Kitabı oku: «Guilty Pleasures», sayfa 2

Hell, if this was what she was like at half speed, he’d hate to see her at full.

She’d positioned the bedroll so it was far enough away that he couldn’t reach her, but between him and the door, close enough that if he awkwardly tried to escape, he’d have to step over her.

He eyed the open door.

She looked up abruptly then reached to slam the door. There was no mistaking the auto lock that clicked home.

Swell.

“How long you plan to be out?” he asked.

“As long as my body dictates. Try anything stupid and …”

He hadn’t realized she’d brought a gun down with her.

Oh, wait: she hadn’t. That was his gun.

Damn.

It was going to take him a while to live down this one. Not that he planned on telling anyone. No. But it was going to take a while for him to get over this.

The sound of her soft snores a moment later told him she was out like a light.

Jon drew in a deep breath and felt around his own restraints.

The way he saw it, all he had to do was wait until she decided what to do next before he figured out his next move.

He could only hope that hers didn’t include putting the muzzle of his own gun to his head and shooting, much the way she had assassinated the good prosecutor she was wanted for murdering….

3

“I’M HENRY THE EIGHTH.”

Mara fought against the irritating words determined to yank her from a solid sleep.

He sang the words louder, apparently convinced she hadn’t heard him the first time.

She put her hands over her ears and moaned.

No, no, no …

“Oh, hi,” her annoying hostage said. “Sorry … am I bothering you?”

She cracked open an eyelid and glared at him, noting how close the 9 mm was … and how easy it would be to do away with the annoyance.

“By the way?” he said, his long, denim-covered legs casually crossed at the ankles of his cowboy boots, looking as though he was there by choice and not by force … and appearing a little too cheerful for her liking. “You already know from reading my license, but we haven’t been properly introduced. My name is Jonathon Reece, Jon to my friends. But I’ll let you call me that if you want …”

She glanced at her watch. She’d only been asleep for a couple of hours. She reached for the gun and dragged it closer to her side.

“I’m thinking it’s been a while since you’ve gotten any decent sleep, huh? Actually, I’m guessing it’s been nearly forty hours. You know, the time that prosecutor bit it …”

She squinted at him, sorely tempted to pull the trigger.

“That’s a long time to go without rest. It messes with the system, big-time. Throws you off your game.”

Groaning aloud, she rolled smoothly to her feet, taking the gun with her.

“Hey, a movie song isn’t grounds for execution in most states.”

She opened a drawer, looking to grab something she saw in there earlier. “What movie song?”

“The one I was singing. You know, from Ghost? Patrick Swayze sang it to get Whoopi Goldberg to help him. Just call me Swayze Crazy. Isn’t that how the saying goes?”

“I wouldn’t know. Never saw the movie. As for the song, it was written in the early 1900s, and popularized by Herman and the Hermits in the mid-’60s, a long time before the movie in question.”

“Wow. You’re smart.”

The more he talked, the more her trigger finger itched.

She found what she was looking for and made her way back to him.

“Did you learn that in school? That song bit?” he asked.

“No. My father liked to pretend he lived in a time period other than the one he was in. Either that or he was stuck in the wrong time. I don’t know which.”

“What are you going to—”

She slapped a stretch of duct tape across his sexily infuriating mouth. Then just to be sure, she secured another in the shape of an X.

She looked into his eyes, the deep shade of blowtorch-blue, with lashes that were somehow too thick to be on a man, yet were ridiculously attractive.

Damn, but he was hot.

She licked her lips, momentarily recalling how it had felt to have them pressed against his. Her kiss had been a completely diversionary tactic, she told herself. If she revisited the naughty thoughts she’d originally had of him at the airport … well, that was between her and her bedroll.

His expression was altogether too suggestive. Could he be thinking along the same line?

She cleared her throat and sat back on her heels.

“Oh, and there is more to that song,” she said. “It goes …” She quoted him the full lyrics. “Just so you’ll know the next time you choose to annoy someone.”

If she didn’t know better, she’d say he was grinning at her through the tape.

She cocked her head, her gaze drawn to his mouth. She picked up a red sharpie from a nearby tabletop, uncapped it then drew another X over the tape.

