Authors: Valerie Douglas
She only chirped the tires a little as she shot the car past them.
Matt watched in bleary and frank astonishment as she manipulated pedals and gearshift, downshifting and up shifting as they wound through the garage. Maybe she could drive better than he could after all, she was certainly doing pretty well at the moment. From behind them came the sound of another car screeching around the turns. They reached the parking garage gates as the headlights of the other car flashed around a corner behind them. She shot them under the gate and up the ramp before the gate had completely risen but with plenty of clearance for the low convertible.
Gunning it around the corner, the car fishtailed a little bit but there were good tires on it.
Ariel pressed the Go button on her GPS.
“Come on, baby, get a signal, tell me where to go,” she said as she whipped the car around a tight corner.
It didn’t do as well when she was already moving but the cement and steel of the parking garage also blocked it, it would get a signal soon.
Matt said, “Go left.”
Left, right, which? She didn’t know.
“Point,” she snapped in frustration. Not at him, at her wonky head.
He did.
Ariel turned as directed. She saw signs to the Interstate. Signs she could follow. Even at this time of night, there would be a lot of traffic, giving them cover and time for her GPS to capture the signal.
Excellent.
Behind them, the goons pursued. Tires screeched as they fishtailed, too. Their car had neither the power nor the tires to keep up with them easily.
Ariel hit the gas, astonished to find herself grinning like a loon.
It was the first time she’d smiled in a long time. In an odd way it was as thrilling as it was terrifying.
They hit the ramp at highway speed and climbing.
Matt watched the girl eye the side and rearview mirrors, her glance going from one to the other as she gauged the distances. She downshifted and shot them out onto the highway, slipping them neatly between two cars. To his astonishment she was laughing. The light in her brilliant blue eyes danced in the dim glow from the dash as she merged them into traffic. In the lights of the dash those eyes were incredible, a blue both so pale and so brilliant they reminded him of the desert sky. Her long wavy black hair flagged in the breeze, concealing and revealing her face. There was no doubt she was a pretty thing, not beautiful but definitely eye-catching.
Now that he had time to check her out the rest of her wasn’t bad, either, full up top, toned, with the sleekly muscled arms he’d noticed earlier. Her legs were the same, roundly and smoothly muscled. The skirt of her dress had slid up a little to reveal a good portion of one ivory thigh. The muscles in it tightened beautifully as she hit the gas. As dazed as he was, he appreciated the view.
Exhaustion surged through him. He sagged into the seat as she weaved them through traffic.
From the little device she’d stuck on the dash came a voice. “In one point oh miles turn right onto Duval Street, then turn left.”
A map appeared on the little screen, with an arrow beside it pointing to the right.
A GPS.
Matt glanced from it to her.
Giving the device a quick glance, she looked at the traffic.
With a grin she said, “Hold on.”
Neatly judging the timing, she slid them into the space between two tractor-trailers before dropping down the off ramp. It was hair-raising and about the limit of what Matt could take. There was no chance their pursuers could have seen that quick maneuver.
He closed his eyes. Darkness hovered at the edges of his vision.
The next thing he knew, she was opening the car door next to him and helping him to his feet.
Groggily, he looked around him. A motel. Not his. This one was painted in bright citrus colors, clean, the landscaping neat, but clearly not top of the line.
Things went a little gray again and then she was easing him down onto a motel room bed.
He caught her hand as she reached for the telephone. Instinctively he knew what she was about to do. A chill went through him. It was a natural impulse to call the cops, but it was something he couldn’t risk. If the cops came into it, she would tell them where she’d found him and he’d have to explain what he’d been doing there. His quarry would be alerted and spooked. They’d destroy any evidence and along with it any chance of finding the information he needed.
The information that would prove Bill’s death hadn’t been just a mugging.
“No cops,” he growled.
The girl looked at him, uncertainly. “Those men were beating you.”
“No cops,” he repeated, struggling to his feet.
If she was going to call the cops, he was getting out and now. He couldn’t blow everything, weeks of work, of trying to find a way in, a doorway into the impenetrable.
Reluctantly, she said, “Okay, no police. You’re in no shape to be going anywhere. Lay back down. Stay for a minute at least.”
With his battered guts and his head still ringing, he wasn’t in much shape to argue although he wasn’t going to let her know that.
Alarmed at his pallor, Ariel caught his shoulders and pushed him gently back onto the bed.
He seemed very determined but he was in no condition to be driving.
Biting her lip, Ariel considered him. What if he had a concussion?
It was his decision, though.
All she could do was go by what she’d seen and trust her gut. The good guys didn’t fight three against one.
The bad guys? There was always the chance they’d been chastising one of their own but she didn’t think so. Something in his face, in what she thought she’d seen in his eyes in that brief moment, his mannerisms and his clothes said he wasn’t one of them.
Nothing fit. None of it made sense.
She’d brought him to her motel room because it was the only place she could reliably find with the GPS and she’d had no way to reprogram it on the fly, not with someone chasing them. At least he’d be safe for a little while. They couldn’t know who she was or where she’d taken him.
