“Doing some traveling?” the man asked, grinning at Bolt in the mirror.
Bolt studied his reflection without returning the smile. The man was about his height, but with considerably less muscle beneath his long-sleeved shirt. He looked to be in his thirties, old enough in Bolt’s opinion to have outgrown the shaggy blond ponytail and gold hoop earring he was wearing.
“That’s right,” he replied tersely.
“Got some nice weather for it,” the man remarked.
Bolt said nothing.
“So where you headed?”
Turning away to reach for a paper towel, he said simply, “South.”
The man whistled through his teeth. “South, huh? I hear it gets pretty hot down there this time of year. How far south you going?”
Bolt patted his face roughly with the paper towel and tossed it in the trash, his tolerance for polite chitchat completely expended. Ignoring the question, he took a step toward the door and was forced to draw to a sudden halt when the other man turned so he was blocking his path. Was it intentional, Bolt wondered, thinking that if it was, the man wasn’t only unkempt, he was a fool.
“You traveling alone?” the man asked him.
Again Bolt said nothing. Then, giving him a long, hard warning look, he stepped around him and headed for the exit.
Well, I’ll be damned, he thought as he walked away. He’d been a lot of places in his life, high spots and hellholes alike, but this was the first time anyone had ever come on to him in a men’s room. If that was really what it had been about, he thought, shrugging off the incident. Maybe northerners were just a lot more friendly than people gave them credit for being.
He bought a cup of coffee to go at one of the food counters and checked his watch. He’d been gone eight minutes, plenty of time for Cat to attempt a getaway if she was going to. If it turned out she hadn’t, he would gladly admit to himself that his suspicions had been wrong, and maybe he would be able to relax for the remainder of the trip. On the other hand, if she had, they had a few things to get straight before they went any farther.
Heading outside, Bolt figured that his first glimpse of Cat would tell him everything he needed to know. If she was sitting docilely in the passenger seat waiting for him, he would know he’d been wrong. If not, if her temper was burning a hole in the pavement, then chances were his hunch had been right. He considered a third possibility, that she might have tried to start the car and, upon failing, immediately figured out what he was up to. In that case she might parry by pretending nothing had happened, hoping to lull him into a false sense of security while she bided her time and watched for another opportunity to get away.
He rejected that scenario outright, chalking it up to too many years of having to second-guess everything and everybody in order to survive. If he was right about Cat, then docility, even phony docility, wasn’t in her nature. He hadn’t pulled the nickname Tiger out of nowhere. No, he was quite certain that if Cat realized she’d been thwarted, he was going to feel her wrath. And soon.
The one possibility he hadn’t considered was that she might not be alone when he returned. He wasn’t at all prepared to see her standing shoulder to shoulder and hip to hip with some young guy in jeans and a black T-shirt, the two of them bent cozily over the engine of the Chevy. And he didn’t like it.
The car’s raised hood partially blocked his approach. Not that it mattered, he noted with annoyance. They were too absorbed in what they were doing to look up. He drew close enough to hear the man give a small triumphant whoop.
“Here’s your problem right here, sweetheart. The alternator wire is loose. Hell, it’s not just loose, it’s completely off.”
“I don’t understand. The car was working fine before I stopped here.”
The man shrugged as he fiddled with the wire. “It might have been jogged loose. Been over any rough roads lately?”
“No,” Cat replied. “It’s been highway all the way.”
“Well, it’s fastened back on there good now.”
“I don’t know how to repay you.”
I do, Bolt thought. Silently cursing the man’s interference, he managed to control the surprising rush of resentment the little scene had provoked. He ran his gaze from Cat’s sandal clad feet to the soft stretch of thigh that disappeared into her snug shorts. He should have known some guy would come panting to her rescue the minute his back was turned. Maybe the general wasn’t so far off base about her needing a baby-sitter, after all.
The young hero was still smiling at Cat and shrugging off her profuse thanks as Bolt stepped closer.
“Would you like me to try starting it up for you?” the man asked Cat.
Bolt immediately stepped to her side and slid his arm around her waist in a blatantly possessive manner. “What seems to be the problem, sweetheart?”
She stiffened at his touch, her expression a mixture of annoyance and something more lethal. “The car wouldn’t start.”
Bolt shook his head in gentle admonishment. “Were you going to surprise me by picking me up at the door?”
She smiled tightly. “Yes, sweetheart, I was. Surprise.”
Their gazes locked in silence.
After a few seconds, the helpful stranger cleared his throat. “She couldn’t start it because the alternator wire was off.”
“Imagine that,” Bolt said without taking his eyes off Cat.
“Yes,” she said, “imagine that.”
“Must have been jogged loose by a rough patch we hit on that side road a while back,” he added.
“What side road?” Cat demanded, frowning.
Bolt laughed softly and ran his hand up and down her arm affectionately. “I forgot, you were dozing.” He touched the tip of her nose. “Sleepyhead.”
“Funny, I don’t recall dozing any more than I recall being on any side road.” She punched his arm. “Honeybunch.”
“I guess you were still worn out from last night.” He glanced at the other man and added confidentially, “We’re on our honeymoon.”