There. A reminder of what was off-limits.

Trouble was? She was having a hard time not thinking X marked the spot.

Yes, he kissed that well.

She gave a mental eye roll, checked his restraints—both still firmly in place—then stretched back across the sleeping bag.

She stared at the grimy windows on the other side of the office.

While her attraction to Reece was purely physical, she needed to remind herself that it was another man who had put her in the position she was in now.

She’d been sixteen, had just lost her father, was living with an emotionally unstable and distant mother … and militia member Gerald Butler had smiled that devastating smile at her, offering her what she thought was everything she’d ever need.

She supposed that had been true … for a time. Two years, to be exact. It had taken her that long to figure out that the group and its ideals weren’t any better than the organized government against which they rebelled.

And that the man with whom she’d fallen in love didn’t know the true meaning of the word.

Of course, she understood how young she’d been then, emotionally as well as in years. And she was happy to say it had been a good long while since she’d actually thought about that time in her life.

Until now.

Until she’d been plucked out of Butler’s files and set up for murder.

Oh, she’d read the news that Gerald had been arrested some time ago for charges that ranged from crimes against the federal government to murder. But she’d barely given the news piece a cursory glance and a heart pang before closing the paper and then lighting her welding torch, returning to her artwork, something that never betrayed her, never lied to her, was always there for her.

If she’d worked for twenty hours straight in order to cleanse thoughts and memories of Butler from her mind before finally collapsing into a dreamless sleep … well, that was between her and the sculpture she’d been working on.

Now, she cleared her throat and rubbed her nose. It was one thing to know someone you loved had never really loved you. Quite another to be set up for murder for reasons she knew benefited him.

“You know, you didn’t ask if I did it …” she said quietly to Reece, her body already beginning to succumb to sleep again. “Just saying. If it were me, it would have been the first question I asked.”

He didn’t respond. Not that he could.

“See you in a while, Reece. Don’t try anything stupid …”

HOURS LATER, JON CURSED himself for not keeping a metal handcuff key in the secret pocket sewn inside the waist of his jeans. Then again, he hadn’t expected to need one.

He did, however, have a small pocket knife and had long since taken it out and freed himself from the plastic restraints, which were tighter then the metal ones. He’d blindly tried to pick the metal lock with the blade, only to cut himself on the pad of his thumb. He felt the blood drip from his fingers, but knew it wasn’t anything serious. It did, however, convince him to stop trying to pick the lock for a while, lest he accidentally hit a vein.

At one point, he’d drifted off to sleep himself, leaning against the metal pole he was tied to. While Mara had switched off the ringer to his phone, she’d left it on Vibrate. And he’d listened as it buzzed almost nonstop where it sat on the desk.

Julie, no doubt.

Damn.

He’d like to say his reaction was because he was afraid she was worried about him. Instead, he was more concerned his cell battery would go dead.

He leaned his head against the pole and cursed.

Julie …

What wasn’t there to like? She was blonde, sexy as hell and a kindergarten teacher. All those girl-next-door qualities that brought guys sniffing.

Just when had things started to take a bad turn?

He couldn’t really say. They’d dated for two years before moving in together and from the get-go, he’d joked about her control-freak tendencies. He’d found them cute. Sometimes, he’d even enjoyed it when she got grumpy about one thing or another, usually connected with some imagined infraction. And she was adorable. Her sexy pout was the stuff of which dreams were made.

Then he’d left his safe employment as an insurance salesman—a job that bored him all to hell—to take the position with Lazarus….

To say Julie wasn’t pleased would be an understatement.

“Come on, honey,” he’d pleaded with her for the umpteenth time when he’d left on his first assignment with a Lazarus team to search for a missing girl in Florida. “Just look at this as an opportunity for you to get in some important ‘you’ time….”

“I don’t need ‘me’ time. I need you,” she’d said. “Besides, how am I supposed to get ‘me’ time when I’m completely responsible for Brutus?”

Brutus was the puggle they’d adopted from an animal shelter. He’d been Jon’s surprise to her one Christmas morning.