Dampening a washcloth with warm water in the bathroom, she dumped some ibuprofen from the bottle she always carried with her and poured him a glass of water.
“Here,” she said softly, sitting beside him on the bed, “take these.”
Dimly, Matt looked at the pills, recognized them and swallowed them obediently before he laid his head back down. He hurt in more places than he thought he owned. They’d hit him with one or two kidney shots and he could feel a throbbing there, as well as in his face and the knot behind his ear. He prayed they hadn’t done too much damage.
He closed his eyes.
Gentle hands ran a warm cloth soothingly over his face, wiping away the blood.
She went away for a moment before returning to press a cool cloth against his throbbing cheekbone where they’d clipped him with a punch.
Matt managed to pry open one eye enough to look at her.
It was like looking at a fairy from one the storybooks he read to Matty, Bill’s son. His ‘nephew’, his namesake. He’d been Uncle Matt to him and Bill’s two other boys. The memory wrenched at him, as he remembered the last time he’d seen young Matt, his expression uncomprehending as the boy tried to take in the truth of the death of his father.
She was a pretty little thing, with those beautiful pale-blue dark-lashed eyes, skin as translucent as fine alabaster dusted with rose, a fine nose, determined little chin and a well-shaped, firm rose-colored mouth. Her expression softened as she tended to him. It had been a long time since someone had done that, since someone had cared enough to tend to his hurts.
Against his will, his eyes closed and exhaustion claimed him. Even before Bill’s death he hadn’t slept much or well. He sank into the darkness gratefully.
Hearing his breathing even out, Ariel sat back a little on the edge of the bed to study the man she’d rescued.
Cleaned up, he looked much better. In fact, he looked very good.
Whoever he was, he was a handsome man. Not pretty but he had very good bone structure –great cheekbones and those green eyes could have cut glass they were so sharp and clear when they were open. His features were what some called rugged, with a firm square jaw. A spray of whiter lines framed those astonishing eyes in a tanned face – squint lines from looking out at sunlit brightness. He was a man who definitely spent a lot of time out of doors. Sunlight had streaked his thick, dark-blonde hair with lighter strands as well. It was a good, strong face. The spray of lines around his eyes weren’t all from the brightness either, some were from smiling. His mouth was firm, neither too thin nor too full, and well-defined.
There was no hardness in his face, not like you saw in some men to whom ugliness came naturally and easily. She saw no signs of cruelty – no tightness around the eyes or the deep grooves and down-turned mouth of a bully. Instead she had the impression of a man who smiled fairly easily and often.
Of course, there had been serial killers who wouldn’t frighten a mouse when he looked at them. Until he targeted one.
He was tall, lean but powerful. There was muscle beneath his t-shirt. She’d felt it when he leaned on her or gripped her shoulder. His fingers had dug hard. Looking at him, at the strength of his body, it was a good guess the odds had been against him or he might have done better.
Carefully, she loosened his belt and removed his shoes.
Almost involuntarily, her hands brushed over the hard muscles of his chest, the firm muscles of his abdomen and her stomach fluttered as heat moved through her. Her breath came suddenly short.
He was a beautiful man in body, too.
It was an effort to resist the temptation to do more than brush her fingers over those taut muscles. Something fluttered deep in her belly in a way she hadn’t experienced in years.
She’d noticed he had no rings on his fingers.
Not all men wore them, though.
A dozen thoughts she shouldn’t have chased through her mind.
What would that mouth feel like to kiss? What would it feel like to have those strong hands touch her?
Her heartbeat rose and a rush of warmth went through her.
It had been a long time since she’d wanted to be touched. She was stunned to realize how much she missed it, how much she longed for it. Oddly, she felt like weeping, caught between want, need…and fear. It had been a very long time since she’d had such thoughts. It seemed like forever.
Just the idea was unsettling. It felt like betrayal. She pushed it away in favor of more pertinent questions.
Who were those men and why had they been beating him? Who was he? Why hadn’t he wanted her to call the police?
She’d find out in the morning. From the looks of him, it didn’t look like she’d get answers any sooner than that.
“What do I do with you now?”
She sighed and looked around the little motel room.
It wasn’t the Ritz by any long stretch of the imagination. The company had screwed up and hadn’t quoted her travel expenses high enough for the region but they wouldn’t compensate her if she went over budget. So she’d had to take the cheapest room she could find, relative to the office where she worked.
He was in the only bed in the room. Now she’d wished she’d gotten the two double beds but that would have cost more.
There was a wooden chair by the shabby table that doubled as a desk but it wouldn’t be a very comfortable place to sleep and she had a long day scheduled for tomorrow.
Well, he was asleep or unconscious – his chest rose and fell steadily, reassuringly, and a pulse beat in his throat – so he’d have to share. There really wasn’t any other choice. If she was going to work all day the next day she had to get some rest. As bizarre as it seemed at this moment, tomorrow her life and job would go on as usual, as normal. She certainly wasn’t going to sleep on the floor or the bathtub.
She wasn’t sleeping in her clothes, either, but she did go into the bathroom to change into her nightshirt. When she was traveling she always brought one even though she seldom wore them, she hated the constriction around her legs when she slept. Now it came in handy.