by Anne Stuart
“What makes you think I grew up in Texas?” The waitress had placed a dark glass of bourbon in front of him, and he took a slow, appreciative sip, his eyes never leaving her.
“I’m good at accents. You must have left Texas early, because there’s some California overlaying it.”
“Good God,” he said disgustedly. “Just what I always wanted to hear.”
“Not too much though. I grew up in California so I’m sensitive to the accent.”
“Well, your ear has let you down this time. I never lived in Texas. I did, however, have a best friend who came from Port Arthur—maybe I picked it up from her.”
“Her?”
“Her.” He didn’t elaborate. “And the time I spent in California was when I was with the Why, and most of us were so stoned we didn’t talk much. Guess again.”
She took a sip of her warm, vinegary wine. “Not the East Coast, definitely. You don’t really look rural, though that may be the result of the last few years. But I’d guess you were from a city. A big, nasty city like Chicago. You have the look of a street fighter about you.”
“Right the third time. I grew up in the inner city. I think I joined my first gang when I was eight years old. Problem was, I always picked the wrong gangs. We kept getting the shit beat out of us.” He laughed his raw, sexy laugh.
“What were you doing in Chicago in the first place?”
“My father dragged the family there after the war, looking for work. He found it for a while, but by the time I was a kid he’d left us. My mother always said either Alan or I was bound to go to hell—we couldn’t both make it.”
“And which of you made it?”
Mack grinned. “Who do you think, Maggie May?”
“I think I made a big mistake.”
He looked startled. “Why?”
Maggie stared in shock at the platter of chicken-fried steak. “I should never have ordered this.”
He laughed again, and she found she was liking that laugh more and more. “What did you think you were getting?”
“A nice chicken cutlet.” She eyed Mack’s thick, red steak with longing.
“I tried to tell you. With chicken-fried steak they take the oldest, ugliest piece of steak, coat it in flour, and slap it in old grease till it’s the texture of shoe leather. Then they pour white gravy that’s not quite as tasty as library paste on top of everything. The biscuits look good, though.”
Maggie poked at the mess on the chipped china platter. “You wouldn’t want to trade?” she said in a properly wistful voice.
“Immerse yourself in the experience, Maggie,” he said cheerfully. “I’ll save you a bite of the real thing.”
“Thanks,” she said sarcastically. She picked up her fork, put it down again, and leaned across the narrow table. She reached out, gently stroking the side of Pulaski’s momentarily startled face. She liked the feel of his skin, warm and smooth, with character lines. She smiled up at him, a tremulous loving smile. “Darling,” she said in a barely audible voice, “we’re being watched.”
He didn’t move, didn’t swivel around, as the realization darkened his eyes. And then he grinned back at her, a sexy grin promising all sorts of things a lover would promise. He moved his head to kiss her hand, his mouth hot and damp against her palm. “I still won’t trade you my dinner,” he whispered.
“I’m going to be sick.”
“You didn’t have to eat all that chicken-fried steak, Maggie.” Mack’s hands were relaxed on the steering wheel as they moved out along Route 10. “As a matter of fact, you didn’t have to eat any of it. We could have ordered another steak for you.”
“I didn’t want to call attention to us.”
“Maggie, you’re getting paranoid. Those men weren’t after us, they didn’t even look up when we left. They were probably just some sort of sales reps for a gas company.”
“You’ll be glad I’m paranoid, Pulaski,” she muttered darkly. “Just because they didn’t leap up and follow us doesn’t mean they aren’t after us. They didn’t look like sales reps to me, they looked like CIA.”
“They looked like DEA to me,” he drawled. “That’s Drug Enforcement Agency, my innocent one. But I’m not about to let paranoia take over. I’m not the only wanted man in the Southwest, you know. I don’t even know for sure who wants me.” He cast Maggie an appraising glance in the dusk-darkened car. “I don’t suppose you do?”
