Normally the one chasing bail jumpers, Lincoln couldn’t believe he was about to become the one chased.
Turning toward the officers, he kept his body between them and Sabrina and then moved forward. Giving the first officer a shove that sent him falling into the other one, he grabbed Sabrina’s hand and ran for the archway.
“Stop!” one of the officers yelled.
Sabrina pulled her hand from his and ran beside him. They dodged traffic crossing the street. Sabrina ran around to the other side of the rental as he got in. The tire was fixed and another car was running behind them, a man from the rental company inside.
Lincoln raced out into the street as Sabrina slammed her car door shut. He veered around a corner, seeing the officers not far behind in their marked car, lights flashing.
He swore.
“I’m sorry,” Sabrina said beside him, sounding earnest.
She hadn’t meant for him to become embroiled in her mess. But now not only were gunrunners after him, so was the law.
“We have to get rid of this car.” He raced around another turn and swerved to avoid an oncoming car. The police car had to nearly stop to avoid a collision with the same car. Lincoln gave the Mercedes full throttle. It was fast, but cop cars were made for this. Chasing lawbreakers.
Another turn brought him into a neighborhood full of mature landscaping. Passing a moving truck, Sabrina screamed as he veered back into the right lane and narrowly avoided a head-on with a car. Turning again, he began to gain distance from the police car. Before the cop car came into view, he turned onto another street and then found a long driveway and parked.
“Come on.” He grabbed the duffel bag he’d made sure was in the rental for this very purpose.
Taking out two lightweight jackets, he handed her one. “Put it on.”
She did, and they got out, walking down the sidewalk together. Lincoln saw a motor home parked in a driveway ahead. Glancing back, seeing no sign of the cop car, he went to the camper and tested the door. Locked, of course.
There were no other cars in the driveway. Going to the garage, he peered into a window. No one appeared to be home. He’d rather not do any damage to the motor home. Going to the backyard, he took out some tools and made quick work of unlocking the back patio door, hoping none of the neighbors were watching.
Inside, Sabrina followed him while he searched the house for keys and found them right there in the kitchen, hanging from a cute key holder.
Back outside, he and Sabrina got into the motor home, dumping his duffel bag on the floor between the two seats. Then he backed out of the driveway. As he drove down the street, the police car passed through the intersection ahead. Going the opposite direction, he kept close vigil on the rearview mirror outside the driver’s-side door. When no sign of the police appeared, he began to look for a shopping mall. After that, it’d be a place to stay the night. Having a mobile hotel room helped.
Now that the immediate danger of being arrested had passed, the memory of kissing her filtered into its place. His desire for her was escalating. Normally he didn’t have a problem with attraction to the opposite sex, but something about her triggered caution. What was stopping him from taking her to bed? Her resistance, for one, but there was something else. It felt good with her. He couldn’t recall a time when it had felt better. Miranda...
He stopped the thoughts from coming. Mourning her death had eased over the past year or two, but it was still there. He’d never rushed himself to get over her. He figured it would come in time, and that time was not now. Maybe that was what bothered him. He wasn’t finished grieving. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t explore relationships with other women. Why was Sabrina different?
* * *
Sabrina couldn’t stop staring at Lincoln. She wasn’t one to reduce herself to hero worship, but Lincoln had been her hero today. Not only had he surprised her about the museums his mother donated to, he’d actually run from police with her.
Like her, he’d changed into dry clothes, drool worthy in faded jeans as he sifted through all the clothes they’d bought before coming to this off-the-beaten-path campground. The RV was fairly new, with two pullouts that opened the tan-and-cream-colored space. She sat at the bench-style table, and he stood at the couch nestled in a pullout. They couldn’t go back to the hotel. The campground host hadn’t asked for identification. Only money and a name. How he’d known this place would be so ideal, she couldn’t guess. Maybe it was part luck.
As he removed price tags and filled the second duffel bag he’d purchased, she watched how his biceps moved. Kissing him still had her drugged from its potency. Somewhere in the recesses of her mind hovered the warning that this was exactly what she’d intended to avoid. Was she headed for the same fate as that woman who’d fallen for him, only to see him out with someone else?
Standing, she went to the refrigerator and removed the steaks. They’d also stopped at the grocery store to stock up on food. Taking those, along with a paper plate, she found a long cooking fork and left the RV to start dinner. She’d already made a salad.
Activity buzzed in the campground. It was still light outside. Children were having fun in a small playground, swinging, driving toy trucks through a sandbox, running on a patch of grass. The smell of barbecues and campfire smoke permeated the air. The family next to them sat around their fire pit; kids—a boy of about twelve and a girl of about eight—held metal skewers for roasting marshmallows.
Seeing families like that always gave her a strange feeling. She had never been part of that, which didn’t upset her. Being raised by a single mother and being an only child had been the only life she’d known growing up. And her mother had been loving and supportive. She’d had no disadvantage being raised that way. If anything, it had been better than being raised by a father who didn’t love her mother. And clearly, her father hadn’t loved her mother. Sabrina was sure she hadn’t missed anything as a result of his bolting.