Oh, she’d been surprised, all right. Shocked was more the word. And unhappy.

She never let an opportunity pass to pitch a bitch fit. “See, we could take a teacup Chihuahua anywhere we wanted to go. We wouldn’t have to worry about imposing on friends,” she’d said when he’d arranged a weekend trip to Catalina. “And there would be much less dog dirt to clean up….”

Of course, what had he been thinking? “Julie” time was all the time.

He grimaced.

When had her pouting become irritating?

The phone vibrated again.

Was it him, or did it seem weaker somehow?

Double damn.

Mara’s leg jerked.

He glanced at her. She hadn’t moved the entire time she’d been asleep. And he was sure she was sleeping. He could tell by her deep, even breathing and soft snores, the latter probably because she’d gone so long without quality shut-eye.

Still, the fact that she could sleep at all, given what was going on, was remarkable in and of itself.

Definitely military.

Or some sort of similar training.

He found his gaze trailing over her, appreciating her form. Where Julie was long-limbed and … well, elegant, Mara was toned and compact. Not that she was short. He guessed the two women were the same height. But where Julie rocked a pair of high-heeled shoes, he guessed Mara would look awkward in them.

And the opposite applied in the case of cowboy boots. At least true ones.

He looked at where Mara still wore her short, black combat boots. Suddenly, he could picture her as a child, the victim of schoolyard teasing: “Your mama wears combat boots.”

Likely Mara would have cocked a hand on her hip and said, “Well, that would make her more capable than yours, now, wouldn’t it?”

Julie, on the other hand, would have been horrified at the mere thought.

And so would her Stepford Wife mother.

Jon’s gaze traveled up the back of Mara’s jeans to where her bottom was rounded and pert, then to the small of her back where her T-shirt had ridden up a bit, revealing a stretch of firm flesh.

He swallowed. Hard.

Which seemed to be the word of the minute, because he found a certain area of his anatomy growing noticeably harder.

He caught sight of a tattoo on the back of her left shoulder where she’d rolled up the sleeve. He squinted, trying to make it out. A bird’s wing? Angel? He couldn’t tell. There wasn’t enough visible.

He heard sound outside.

Jon moved his head so he could see the warehouse interior. The sun slanted low, creating dingy, golden shafts of light against the gritty floor between him and the car some seventy-five feet away. He made out the shape of someone looking in the vehicle-access-door window much the same way he had hours before.

Competition for the bounty?

Made sense.

Then again, the Feds could be making another pass.

The sound of the individual trying the door echoed in the room.

Shit.

He heard the quiet dragging of something metallic across the floor. He realized Mara’s breathing was no longer deep and even. She had moved only her arm and was now pulling his 9 mm closer to her side.

Wow …

She slowly turned to look at him, nodding in the direction of the visitor outside the building. “With you?”

He shook his head.

The figure moved from the window. A moment later, Jon made out the sound of quiet footsteps on the stairs leading to her apartment.

Mara was on her feet in a flash, stuffing the blue plastic bag he’d seen her holding earlier inside the front waistband of her jeans and covering it with her shirt, then checking the ammo in the gun: he knew it was a full sixteen rounds. She stuffed that into her waistband, as well.

She stopped to look at him.

For a moment, he suspected she might leave him there. And he could tell she was giving it serious consideration.

Then she said, “If he’s not with you, then I can trust you’re not going to make any noise, right?”

He gave her a long look.

She yanked the tape from his mouth and then headed for the door.

“The hands?”

She came back, leaned over him much as she had earlier with the same tantalizing view. He heard the teeth give, but when she straightened a moment later, he found his hands were still restrained … only now without the post involved.

She stared at the question on his face. “You won’t be needing them. Now up, soldier. I know you know how to move with your hands tied behind your back.”

He thought about making a smart-ass comment, but she was already through the door and ripping the tarp from the car.

He got up and began following her, then backtracked to get his cell and wallet from the desk, stuffing each into back jeans pockets. Then he spotted a click-top pen. Bingo. He palmed it and stuffed it inside the waistband of his jeans before joining her.

