Country Roads (2 page)

He muttered something that sounded like, “How do they always find me?” She caught an undercurrent of resignation in his breezy tone as he said, “Sure. Happy to do it.”

He didn’t believe she would pay him back. Julia pressed her lips together so she wouldn’t tell him to go to hell. She needed to get to the gallery. Then she’d show him she could return his loan.

If they liked the paintings.

Julia shoved the thought to the darkest recesses of her mind and pasted a grateful smile on her face. “Thank you so much.”

“You’re welcome. Let me call Bud to come get your car.” She thought she saw a touch of guilt darken his eyes before he lowered his gaze to his cell.

“Bud?”

“He’s the owner of the service station in Sanctuary. That’s where you’re headed, right?” He was already putting the phone to his ear.

“Are you from Sanctuary?”

He nodded. “Born and raised.”

She wasn’t sure how she felt about that. It would make it more satisfying to pay him back if she could see his face when she did it. On the other hand, she preferred to have the minimum number of people know she was in Sanctuary. The more she was seen, the more likely it was her uncle would find out she’d been there. She shrugged mentally. There was nothing she could do about it now.

Just then Paul spoke into the phone. He greeted whoever was on the other end of the call casually, yet it was clear he expected to have his request acted upon promptly. Her uncle worked the same way.

“The tow truck will be here in fifteen minutes,” Paul Taggart said.

“Wow, that’s quick.” When it struck her that she was going to have to make conversation with him for those minutes, they suddenly stretched out to infinity.

“Why don’t we go wait in my car, where it’s quiet and air-conditioned?” he said.

She hesitated, fear tightening her spine. He didn’t look like a rapist or a mass murderer, but neither had Ted Bundy. She flicked a glance at his car, discovering a slightly sinister cast in its dark, sleek lines. If she got in, he could lock all the doors and whisk her away to some isolated shack where she’d never be heard from again.

“You go ahead,” she said, keeping her gaze on him as she edged toward the Suburban. “I need to rearrange a few things in my car so they don’t shift when it gets towed.”

She watched his shoulders lift and lower in another sigh before he fished a business card out of his shirt pocket and held it out to her. “Will this convince you it’s safe to sit comfortably in my car?”

It was thick cream vellum with “Paul Taggart, Esquire” printed in block letters in the center. Below it was an address in
Sanctuary, West Virginia, as well as phone, fax, and e-mail information. Along the bottom, it read, “Admitted to the bar in: West Virginia, Virginia, Ohio, Kentucky, Maryland, Georgia.”

It was absurd, but the little piece of paper dispelled most of her nervousness. She slashed the card through the air like a miniature sword. “I guess this could inflict some really lethal paper cuts, if I needed to defend myself.”

“At least you didn’t make a crack about preferring a criminal to a lawyer,” he said, gesturing for her to go ahead of him along the shoulder of the highway.

She felt like a mess next to his clean, pressed tailoring. She plucked at the back of her blouse, trying to peel it away from her skin before he saw how damp it was. She chuckled as she considered she had gone from worrying he was going to assault her to being concerned about what he thought of her appearance.

“Care to share the joke?” His voice came from close behind her and she swore she could feel the stir of his breath on her overheated skin. It was not an unpleasant sensation.

“Just laughing at myself.” She tossed the comment over her shoulder and kept walking.

“I like that in a person.”

They had reached the passenger side of his car, and he stretched his arm around her to open the door. As she slid onto the cool, smooth leather of the seat, she sighed with pleasure. Her trash heap’s air-conditioning had died a hundred miles ago.

“It will get even better when I turn the engine back on.” Startled, she looked up to find him leaning down so his face was nearly level with hers. She had to stop herself from lifting a hand to trace the strong bone structure.

“Watch your elbow,” he said, closing the door as soon as she tucked her arm into her side.

He walked around the car’s long hood, his stride claiming the space around him with the confidence of a man who controls his world. She envied him that. Her world had been taken out of her control since that terrible day she’d fallen off Papi’s horse when she was six. And that was more than twenty years ago.

The driver’s door opened, and he swung himself into the seat with a hand hooked on the roof. Inserting his long legs under the steering wheel, he punched the ignition on, bringing the engine to life with a roar of horsepower.

“Isn’t this car kind of uncomfortable for someone as tall as you?”

“Do you ever wear high heels?”

Baffled, she nodded. “Sometimes.”

“Are they comfortable?”

“Not particularly.”

“So why do you wear them?” he asked.

“Because they look good. Okay, I get your point.” His self-deprecation relaxed her just a bit.

He adjusted something on the climate-control panel and a waft of cool air brushed her face.

“Ah, that feels wonderful.” She twisted the heavy mass of her hair up on top of her head and held it there so the delicious chill could reach her neck.

“So,” he said, as he slewed sideways in the seat to settle his back against the door, his arm draped over the steering wheel. “What brings you to Sanctuary?”

Paul was just making conversation, but her eyes went wide and she hissed in a breath, dropping the bundle of vivid red hair back down over the smooth, exposed skin of her neck and shoulders.