It sounded almost wistful, but Maggie decided it had to be an illusion in his ravaged voice. “Now isn’t the time for fooling around,” she said in her most severe, schoolmarmish voice. A voice that was at odds with her long, tanned legs, the rough cotton shorts and shirt, the tousle of thick blond hair wisping around her perspiring face. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m trying to save your butt. I would appreciate it if, in the meantime, you wouldn’t covet mine.”
Mack let out a burst of laughter. “Sorry, babe, but you have an eminently covetable butt.”
“I’m not one of your groupies, Pulaski.”
“Hell, Maggie, I haven’t had a groupie in years. I’ve told you before, I think quality’s a hell of a lot more important than quantity. Though I must admit,” he added, his eyes sweeping over her six-foot length, “that you’d provide both.”
“Cut it out. My only interest is getting you safely to Houston.”
“Sure it is, Maggie May,” he said genially, drumming his long fingers on the steering wheel. That wry half-smile of his broadened into a grin, and he began to whistle.
“You may be right,” she said after a while, her voice sounding disgruntled. “There’s no sign of anyone following us.”
“Does that mean we can stop for the night?”
“That means we can stop for the night.” She cast him a covert glance beneath her heavy eyelids. He was entirely at ease and relaxed. For all the sudden, unexpected verbal flirtation, there wasn’t even the hint of sexual threat from him. She had no worries that he was going to jump her when they got into whatever dingy little motel room they’d be sharing. They’d spent two amiable nights together, and Maggie had no doubt they’d spend their last night on the road equally comfortably. Unless he was becoming as aware of her as she was of him.
The Lone Star Bide-a-Wee Motel sat alongside a deserted stretch of county highway, bypassed a decade ago by the interstate. Maggie chose it at random, Mack was amenable, and by ten o’clock she was standing in the rust-stained shower stall letting the hot streams of water wash away the grit and tension of the last three days. She could hear the sounds of the television through the pulsating shower and she smiled. It was a good thing she and Mack were going their separate ways tomorrow. If she had to room with him for one more day, she’d put her foot through the television screen.
“I don’t suppose you’d feel like turning that off?” She ran the threadbare white towel through her sopping mass of hair as she paused in the bathroom door. Mack was lying on his double bed, his bare feet on the pillow, his head at the foot, staring with great fascination at an old Sybil Bennett movie.
He didn’t bother to look back to her. “No way. I love old movies.”
He’d taken his shower first, and was lying there in his favorite black T-shirt, khakis, a glass of whiskey in his hand, totally absorbed in the very bad drama on the grainy color TV.
“Maybe something better is on,” she suggested.
“Forget it. I’ve always had the hots for Sybil Bennett, and I intend to enjoy every moment of this.”
“She dies at the end.”
“Thanks a lot,” he growled, rolling over to glare at her.
“Don’t worry, it has a great love scene,” she assured him, moving past him to her own bed. She was dressed in running shorts and a sleeveless T-shirt, a good compromise for coeducational sleeping arrangements, but she could feel Mack’s eyes run over the solid length of her legs. She dropped down on the bed, tossing the wet towel at Pulaski’s head. “Maybe there are Family Feud reruns.”
“Listen, Ma
ggie May, let me have my erotic fantasies in peace,” he grumbled, but he was watching her, not the television screen. He paused, staring at her for a long moment. “Did you know you look like her?”
“You’ve had too much Jack Daniel’s, Pulaski.”
“No, you do.”
“Sybil Bennett is five feet two with jet-black hair and perfect features.”
“Yeah, but still, there’s something about your expression. Especially when you’re giving me that go-to-hell look. You look just like Sybil Bennett telling off some pirate king.”
“Sybil Bennett should have told off a few more pirate kings in her time.”
“What do you mean?”
“She’s my mother, Pulaski. And there were a few too many pirate kings in my childhood. Not to mention desert sheikhs, handsome princes, thirties gangsters, and the like. Sybil’s very sentimental—she can’t live without being in love.”