She climbed inside the car and reached to open the passenger’s door for him. He awkwardly got inside and was trying to figure out a way to close it with his foot when she reached across him, her breasts brushing against his thighs, to close it for him.

Then she reached behind him, taking his cell from his pocket and tossing it to the dash.

He had to give her credit; she didn’t miss a trick.

Which made him feel a little less bad about being taken hostage by her.

A little.

“The doors?” he asked.

She gave him a long look. “Blocked from the outside. The bastard parked on the other side.”

“Then how are we going to get out—?”

The engine started and the car was in gear before he could utter the next word. His neck jerked as she sped in Reverse, the old car’s monster engine roaring in his ears.

She reached across him and yanked the seat belt across his lap, shoving the latch into his hands behind his back before doing her own.

“Hold on,” she said, smiling in his direction.

She pressed a button on the visor. Even as he awkwardly secured his seat belt, he looked over his shoulder, watching as another door, this one a garage type, lifted some fifty yards behind them on the opposite warehouse wall.

“It’s not going to make it up in time,” he said over the engine’s growl.

“It’ll make it.”

Twenty yards … ten … five …

The top of the car hit the bottom of the door, but it didn’t slow them down.

She hit the brakes on the other side and did a one-eighty.

“Oops,” she said.

He couldn’t help shaking his head, amused.

The car was barely straight before she shoved the stick into Drive, roaring off before the guy in her apartment had any idea what hit him.

Or maybe not.

Jon stared back at a large man in faded, full-out desert military gear rounding the side of the warehouse a hundred yards away. Only, he didn’t look like anyone he’d ever served with. This guy had long blond hair tied back and a full beard. And his weapon was Russian, more specifically an AK-47.

Definitely not something an American soldier would be toting.

Militia? Or military-loving mercenary?

That meant their visitors numbered at least two: the one on the stairs and this one.

He caught Mara’s glance as she looked away from the same sight. She didn’t appear surprised. But if he was expecting any kind of explanation, he was sadly disappointed.

Jon shifted in the seat and worked on getting the click-top pen out of the waistband of his jeans, the spring of which he planned to use to pick his handcuffs….

4

AFTER TEN MINUTES, Mara slowed her speed on the mostly deserted roads for which she’d opted, checking her mirrors every few seconds for signs she’d been followed. She hadn’t been.

Or at least it appeared that way.

But it wasn’t empty, really, was it? The road behind her was choked with ghosts from her past.

She felt a breath away from having the Pop-Tart she’d eaten this morning hurl from her churning stomach.

Now that the urgency had passed, her worsening circumstances crowded around her, inside her, making it impossible to do much beyond keep the car on the road and stare at the glaring reality of her situation. It wasn’t enough that they’d set her up for murder … Now they were trying to kill her.

She checked the road behind her again. Still empty. But she didn’t expect it to remain that way.

She passed a slow-moving sedan on the two-lane highway then screeched to a stop on the right shoulder. Jon looked at her as if she’d gone mad. Which was okay with her; the more unpredictable she came off, the more she had the upper hand.

She’d learned early on that it wasn’t curiosity that killed the cat, but predictability. At least when it came to predators. So she made it a point to never do the same thing twice.

Of course, she would have been well served to remember that over the past few years. Instead, she’d allowed herself to be lulled into a false sense of security.

She ignored the horn blow of the sedan as it passed them as she got out of the car and slowly made her way around the vehicle.

Though it had been parked in the off-airport lot for months and, as an older vehicle, had no low-jack tracking device, that didn’t necessarily mean it was bug free. And it would certainly explain why she hadn’t been followed. If she was being tracked, then there was no need.

It made a tactical kind of sense, their targeting her now. They’d gone through all the trouble of setting her up for the prosecutor’s murder. The last thing they needed was for her to be hell-bent on proving her innocence.

If she was surprised and hurt to see an ex–family member standing outside the warehouse toting an AK-47 … well, she wasn’t about to cop to it.

She did feel a bit of relief that he hadn’t taken the money shot when he’d had the opportunity. But she didn’t kid herself into thinking she’d be as lucky next time.