Cat flinched. “In a pig’s—”
Bolt squeezed her elbow to silence her.
The stranger eyed them very suspiciously. “Honeymoon? How long have you been married?”
“Years,” came Cat’s sarcastic response at exactly the same time Bolt replied, “Just one day.”
She smiled tartly and added, “I guess it just feels like years.”
“Yeah, well.” The man was still regarding them oddly. “Where are you headed on your honeymoon?”
“South,” Bolt replied, thinking it was as good an answer as any and wondering why everyone around there was so curious about where he was headed.
“Well, congratulations,” the man said, backing away. “And have a good trip.”
“We will,” Bolt replied. “Thanks for your help.”
“Call it a wedding present,” he said over his shoulder as he headed across the lot.
Bolt watched him stop beside a black Mustang and then was distracted by Cat’s sudden wrenching free from his hold. She was definitely in a huff, he observed as she threw herself into the front passenger seat and slammed the door. He also noted that she had the good sense to wait until he had retrieved his things from the sidewalk and tossed them into the backseat before lashing out at him. The anger in her eyes was like lightning in a deep purple night sky.
“How dare you set me up like that?” she demanded, twisting in her seat to confront him face-to-face.
Bolt followed suit, resting his back against the door, his arm stretched comfortably along the back of the seat. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about that cheap little stunt with the wire...disconnecting it that way.”
“Who says I disconnected it?”
Her eyebrows arched, expressing disdain more eloquently than a sailor could with a string of epithets. “Are you denying it?”
“Not at all.” He smiled. “I make it a point never to lie to a lady.”
�
��Just to set traps for her, is that it?”
“You didn’t have to step into it,” he said pointedly. “We had a deal.”
“The only deal I care about is the one I made to drive this car to Florida. Alone.”
“Are you sure about that?”
Her eyes narrowed and her bottom lip curled in on one side the way he’d already noticed it did when she was uncertain. “What are you suggesting?”
“Only that I was under the impression you cared at least as much about the magazine story you want to do.”
“Of course I care about it. It’s my project. Fortunately it doesn’t in any way depend on having you along.”
“I am along, Tiger. That’s a fact, so you might as well face it right here and now. I gave your uncle my word that I would see this through, and I won’t go back on it no matter how much trouble you cause for me or how badly you make me wish I’d never agreed to do it in the first place. However, I’m not masochistic enough to want to prolong my own misery.”
“Get to the point.”
“The point is that while you don’t have any say in my being here, you still get to make a choice.”
“Lucky me.”
Ignoring her, he went on. “You can choose to make life easier for both of us. Just bow out now and I’ll drop you at the nearest airport and see to it you get safely on a plane headed home.”
“Or?”
“Or you can insist on coming along with me. In which case you get to make one more choice.”
“I can hardly contain my excitement,” she said with a bored sigh.
Bolt’s mouth twitched. “Do your best. If you choose to come along, you can be a good girl and cooperate, in which case I’ll make whatever stops—within reason—you want to make. Or you can go on being a pain in the butt and force me to make the drive the way I planned to in the first place, straight through with only enough stops to grab an hour or so of sleep right here behind the wheel when I get so bone tired I can’t keep going.”
“What about eating?”
“Ever heard of drive-through restaurants?”
“Yes, but I’ve never heard of drive-through showers,” she retorted. “How do you propose to bathe?”
He leaned forward. “I don’t. I estimate that driving flat out I can be in Florida in less than four days. I’ve gone a lot longer than that without soap and hot water.”
“Ugh. That’s disgusting.”
“But highly effective. I figure that the more time I spend moving, the less I’ll have to spend worrying about you taking off.”
“Why should you have to worry? You’re such a whiz at disconnecting engine wires.”
“Because I have a funny feeling there would always be some young, virile good Samaritan around who would be more than willing to help you out,” he remarked in a dry tone. “And sooner or later, I wouldn’t make it back in time to stop you. Even if there wasn’t anyone to help, I don’t expect it would take you long to figure out how to reconnect a few wires all by yourself. I can see it now, by the time we reached Georgia I’d have to sleep with the whole damn engine under my pillow just to make sure you stayed put.”
He saw her mouth twitch, then curve upward in a smile of pure pleasure at the image that presented.
“It would serve you right,” she drawled.
“It might, at that,” he conceded, “but don’t get your hopes up because it’s not going to happen.” Without thinking he reached out and took her chin in his cupped hand, squeezing gently to make her turn and look at him. “You have to give me your word on this or you’re history,” he told her.
She lifted her chin defiantly, looking a whole lot calmer than she really was. Bolt knew because he could feel the delicate racing of her pulse beneath his fingertips.
“If I give you my word, then we can stop and eat and sleep and shower like civilized people. Is that the deal?”
He grinned. “More or less. What do you consider civilized?”
“Three real meals and at least once a day on the showers.”
“I think I can go along with that.”
“All right, then,” she said, trying to pull free. “I give you my word, no more escape attempts.”