“Er, business,” she said, looking down at her fingers as she locked them together in her lap.

That caught his interest. The truth was he had tried hard to drive right by when he saw her standing beside the road. He was wearing his one and only Armani suit, bought on sale on a trip to Washington, DC, when he had taken the bar exam for Maryland. He had worn it for luck to the meeting at the Laurels, and he really didn’t want to ruin it while changing a tire.

But he had never been able to ignore a damsel in distress, as his friend Tim always ribbed him. So he’d resigned himself to getting dirty, only to have his rescued damsel cadge a loan, give him the evil eye when he offered her the comfort of his car, and now look like he had accused her of scheming to rob a bank.

“If you’d rather not tell me, that’s fine. It’s your business,” he said, but he suddenly wanted to know what sort of dealings this redheaded sprite, driving the worst piece of automotive junk he’d ever seen, could possibly have in Sanctuary.

“It’s not that.” She looked up at him, her green eyes clouded with guilt. “I’m kind of trying to keep it a secret that I’m here.”

“Your secret is safe with me, but a lot of folks are going to notice that car being towed into town.”

He watched the rise and fall of her breasts under the thin white material of her blouse.

“Yeah, I made a mistake buying that disaster, but it was the only thing big enough to hold my paintings.”

“Paintings?”

She opened her mouth and closed it again as panic flickered in her eyes.

“Don’t join the CIA,” he said, trying to inject a little humor to ease her tension. “If you got caught by the enemy, you wouldn’t make it through the first question of an interrogation.”

“What? Oh.” Her smile was shaky. “I’ve never tried to do something like this before.”

“I don’t know what ‘this’ is.” He held up his hand as the smile fled from her face. “And you don’t need to tell me, but I suggest you come up with a cover story before Bud’s truck gets here.”

“Why?”

“Well, people around here are naturally friendly, and they’re likely to ask you the same thing I did. They might be offended if you refuse to answer them.”

“Are you? Offended, I mean?”

“No, but I’m a lawyer, so I’ve developed a thick skin.”

“I’m sorry if I was rude. I’m just nervous.”

He followed the path of her hands as she rubbed them up and down the denim curving over her thighs. “I never would have guessed.”

“You’re being sarcastic.” That seemed to reassure rather than upset her. Her hands stilled.

“Just some friendly teasing to lighten the mood.” He tried to guess the source of her discomfort. His job brought him a fair amount of experience with handling skittish clients, but he didn’t know enough about the sprite to speculate. The closest he could come was that she had stolen some valuable paintings and wanted to fence them, although why she had chosen Sanctuary for her activities was beyond him. It wasn’t a hotbed for high-priced art sales. In fact, his little hometown wasn’t a hotbed for much of anything.

She gazed straight ahead through the windshield for a long moment before turning back to him. “Do you know the Gallery at Sanctuary?”

A twitch of pain hit him in the chest. He knew the gallery all too well. The one woman in the world he had wanted to marry owned it, and she was the wife of his best friend. “An old friend of mine runs it. Claire Arbuckle.”

Julia looked stricken. “I’m trying to find someone named Claire Parker.”

“Parker was her maiden name. She’s married to Tim Arbuckle now.”

“Oh, thank goodness! I thought I might have come to the wrong place.” The tension tightening her shoulders released. “So you know her? Do you know if she’s working today?”

“I don’t know for sure, but it’s Thursday, so she’s probably there. The weekenders start coming in, and they have the money to spend on art.”

She pondered this for a minute before she turned those bright-green eyes back toward him. “Do you think Bud could just tow my car to the gallery?”

His new companion fascinated him; she managed to combine astonishing naïveté with a steely focus on her secret purpose. “He’ll tow it anywhere you want, but how are you going to get the tire changed there?”

“I won’t need that old heap anymore.” Her gaze dropped back to her hands. “I hope.”

“Maybe you should tell me what your business is. You can hire me as your lawyer so you’ll have attorney-client confidentiality.”

“You didn’t look too thrilled about lending me money for the tow, but now you think I have the funds for a lawyer?” She slid him a sideways smile that sparkled with mischief.

“My curiosity has gotten the better of my good sense.” And that smile had further undermined any shreds of detachment he was hanging onto. “Besides, I’m behind on my pro bono hours.”

“That means you’re doing it for free, right?”

He nodded.

“I guess I can afford a free lawyer. You’re hired,” she said, holding out her hand. As with the first time they’d shaken hands, he was surprised by the strength of her grip. She was such a slip of a thing; he didn’t expect to feel such muscle in those slim fingers. “Where should I start?”

“How about your full name? I need to put it on the contract.”

That killed the imp dancing in her eyes, and he felt a pang of regret when she dropped her gaze to her lap again.

“Is that covered by the confidentiality too?”

“Sure. I’ll call you Madame X in public.” He wanted to coax the glow back into her face.

Instead she kept her eyes on her hands. “My name’s Julia Castillo.”