So it wasn’t only the local and federal authorities, not to mention who knew what yahoos from private firms—she spared Reece a glance—on her tail. It was also the local militia. People who knew her better than any biological family members, if only because they’d taught her all she knew.

Well, not all. If that was true, she might as well surrender to her fate now.

At any rate, she also understood that it wasn’t so much what you knew, but what you did with that knowledge that determined the outcome of any situation.

She only hoped she wasn’t as rusty as some of her sculptures back at the warehouse.

She got onto her hands and knees and searched underneath the vehicle, inspecting and prodding all the normal hitch spots along with additional ones. It didn’t appear to be wired, but there was no way to be sure. There were too many places and it was too big a vehicle to cover every inch. Besides, technology today was so advanced, a tracker could be the size of a dime and hidden under a floor mat at this point.

Still …

She continued searching under the car, stopping only when she hit a pair of feet standing next to the open passenger’s door.

She sat back on her haunches and stared up at Jonathon Reece.

“Remember when you asked why I hadn’t asked if you’d done it?”

She squinted.

“My answer is I don’t care.” He pulled his hands out from behind his back. “Oh, and I’m free….”

He grasped her shoulders, pulled her up then urged her against her own vehicle, fastening her own cuffs on her.

Mara briefly closed her eyes.

Damn. And she’d gotten sleep.

Then she realized maybe that was the problem. She needed caffeine. Massive quantities of it.

“Mind if we stop somewhere for coffee?” she asked as he put her in the passenger’s seat and did up her safety belt nice and tight before rolling down her window and closing the door.

He didn’t answer until he was buckled into the driver’s side. “I’m sure they’ll have something you like at the county lockup.”

He started the car and did a one-eighty, heading back the way they’d come.

Mara swallowed hard, turning her face into the hot wind coming in through the window.

The car wasn’t the only thing that had done a one-eighty. Her mindset had taken a noticeable nosedive since he’d slapped the cuffs back on her.

That was a lie. It had gone south when she’d spotted the gunman back at the warehouse.

Frenemies. Wasn’t that a new word spawned recently? Although, what she was in the middle of had nothing to do with petty bickering over who had borrowed what or stolen whose boyfriend: this was a matter of life or death.

Namely, her own.

And then there was Reece….

Ironic that she’d been searching for an enemy presence on her car when it had been right in front of her.

The sun ignited the western horizon, setting the sky on fire. But she barely saw it. Instead, she imagined what waited for her at the other end of their journey.

She’d been running on pure adrenaline since she’d originally returned to her apartment three days ago to find FBI agents waiting for her. She hadn’t had a clue what they’d wanted then, but she hadn’t been about to stick around to find out. At least not from them. So she’d run. And found out soon enough what she was wanted for.

And understood immediately why.

“Who were those guys back there?”

She blinked to look at Reece.

“At your place. The one guy had militia written all over him.”

She stared out the window, deciding not to answer him.

What had he said? He hadn’t asked if she’d committed the crime for what reason? Oh, yes. Because he didn’t care.

He messed around with his cell phone, then cursed loudly and tried again. She guessed the battery was dead. Not surprising, considering how many times it had vibrated since the moment she’d restrained him back at the warehouse.

She closed her eyes again, feeling sweat beginning to bead between her breasts under her T-shirt.

“You can’t turn me over to the local authorities,” she said quietly.

He probably hadn’t heard her over the roar of the engine and his own rant at his dead cell.

He gave her a long look, proving otherwise. “Oh? Why? Coffee not up to snuff?”

She didn’t answer for a long moment, then turned her head where it lay against the backrest, feeling exhaustion saturate her every molecule. It was more than the lack of sleep or even the lull after the adrenaline rush. This was … was …

Antipathy.

Complete and utter disenchantment with the world at large and specifically the people in it.

She’d experienced it only one other time….

She forcibly ousted the memory from her mind and instead focused on the here and now.

Which was looking pretty bleak.

She took a deep breath and told him, “Because you’ll be directly responsible for my death if you do, that’s why.”

Mara wasn’t given to drama or exaggeration. She didn’t even like saying the words because they sounded too much like both. But in this case, well, the truth was the truth.

