by Sarah Hegger
She tried Emma and got her voice mail. Now she had two sisters MIA. Maybe she should try the police unit Emma had called. And say what? She didn’t know where to start. Until this moment, she’d never regretted not forking out the extra money for a smartphone.
The man next to her had one of those, pimped out and bristling with information. Siri probably flirted with Josh Hunter, too. Holly fought back the helplessness and stared out the window.
The car roared through the street, Lake Michigan a mysterious glitter on one side. People everywhere getting on with a good night out and so far removed from the despair pressing her.
On the opposite side of the road from the lake, towering monoliths of glass loomed over their older stone brothers. Somewhere among these buildings wandered Portia, alone, sick, and penniless. The black hole pressed closer.
She wasn’t going to cry. She didn’t cry.
Holly blinked her eyes furiously and fixed her gaze on the buildings. New condo developments sprang up, as always, but for the most part it was the same.
Josh maneuvered like a typical native. You didn’t so much drive in Chicago as aim. The rule of the road was more along the lines of he who dares, and accomplished with a single-minded determination to add to the prevailing chaos. The result was a gridlock onto the highway that kept them there for long precious minutes.
She needed a distraction or she would climb out of the car and start swinging.
Holly stole a look at her companion. Part of her mind refused to wrap itself around the fact that she was here, now, and with him. And he was being useful. Holly tensed as a taxi swung across two lanes to come to a brake-grinding halt two hairs from their left bumper.
Josh didn’t flinch, which meant he was either immune or brain dead.
She needed to get a grip here and relax. He was helping her. She didn’t have to like it, but if it meant she might find Portia sooner, then it was all that mattered.
“So.” Holly winced as a large delivery van pulled so close she could see up the driver’s nose. “You seem to have done rather well for yourself.”
“You sound surprised.” He glanced in her direction while playing chicken with another driver for a small gap in the traffic ahead of them.
“No.” She unclenched her fingers from the side of her seat. In school, lots of other kids—and by that she meant girls—would look at Josh and see only the pretty package. She’d always known a lot more lurked beneath. “What do you do?”
“Nothing, at the moment.” He thrust down hard on the horn and she nearly leaped out of her skin. “I recently sold my business and now I’m looking for something new.”
“What did your business do? Shit! Watch out for the … never mind.”
He grinned like a pirate. “We wrote software. Financial stuff, for the most part, stock market analysis, that sort of thing.” He shrugged. “We came up with a winner, started making good money, and someone offered to take it off our hands.”
“For a sizable fee?”
“You got it.”
“Hmph.”
“And you, Holly Partridge? I already know you’re not torturing some poor husband. Perhaps you’re raising a charming set of five illegitimate children or setting the corporate world of Canada on fire?”
“And why would you assume I’m not doing all of the above?”
“If anyone could, it would be you.” Josh smiled.
Holly got a warm little glow inside.
He didn’t look like he was mocking her.
There was a compliment in there, and rather a big one. It made her feel churlish because she was only sniping at him to avoid telling him what she did. Which was a good job, a stable job, but it wasn’t selling software for big bucks, living in a slick condo, and driving a vintage sports car.
She cringed. Her job supported herself and two sisters. She was doing fine. Holly shifted in her seat. Her wet jeans slurped against the leather as she moved. “Those girls at the bar?”
“Uh-huh?” He stared fixedly ahead as his shoulders tensed.
Had she hit a little chink in the Josh Hunter armor of awesome? Here was salvation and an evasion all dressed up and waiting for her to take it out. “What was that about?”
“I’ve been trying to tell you.” The corner of his mouth twitched. “I thought it would piss you off. Did it?”
He turned those big blues on her and gave her a look naughty enough to make a nun toss her coif over the windmill. The man could pack a whole lot of sex into one terrific eye meet.
“Maybe.” Her tongue suddenly stuck to the roof of her mouth.
“You were looking at me like I was something left on the bottom of your shoe and …” He laughed. “I didn’t recognize you at first. You were giving me the stink eye and I went with the sixteen-year-old option as a reaction.”
“And the girls were happy to play along?”
“They approached me.” He was all wounded dignity and maidenly outrage.
Like hell.
“So.” Holly had to get this straight. A horn blared in her right ear and she nearly leaped across the central console into his lap. “Those girls came up to you and wanted to play group spit swapping?”
He grimaced. “Yup.”
“Without you doing anything to encourage them?”
“My hand on a Bible.” He raised one hand in the air and put the other over his heart.
“Hold the wheel.” Holly gasped, as he depressed the accelerator and lurched forward a few feet. “Does that sort of thing happen to you a lot?”
“More than I would like.” He inched into a spot she wouldn’t try to fit a moped. “And a lot less than it used to.”
This was freaking unbelievable. “Roving packs of strange girls randomly demand you suck face with them? What are you? Some kind of X-rated version of the Pied Piper?”
He gave a bark of self-deprecating laughter. It was, kind of, appealing. “Well?”
He blew out a long breath. A faint stain of color crept up over his sculpted jaw. He was blushing. “Okay, it’s kind of my fault.”