He’d taken her announcement with his usual imperturbable calm. “Sounds like my kind of woman. You wanna introduce me?”
“She’s too old for you.” She could hear the irritation in her voice, and she didn’t bother to disguise it.
“No one’s too old for me. I told you, I’ve had the hots for Sybil Bennett since I reached puberty. Probably before. If you won’t have me, I may as well go for the closest thing.”
“I have three younger half sisters, all by different stepfathers. You could take your pick of them.”
He was looking at her with undisguised fascination. “She’s really your mother?”
“She’s really my mother. Come to think of it, you’re probably too old for her. She’d been heading down toward the early thirties last time I met one of her lovers.”
“You don’t approve?”
Maggie smiled at him. “Pulaski, I do my absolute level best not to pass judgment on other people. Particularly on people I love. My mother has a certain weakness for men, and sometimes it does her more harm than good, but most of the time she just enjoys herself. And more power to her.”
“And what about you?”
“What about me?”
“Do you have a weakness for men? Do you enjoy yourself?”
“No to the first question, yes to the second. I try very hard to have no weaknesses whatsoever.” Her voice was self-mocking.
“And do you succeed?”
“No.”
Mack looked at her, and in the dimly lit motel bedroom she could see the crinkles around his eyes as he smiled at her. “You’re only human after all. And here I thought I was being protected by Superwoman.”
“Only human, Pulaski,” she agreed, sliding her long bare legs across the bed toward him. She crossed the space between the two beds, and the ancient springs sagged beneath her weight as she reached him. “And don’t call me paranoid,” she said in a husky murmur, “but someone is outside our window.”
This time it didn’t even faze him. He smiled up at her. “You wanna convince them that we’re really lovers?”
“No, but maybe you’d better kiss me while I figure out what we’re going to do.”
“Well, if you insist,” he said in a deliberately reluctant voice. “But I’d really rather save myself for your mother.” And before she had a chance to reply his arm slid around her and pulled her down against the wiry strength of him, and he was kissing her with far too much enthusiasm for her peace of mind. Not to mention her ability to concentrate on how they were going to get out of the motel.
For a moment she wished she could just lie back on the sagging bed and enjoy it. He kissed well, and his arms were relaxed, strong, and knowing around her, his hands sensuously molding her to him. His hands were on her rear, his tongue was in her mouth, and he was kissing her with a cheerful abandon that seemed to suggest he’d forgotten all about any enemies skulking around outside their window. And then his mouth moved away from hers, trailing a warm, wet path to her earlobe, and his raspy voice was in her ear.
“Got any ideas?”
She had a great many ideas, most of them involved with the hard, male body she found herself wrapped around. But common sense reared its ugly head, and she forced herself to withdraw from the temptation of warm male flesh. “Turn off the lights.” She said it aloud, in a convincing imitation of a sensual growl, and Mack’s answering rumble of laughter helped douse the burning coals of passion that had built up against her will.
“Sure thing, babe,” he said in a husky murmur pitched to reach the silent watcher outside their window. “But I’d rather be able to see you. You didn’t used to be so shy.” Without letting go of her, he reached across, turning off the low-wattage light bulb that the Lone Star Bide-a-Wee Motel thought would suffice for reading. Then they were alone, with only the quiet murmur of Sybil Bennett’s cultured British tones warring with the sound of their mingled breathing and the flickering light from the television providing eerie illumination to the drab motel room.
“What next?” he mouthed silently against her ear. His body was still half on top of hers, but he held himself very still, doing nothing to increase the pressure of his hips against hers.
“Stay where you are.” She slid from underneath him, off the bed with a fluid, silent grace, moving through the dimly lit motel room like a ghost, keeping well away from the windows. She edged over to the outside wall, pressed her back against the stained and scarred paneling, and moved her head a fraction of an inch, just far enough to get a tiny glimpse out into the scrubby bushes that lined the front of the motel.