“That’s for a jury to decide.”

She jerked her head to stare at him, feeling her blood warm again. “Trust me, you take me to the sheriff’s? I won’t ever step inside a courtroom.”

The militia was so well connected throughout the local and federal law enforcement communities, not to mention plugged into the electronic highway, period, that the instant her name was entered into any computer, the countdown would begin.

Mara watched as the city limits loomed ahead. The sheriff’s office lay on the main drag, five, maybe eight minutes away. Off to the west, the sun was quickly sinking into the sand so the sky to the east was already dark. She yanked on her cuffs. There was nowhere near enough time for her to figure out how to pick them and free herself before they got there. At least not in the mental state she was presently in.

Reece grabbed his cell phone again as if it might have magically recharged itself in the time since he put it down.

“Do you have a phone?” he asked.

Her answer was a stare.

“Yes or no.”

“No.”

She’d ditched her cell phone on Day One. If the battery was in, it was transmitting, no matter if it was on or off. She’d thought about picking up another one that couldn’t be traced back to her, but until she had an actual need for one, what was the use?

He tossed the cell back to the seat between them. “So I’m left to your word.”

“Yes.”

He slowed the car’s speed, but whether it was because he was considering his options or the speed limit had changed, she couldn’t say. He was as easy to read as a murky, rain-swollen brook on a stormy day.

When he pulled up in front of the sheriff’s office moments later, her heart pitched.

There it was, then.

Damn.

She waited for the will to fight to return, fire up her own personal engine. But everything remained eerily silent.

Did it have something to do with him? Had she been hoping against hope that he’d listen to her? Change his mind? Take her at her word? Trust not only that what she was saying was true, but trust, period?

Who could say? She was so tired. Not only for sleep. She was tired of running on what seemed to be a never-ending treadmill.

With no one to rely on.

It was one thing to know a man you had once loved had set you up for murder.

Another to know he’d also put out a hit on you.

She realized Reece had yet to make a move. She looked to find him staring forward, but not really at the sheriff’s office, itself. The engine was still running.

His hands were still on the steering wheel. The gear was in Park.

Hope sparked.

Then he looked at her, shut down the engine, pocketed the keys and got out.

“I’ll leave the keys with the desk sergeant.”

He got out and rounded the front of the car to her side. “Gee, thanks,” she said.

He opened her door and helped her out.

He led her toward the curb, grasping on to her wrists behind her back. His hold both touched and angered her in its gentleness and control.

Mara set her back teeth and walked inside when he opened the door.

She supposed she should be fighting him. Fighting this. But while her heart beat an increasingly energizing rhythm, she was waiting for the right time.

“Fugitive turnover,” he said to the desk sergeant.

The fortysomething woman behind the counter looked at him then her. “Name?”

He told her.

“I’ll be right back.”

She disappeared into a windowed office where Mara watched her presumably enter her name into a computer.

“I’d take off the cuffs, but I’m afraid you’ll cold-cock me.”

She stared at Reece, feeling the desire to do just that expand inside her. “You’re right to be afraid.”

His gaze met hers, communicating … what, exactly? Regret? Triumph? Remorse?

“Sorry, but the name is not coming up. Are you sure you spelled it correctly?” the sergeant said.

Mara raised a brow at Reece.

The two exchanged information again.

The sergeant sighed then shrugged. “Let me go try again …”

She went back into the office.

The unusual activity must have caught the attention of the deputy in the neighboring office. He came out, eyeing Mara and Reece, then disappeared into the other office to talk to the sergeant who was still entering the information, apparently without success.

“Well, well, well … What do you suppose that means?” Mara asked.

Reece’s hold had tightened on her wrists. “Computer glitch, I’m sure.”

“I’m sure.”

They stood quietly while the other two conferred, the deputy picking up the phone.

“Tick tock,” Mara said.

Reece looked at her. “What?”

“Nothing. Just starting the countdown clock to when we’re no longer alone.”

“We’re not alone now.”

“Oh? Well, I think it’s about to get a whole lot more crowded in here quick.”

And their new guests would be unwelcome, indeed….