The family in the site next to theirs stirred her curiosity, however. Sometimes that happened. She’d see families together and be drawn into them, observing them as she was now. Being part of a unit would be nice, but if she wound up raising a child on her own, that would be fine, also. She’d never put many boundaries on what she expected out of life. Mainly she just wanted to be happy, and as long as men weren’t lying to her and breaking her heart, she’d be fine.
The RV door opened and Lincoln stepped out.
Him, for example. He was beginning to be someone who was capable of breaking her heart. Worse, she’d never lost control with a man the way she had in that moment. Kissing him had been the center of her universe, the only thing that mattered. She’d had to kiss him, and would have kept kissing him if those policemen hadn’t arrived.
She turned back to the grill. The steaks didn’t take long. Lincoln brought out the salad and plates and dressing. She forked the steaks onto the plates and sat across from him, listening to the father talk to the daughter at the site beside them.
“Daddy?” her tiny voice queried sweetly.
“Yes, Pookie?”
“Can we go to Disneyland again tomorrow?”
The man chuckled. “We’ll see.”
Sabrina noticed Lincoln watching her and resumed eating her meal.
“We should have gotten some wood for a fire of our own,” she said.
“Why don’t you come join us?”
Sabrina saw the woman from the other site smiling over at them. She’d heard her comment about the wood.
“Let’s go.” Lincoln said, standing.
They were finished with dinner anyway, and it was too early to go to bed. She wasn’t looking forward to sleeping in the RV with Lincoln tonight. Even though she knew the danger of letting herself fall for him, having sex with him would probably feel great.
After taking all the d
ishes into the camper, Sabrina followed Lincoln over to the fire of the other campsite. The woman stood and gave introductions. She had long, straight, blond hair and wore jeans with a wine-tour T-shirt. Both the kids were blond, too. The boy was busy burning four marshmallows. Tiffany and Brad. Their parents were Gabriel and Amber. They’d come here to take the kids to Disneyland and the San Diego Zoo and were heading home the day after tomorrow.
When Lincoln introduced himself, Amber smiled and said, “We recognized you. We were trying to figure out a way to invite you over.” She turned to Sabrina. “Then you made that comment about the wood.”
They’d recognized Lincoln as Jackson Ivy’s son. Some people really paid attention to entertainment news. He didn’t seem to mind the attention. Maybe he was accustomed to it.
“Gabriel and I saw your dad’s latest movie and loved it. The Last Planet. We love the action he puts into his movies.”
Lincoln nodded politely. It must get tiresome when he encountered people this way.
“That was a cool movie!” the young boy exclaimed. “They had to escape seven-hundred-mile-per-hour winds in order to go back to their planet.”
Sounded far-fetched but probably very entertaining.
Tiffany snuggled closer to her father, besieged by bashfulness at the moment. Gabriel put his arm around her and kissed the top of her head.
“Have you ever thought about acting?” Amber asked.
Lincoln scoffed with a laugh. “Never.”
“You’re all so famous. Your mother with all her fantastic parties. And eight kids! Two is a handful, but I suppose money helps. Were you raised by a nanny?”
“My mother had help, but she was very active in raising us. So was my dad, despite how busy he was.”
The woman looked awed. “An all-American family. They don’t print that in the press.” She laughed. “I recently read something about Autumn. She’s a fascinating woman. And she must be so smart to know all those languages.”
“Yes, she did well in school and college.”
“But not so well with men if the tabloids are right.”
“They’re usually not,” he said.
“So she didn’t break up with Deangelo Calabrese?”
Sabrina saw Lincoln struggle with that. Deangelo was a rising star on a new hit mystery television series. “She did break up with him.”
“The article said some of the men she’s been with say she’s too high maintenance.”
“Autumn is an independent woman. Some men can’t handle that about her. She’s busy with her career and travels all over the world doing translations. She’s just not ready to settle down.”
“What about Macon? How is he doing?”
“He’s out of rehab. I just saw him. He’s doing really well.”
Didn’t Amber know she was asking very personal questions? Sabrina supposed that didn’t matter when a family such as the Ivys was constantly in the spotlight. Frankly, it amazed Sabrina that Lincoln was being so nice. He was a good man.
“I never read anything about you,” Amber said. “There was something a long time ago about a woman who was killed.”
“Amber,” her husband admonished. “That’s not courteous.”
Amber’s face crumbled. “Sorry. When I saw you pull in next to us I just got so excited. It’s not every day that an ordinary family like ours gets to spend an evening with someone famous.”
“It’s all right,” Lincoln said kindly. “It happens a lot.”
Sabrina marveled over his patience. She couldn’t say if she’d be as understanding. His seemed to have no limit. She took in his biceps and chest in that green shirt again. No limit on sex appeal, either.
She noticed Amber checking the both of them out, full of speculation.
“Are you two married?” She looked down at Sabrina’s bare ring finger.
“No,” Sabrina answered. “We’re neighbors.”