She was totally fascinated now. “Oh, I need to hear this.”
“When I was younger and more shallow …”
Holly made a rude noise.
He gave her a level stare.
Holly dropped her eyes first.
“When I was younger and shallower.” His expression grew grim. “I used to do things like that. They were, sort of, my thing. If you know what I mean?”
“Your thing?” This was good. It simply never occurred to her someone this beautiful and self-assured ever did any of the cringeworthy stuff mere mortals floundered around in.
“You know, um, like my angle.”
“Your angle?”
“Jesus.” He rapped the steering wheel. “You’re a real hard-ass, you know that?”
Holly smirked.
“My angle, my thing with girls is what I mean. I used to use lines like that to pick up girls,” he said.
“What?” Freaking unbelievable! Holly turned fully sideways. No easy feat with wet jeans in a bucket seat.
Josh threw her a quick glance and rapped his forehead on the steering wheel once, and then again, as if he hadn’t quite achieved his original objective. “This is humiliating.” He stared at the windshield. “I would, for instance, walk up to a group of girls, work myself into the group, and suggest … um … a sort of game.”
“Game?”
“Er … um … yes. Like the one those girls suggested.”
“You didn’t?” Holly was torn between disbelief and horror at the sheer audacity.
“I did,” he said in a small voice. “I sort of had this article written about me. An online blog thing about Chicago’s bachelors, and it was mentioned in there.” Color climbed up over his cheeks as he spoke. “And since then, every now and again, one of those games resurfaces and it happens like it did tonight. I only did it tonight to piss you off. Normally, I don’t. I mean, I haven’t for … years.”
Holly spun around in her seat. The extended car hood snaked across the road, low and lean.
“And that worked for you?” She couldn’t quite believe any woman could be that stupid.
“Like a charm.” He gave her a huge unrepentant grin. “You would not believe how well it worked.”
“Hmph.”
He had a near-perfect profile. Nauseating.
The traffic eased and they were able to crawl onto the highway. He picked up speed.
“Of course,” she said, not wanting to give him the last word, “it only works because of the way you are. Anyone else would have their face slapped.”
“I’m funny and I’m charming?”
Oh, that was a good one. “It’s because you’re hot. It has nothing at all to do with your personality.”
Through the open window the wind cooled her face. Somewhere in this city, her sister was hiding. Portia was on a high when she left, but what goes up surely must come down, and that was what scared the pants off Holly.
“So you think I’m hot?”
Holly jerked her attention back to her companion. He looked altogether too smug for her liking. “You know you’re hot.”
“But you think so?”
Was he fishing? “What do you care?”
Why exactly had she started this line of conversation? Holly wriggled in her seat. Her jeans made rude noises against the leather and she stopped. She was being a wuss. Holly Partridge was a fully actualized, independent, master—in the generic—of her destiny. This conversation was not making her uncomfortable.
He glanced in her direction. “But you do?”
“Lots of girls do.” He was like a terrier with a rat.
“Yeah,” he said and grinned at her. “But lots of girls don’t want to rip my arms off and beat me to death with them.”
“And your point is?” He’d given her a rather pleasant visual to go with.
“When you say I’m hot, you mean it.”
“Okay.” She rolled her eyes, not sure why she was allowing herself to be dragged into his game, but going anyway. “I think you’re hot. Happy now?” Boy, like his ego needed any more stroking. “I think we should start looking—”
“How hot?”
“For the love of God.” What did he care if she thought he was hot or not? “Drive the bloody car.”
“I am driving the bloody car.” He slid her a sidelong look loaded with something that made her stomach quiver and her head go meandering off over the hills and dales again. “I want to know how hot. On a scale of one to ten, one being the average campfire and ten being a runaway forest fire.”
Holly cursed the small, insistent throb beneath the surface of her skin. “Inferno.”
“Really?” He pulled his mouth into an upside-down smile and then flipped it right over into a broad knee trembler that made her blood thicken and flow like lava. “Good to know.”
Her face flushed and she tugged at the sweatshirt sticking to her damp body. She wished she hadn’t brought any of this up now.
“Hey?” He tapped her arm. “Messing with you again.” His smile took any sting out of the remark. “You looked like you needed a laugh.”
And she did. Holly’s irritation slid away.
“Truce?” He glanced in her direction. His blue eyes softened momentarily, and then he ruined the moment with a wink. “Until we find your sister or your car. Then we can go back to all-out war.”
Holly laughed. She couldn’t help herself. “Okay, truce.”
The tight knot of worry in her belly eased a little.
“We’ll find her, Holly.” He squeezed her hand briefly and then let it go. Call her crazy, but she believed him.
“I brought you some clothes.” He indicated the bag he’d flung on the backseat. “At least they’re dry.”
“You did?”
He narrowed his eyes at her. “I’m a nice person.”
Grudgingly, Holly admitted it was certainly a nice thing to do. She leaned over and grabbed the bag. Her shoulders rubbed against his, and the heat of him rushed all the way to her toes. She moved away quickly and pretended to examine the contents of the bag. Nothing fancy; some sweatpants and a T-shirt.
