major in sociology and criminal justice, and worked my ass off to be the best bail agent for the past seven years. The company was in my blood, part of me, like every Jackson before me. How dare he try and steal my heritage. He was in for a fight because I wasn’t giving up just because he’d had a scare. He’d taught me to fight for what was important, and nothing was more important to me than this company.
“You don’t need the hassle of this business. Lord knows it’s not what it used to be.” He frowned. “Was a time when a man’s word was his bond, but now we get people skipping out more than ever. We ain’t got unlimited time on this earth.” He reached out for my hand but I jerked away from his touch. He let his hand fall to the table.
“I want the hassle.” Trying again for calm, I hit irked instead of the freaked out I felt. It’d have to be good enough.
“And I want grandbabies.” He smacked his hand on the table.
I stared at this man who until last year had never even mentioned me and a man in the same breath. The heart attack had scared him, I understood that, but this growing determination to plan out my life was alien. He’d never been that kind of father. I’d grown up with more independence than most, and I cherished the freedom he gave me. Where had that man gone?
So many thoughts whirred in my mind as the storm of rage built inside me. I tried to lock down the emotion, but he threatened my future. How dare he?
“I’m not popping out babies because you say so.” I smacked my hand down on the table. We’d had this fight one too many times lately. His betrayal had become absolute when he threatened the company I loved. The one I should inherit just as he had and his father before him.
“And I’m not giving you another reason to keep me waiting.” He lowered his chin in the same way I did when I’d dug in my heels.
We glared at each other, most likely with identical looks on our faces. I refused to say more. Arguing this point gave it legitimacy. Time ticked by as we each stared at the other. Silence breaks the best man. Another rule he’d taught me. His gaze never wavered, neither of us flinched or fidgeted. I shut down all thoughts that threatened my control. I’d win this argument.
Without breaking our stare off, he opened his mouth. “Get married and I’ll give you the business.” He narrowed his blue eyes at me.
“No. Pick another challenge. One I can do.” I ground the words out from between clenched teeth. Breathing deep I searched for a reason he’d understand. “You got to live your life, why are you screwing with mine?”
Those eyes firmed into stone flecks. “I ain’t got unlimited time on this earth and neither do you. You use this job as a shield—no men, no life—I won’t let you pretend this company is a life.”
I sucked in a sharp breath. His words sliced deep. I had a life.
“You and I are the same. You raised me to be you.” I tried again to reach the man I used to know.
“I love, I live. You don’t.” He pointed a shaky finger at me and his face turned beet red. “I know that’s my fault, letting you play at bounty hunting all these years—”
“What the fuck did you just say to me?” My voice boomed in the quiet room. Play at bounty hunting. How dare he belittle me. Rage colored my vision. “I’m the best in the city. And I’ll prove it to you.”
He huffed. “Fine! Bring in $500,000 in 30 days and I’ll sign over the company to you.” The look of satisfaction that flitted across his face pissed me off even more. He knew his demand wasn’t even possible.
Pressure pushed against my eyes. Tears wanted to stream from me but the cold embrace of fury anchored me. Where had this stranger come from? He sure as hell wasn’t my daddy. Fear mixed with the rage in me. Had I lost the company already? No. I controlled my future, not him.
“That’s ridiculous. No one does that!” I shot back. “This company has been run by Jacksons since it began over 125 years ago.”
“And a Jackson will sell it.” He shouted, standing, arms pressed down into the walnut table.
I saw my future slipping away with each word. “You got a deal,” I yelled. Regret rebounded through me in an instant. I had no real chance of meeting this challenge. No. I’d show him, do the impossible and he’d eat every last one of his traitorous words.
When Daddy’s face settled into stark lines of determination I gulped down the doubts. I had no choice but to win even if no one raised that kind of money in a month.
His lip twitched and satisfaction showed on his face for a millisecond. Dammit, I’d played right into his hand. Anger beat in time with my racing heart. He thought he’d won, but even if I lost, he’d never, ever win.
“Whether I do this or not, one thing I can promise you.” I stood with hands shaking. “You will never see a grandchild from me.”
Acid ate at my throat and I struggled to breathe. I stormed from the room, not giving a single damn that he called after me. I had an impossible challenge to meet or I’d lose what I loved—my company. When had I started thinking of Jackson Bonds as mine? It didn’t matter, unless a miracle blessed me, the company wouldn’t be mine—ever.