“Oh.” She contemplated them both one at a time before focusing only on Lincoln, the famous one. “You must be close if you decided to drive to California to vacation together.” Her eyes became teasing. “Is she your girlfriend?”
“Yes,” he said, shocking Sabrina.
Then she realized he couldn’t tell the truth, that they were on the run from dangerous criminals and had stolen the RV to get away from police.
“Oh, how romantic! You’re neighbors and now you’re in love.” Amber smiled at them with delight.
The word bounced around in Sabrina’s mind. They weren’t in love, but what if they were?
Lincoln reached over and took her hand, making sparks fly as he looked at her as though he really did love her.
“Yes, we fell pretty hard for each other,” he murmured. “I took one look at her when she first moved in and was hooked.”
“Ooh,” Amber cooed.
Part truth rang in what Lincoln said, keeping the sparks electric. She could almost believe he meant every word.
“How did you actually meet?” Amber asked.
“Her dog kept coming over to my house,” Lincoln said.
Sabrina finally recovered enough to pitch in with the ruse. “My yellow Lab fell in love with him first.”
Amber laughed softly. “Where is the dog?”
Oops. Sabrina scrambled for an answer.
“We flew here and rented the RV. My sister is watching her.”
Amber leaned contentedly back on her camp chair, lost in celebrity titillation.
“You’re pretty,” the little girl said to Sabrina.
She’d shed some of her shyness and sat away from her father, who presently was cooking a marshmallow for her.
“Thank you,” Sabrina said. “So are you.”
The girl giggled and ducked her head behind her father’s arm.
“It’s time for bed, Pookie,” her father said. “Eat the marshmallow and go get into your jammies.”
The girl sullenly took the marshmallow, waving the metal stick in the air to cool it.
“We should head back.” Lincoln stood, extending his hand to Sabrina, who took it as though she was his girlfriend.
“Thanks for coming over. See you in the morning,” Amber beamed. “I can’t wait to tell all my friends that I stayed the night next to Lincoln Ivy and his new girlfriend.”
Sabrina waved and kept her hand in Lincoln’s all the way back to their camper. Climbing the stairs, she faced him as he shut the door. “You must get so sick of that.”
“It’s all right. Most people don’t understand that growing up with someone famous isn’t all that different from growing up with an unknown.”
How would he know? “Your family may be different than others that are famous.” All she’d observed so far was that his parents were very family oriented. The fame didn’t change that.
“I’m not the one who’s famous. My dad is. He’s the one who has to live it every day.”
“Okay, you don’t live it every day, but people still recognize you.”
“True. Harmless enough. If I had to live it every day, I might be less accommodating.”
Smiling from the warmth his attitude gave her, she got busy cleaning the kitchen. They’d just left everything in the sink when they’d gone over to the other camper. Not that there was much. Just some cooking utensils and the salad bowl.
Lincoln turned on the small flat-screen television that was hanging in the corner above the table. But instead of watching it, he gazed at Sabrina. She first sensed his attention, then saw it. Pretending to be girlfriend and boyfriend had stirred him up, too.
She dried the utensils and then the salad bowl. Reaching up to the top shelf of the cabinet, she struggled to put the bowl back where she’d found it.
Lincoln came up behind her, sending sizzling tingles al
l over her body. Putting one hand on her hip, he took the clean salad dish with his other and set it on top of three different bowls. Standing close behind her, he lowered his hand. Unbearable, exquisite heat fueled desire. Acute awareness of his hands on her hips consumed her. His fingers touched her abdomen. What if they moved down? His breath tickled the skin of her temple. He was looking at her. Where? Her breasts? The V of the sundress didn’t reveal much, but maybe he could see more from his current vantage point.
The idea of him aroused by her made her tip her head back. His blue eyes smoldered with passion. Seeing hers, they flared with greater intensity. This inexplicable fire rapidly spread and grew. He brought his lips down to her neck. The soft brush of them sent her pulse flying. It simply felt too good to stop, just like what had happened at the café. She’d been startled that he’d drawn her against him, but the exchange and the undeniable chemistry had turned her into a malleable pool of desire. Just like now.
She reached up and sank her fingers into his hair, and put her other hand on one of his at her waist. His mouth kissed along her jaw. She tipped her head more, seeking. His mouth touched hers, tongue parting her lips and moving in. She sucked in a needy breath. His free hand glided up her stomach and curved over her breast.
Breathing faster now, his kiss hardened. His hand caressed her breast. His other moved up, hers still on top of it, and he felt her other breast, his hand kneading gently. Then his hands moved down, bending to reach the hem of her sundress. Sabrina braced her hand on the countertop as he kissed her, and she felt his hand on her upper thigh. His fingers brushed her underwear, then slipped in through the top and parted her. When he found her wet, he groaned and breathed heavy, lifting away from her mouth.
While his fingers rubbed slowly up and down the length of her opening, his eyes drilled sexual fire into hers. Craning her neck to see him, she closed her eyes as sensation overwhelmed her. He was going to make her come.
“Lincoln,” she breathed. “Oh.” He had an expert touch. So gentle. The friction just right over that magical cluster of nerves.
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