“Is this yours?” Holly dragged out the T-shirt.
“Yes, it’s mine.” He clucked his tongue. “I would never be so gauche as to give one woman’s clothing to another.”
“You,” Holly said, “are too smooth for your own good.” On an impulse, she read the label and swore. “This is Hugo Boss.”
“So?”
“People don’t buy Hugo Boss Tshirts, for the love of God. They buy them from the GAP or Sears or … or Walmart. They do not buy them from Hugo Boss.”
“Put it on.” He shook his head. “And Hugo Boss makes great Tshirts. I like the way they fit.”
Holly wriggled out of her sweatshirt. She tossed the damp, stinking mess onto the backseat.
Josh’s eyes flickered in her direction.
Holly wanted to groan. Her nipples were clearly outlined against the fabric of her tank top and she whipped the T-shirt up to her chest. It smelled of Josh, crisp aftershave, and warm male.
“Shouldn’t you take that off as well?” he suggested in a husky voice that shot straight through her in a bolt of lust, as surprising as it was unwelcome.
“I can’t change in the car.”
“Of course you can.” He indicated the thinly spaced traffic now they were out of the city center. “Nobody will see, including me. I have my eyes on the road and I promise not to look, but you should get out of those wet things.”
What a dog; cool as a cucumber, totally in control of this game. He was such a smug son of a bitch. But Holly Partridge never backed down from a challenge.
She whipped off the tank top and tossed it in the back.
The car lurched and swerved.
Holly barked her elbow against the door as she managed to dive into the concealment of the T-shirt. Gotcha!
“Jesus.” He jerked his head back. “You should warn a guy before you do something like that.”
Holly luxuriated in the warmth of the T-shirt. It was steaming hot outside the car, but the wet fabric of her sweatshirt had seeped into her bones. He was right, though. Hugo Boss did make a rather fine T-shirt. She reached for the button of her jeans.
His eyes slid in her direction.
“Eyes on the road.” She undid the button and slid down the zipper. The sound rippled through the silent car.
It took her longer than anticipated. Wet denim in a bucket seat made for some concerted wriggling. Holly was panting by the time she managed to hurl her sopping jeans after her sweatshirt.
He had excellent powers of concentration.
She didn’t bother to check the label on the sweatpants. They were probably worth more than her apartment. Her legs slid easily into them. He had those typically male slim hips, so the sweats did catch on her hips, but she tightened the drawstring anyway. The pants were laughably too long. She hauled off her soggy Converses and rolled up the cuffs.
He was right. She was immediately more comfortable. There was a bottle of water in the bag and she pounced. It was cool and fresh, and Holly kept glugging until there was nothing more to swallow. She lowered the bottle with a sigh of satisfaction.
One side of his mouth turned up as if he was laughing on the inside. “Thirsty?”
“Uh-huh.” Did he have any idea how sexy that look was? Of course he did. He probably practiced it in the mirror. Holly rummaged through the bag again discreetly, under the guise of putting her soaked clothes away. She came away disappointed. Between Josh, her car, and the police, she’d managed to ignore the problem for most of the night, but her stomach was now feeling abandoned.
“You’re hungry,” he said, proving that while he had the morals of an alley cat, there were definite advantages to this temporary truce.
He took the off-ramp to the north.
They were almost in Willow Park. Something should be familiar.
The quiet night left the long arterial street virtually deserted. Years ago, prostitutes and dealers had plied their trade down this road. Now the community living on either side had reclaimed it. Tire and service shops flashed past the windows, a couple of motels now serving mostly truckers, a Korean barbeque and … indoor golf? Holly turned her head to ask. There. In the near distance, its yellow arches beckoning—McDonald’s!
Josh pulled over and she could have kissed him.
Chapter Seven
Josh watched her. He seemed to be doing more of it as the night wore on, but Holly fascinated him.
She ate like a cat: quick, neat, and with the sort of concentrated attention that assured him he would lose a hand if he reached for a fry. The smell of burger filled the car. He never let anyone eat in his car, but she hadn’t wanted to stop and he hadn’t even put up a fight. He shouldn’t have worried.
Nothing got away from Holly; no crumb, no morsel, no trace of two Big Macs, both with fries, and three chocolate chip cookies. To be fair, she did offer him one of the cookies, but only after she’d worked her way through everything else and washed it down with a large latte and another bottle of water.
“Better?”
“You have no idea.” Holly slumped back in her seat. “I was in such a hurry to get here I forgot to eat this morning.”
“Are you going to fill me in on what’s up with your sister?” He had to ask because he suspected there was a whole helluva lot more to her story.
“Nope.” A guarded expression slipped over Holly’s features, like a curtain descending. Thanks for watching, that’s all folks, have a safe ride home.
He could’ve seen that one coming. She didn’t trust him and she clung stubbornly to the belief she didn’t like him. Holly’s secrets lay sticky between them, and he wanted to fight his way clear. They’d butted heads constantly in high school, but he sensed a lot more behind despised, and he was going to get to the bottom of that, too.