He kept his hand on her jaw. “Not so fast. Before you promise, I think it’s only fair to warn you that I’m not playing some college kid’s game of hide and seek here. If you run, it won’t matter how fast or how far. I’ll find you before you make it home.” He looked deeply, purposely into her shadowed eyes. “It’s what I’m best at, Tiger.”
He regretted the slight shiver that he felt pass through her as she nodded, but he understood the apprehension behind it and decided that under the circumstances a little healthy fear was in order.
“So it’s settled?” he asked softly.
She nodded once again. “Yes, it’s settled.”
He dropped his hand to the seat between them. “Good. Now let’s have a look at that Bible you’re carrying around. The book of directions,” he explained in response to her quizzical look.
She pulled it from her tote bag and handed it to him. Bolt flipped through it, amazed at the details included in some of the instructions and the crazy things they pertained to.
“Your friend Gator is right,” he remarked. “This guy LaCompte really is a fanatic. But at least the route he recommends is the same one I planned to follow anyway.”
“Except for my stops,” she reminded him.
“Right. But you said they were all on the way.” He folded the notebook open to the first clean page. “Do you have a pen handy?”
She fished in her bag and handed him one that wrote with bright purple ink. “What can I say?” she said, shrugging, when he gave her a critical look. “It happens to be my favorite color.”
“All right, shoot. Tell me exactly where you need to stop,” he instructed.
“Exactly?”
He nodded.
Her smile became slightly sheepish. “Exactly is a little tough to say, exactly. At least for a couple of the stops. I can tell you that the first one is exactly in Wilmington, Vermont.”
“Wilmington?” he echoed before she could go any further. “Wilmington, Vermont, is clear in the middle of the state, isn’t it?” He reached for the map in his duffel bag.
“That’s possible,” she said, blinking rapidly.
“I thought you said these stops were all on the way.”
“Vermont is on the way,” she insisted. “If you just look at the map you can see that it’s right there on the road between Canada and Florida.”
“Between Canada and Florida covers a lot of ground,” he pointed out, his tone rough with impatience. “That doesn’t mean every two-bit town in the eastern third of the country is on our way.”
“So it’s a little off the beaten path,” she retorted, reaching for a tube of lip balm and rubbing it across her lips. “It’s still in Vermont. How far out of our way can it be?”
He unfolded the map, scanned it quickly and pointed out to her their current route and the town of Wilmington.
“See that,” she exclaimed, her tone jubilant. “It’s hardly even an inch away.”
“What are you talking about? That’s two inches anyway,” he insisted, then stopped and shook his head. “What am I saying? We’re traveling miles, not inches. Wilmington is over a hundred miles out of our way.”
Her lips puckered distractingly as she gave a long, soft whistle. “My goodness, maps really can be deceptive, can’t they?”
“Yes.” Again Bolt shook himself. “I mean no. A map is very straightforward. It’s drawn to scale, for Pete’s sake. You just have to translate the inches to miles.”
She pushed her glasses to the top of her head and lifted one bare shoulder in a shrug. “I guess I’m not very good with maps.”
Maybe not. But in that instant, as he sat smack in the focus of the wide violet eyes she had no doubt uncovered just for his benefit, watching the seductive sweep of her long, dark lashes, Bolt understood that
she was very good indeed with things much more potent than maps. Soft, intangible, manipulative things of which he knew little, least of all how to defend himself against them. Even as his mind computed miles and lost time, he saw Wilmington in his future.
He frowned at the map. “It’s worse than just out of our way,” he grumbled. “To get there we have to take something called the Molly Stark Trail.”
“So?”
“Think about it.”
She sat silently for a minute before shrugging and saying again, “So?”
“Let’s play word association,” he suggested, his tone mocking. “When I say expressway, I think speed. When I say trail, what do you think?”
“Horses. Now I get it. Isn’t there an expressway we can take instead?”
“No, expressways don’t go to quaint little places like Wilmington. That’s how they stay quaint. Isn’t there someplace along the expressway you could stop and take pictures instead?”
She shook her head firmly. “No, there really isn’t. I know it’s going to cost us time and I hate to be stubborn, but I really need to go to Wilmington. I’ll be glad to do all the extra driving involved along with my regular turn. Please, Hunter, this really means a lot to me.”
The sudden glistening in her eyes might have been real or contrived. For the effect it had on Bolt, it hardly mattered. There was just no way he could look into those eyes and say no.
“Forget about the extra driving,” he said, the roughness in his tone mostly due to his annoyance with his own weakness. “I can handle it.”
“But there’s no reason you should have to. After all, I was prepared to drive all the way to Florida alone. Granted, I wouldn’t have given up a hot bath to squeeze in a few more hours, but I can certainly do my share. Especially since I’m the one who’s adding on extra miles.”
“Don’t worry about it,” he said, studying the map. “I might even be able to save a little time by cutting over here near Saratoga Springs.”
“And you’ll let me help with the driving?” she persisted.
“Maybe later.”
“All right. Just for the record, trails are my specialty.”
He couldn’t help smiling, and was surprised to discover that when he did, a little of his frustration and the urge to pound the steering wheel with his fist went away.
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