“What are you doing?” Mack pitched his voice perfectly—it reached her on the breath of a sigh, going no farther than her ears. And then he raised it a few decibels. “Damn it, Maggie, are you laughing?”
She couldn’t hold it back any longer. The amusement rippled out of her, a rich full laugh as she staggered back to her own bed. Only for a moment she considered rejoining him on his bed, considered and then wisely rejected the notion. She flopped down on her bed, still laughing. “You can turn on the light,” she said in a normal voice. “And you can call me paranoid.”
“Don’t tell me there was no one out there. I heard them too.” He switched on the light, squinting in the sudden brightness.
“Oh, there’s someone out there, all right—three teenage boys! They’ve given up on us since we were unsporting enough to turn off the lights, and now they’re peering in the window three doors down.” She let a last chuckle fade away in a contented sigh. “I guess I have been too alarmist. I’ll be glad when we get to Houston tomorrow and you’re no longer my responsibility.”
“Been that tough on you?” he drawled, turning his attention back to the television.
For the first time Maggie felt a moment’s doubt. Surely Mack Pulaski couldn’t have hurt feelings? Surely he wanted this small odyssey to be over with as much as she did. Didn’t he? Didn’t she?
“I’d like to deliver you in one piece, Pulaski,” she said after a moment. “We can argue about it when I fix you up with my mother.”
He grinned, and she decided she’d imagined that momentary reaction. But he said nothing, turning back to the ever-present din of the TV, and Maggie lay back on the bed, stretching her long legs out and closing her eyes. She wasn’t lying when she said she’d be glad to pass him over to Peter Wallace. It had been years since her instincts had played her false. She could have sworn the men in the diner were far too interested in the two of them. She could have sworn someone had been watching them tonight, and not for the sake of vicarious thrills. When it came to a time that her reflexes were so far off, it was time for a long break. Whether she liked it or not, lives were depending on her. And she was beginning to doubt whether she could live up to the responsibility. This was still fairly new to her, this life-or-death situation. She’d managed so far, but there were no guarantees that she’d continue her lucky streak.
“Don’t worry about it, Maggie May,” Mack’s raw voice came from the other bed. “A little paranoia can come in handy sometimes.”
&nb
sp; Maggie’s eyes flew open. “How’d you know what I was thinking about?”
He grinned. “I know you better than you think, lady.”
“Am I that transparent?”
“No, I’m that good,” he said, reaching down beside his bed for his abandoned glass of whiskey. “I’ll tell you something else, Superwoman.”
She didn’t even bother to snap at him for the nickname. “What?” she demanded warily.
“I don’t think you’ll be abandoning me in Houston. I think we’ve got more in store for us than a three-day trek across the Southwest.”
“Oh, you do, do you?”
“Yup. And my instincts are seldom wrong.”
Maggie opened her mouth to protest, to announce that her instincts didn’t tell her any such thing. But she realized with a sudden rush of indecipherable emotions that her instincts agreed with his. Their journey together was far from over. And she wished she could figure out whether the idea pleased or worried her.
But right now she was too tired to worry about it. With the sound of her mother’s voice echoing in her ears, she willed herself into a deep, dreamless sleep.
five
She was awake in an instant. The harsh blue fluorescent light from the bathroom provided a glaring pool against the darkness of the motel room. She squinted at the flat, thin Rolex that was her one concession to yuppie-dom. It was 4 A.M., and something wasn’t right. The instincts that had been acting up for the past twenty-four hours, the instincts that she’d tried to ignore, that seemingly had been proven wrong, were now back in full force. And suddenly Maggie knew that the salesmen in the diner weren’t salesmen, and even if the teenage boys lurking outside their window were harmless, there were other eyes watching, eyes that weren’t quite so innocent.
She moved from her lumpy bed, edging next to Mack’s sleeping body, over to the curtained window that let in the murky glare of streetlights through the shiny, threadbare material. She pushed the drape to one side and peered out into the darkness, and then swore.