You were thinking how much you liked this guy, and you screwed up.
“Yeah that’s a good idea,” she said quickly, unbuckling her seatbelt and heading for the back before he could see the tears stinging her eyes. She quickly shut herself in the back with the laptop, knuckling the tears away.
Just back off, she told herself. They had a mission here. She had a purpose. She was right: she didn’t want to think about what it would mean if they didn’t get the treasure, and she wasn’t able to get the house. The house was more important than her stupid little crush. She’d survive being rejected by Noah. And while technically she’d survive losing the house – God, it didn’t bear thinking about.
Man, you are a piece of work.
She was hurt. He knew it. She’d just told him all this stuff about herself, and he’d told her to “go watch YouTube.” She had to feel like that was shutting her down, shutting her out. Now, after four more hours at the wheel, they were headed into Modesto, and he hadn’t seen her. He missed talking with her, but the more she’d talked, the guiltier he had felt.
And whose fault is that?
There had to be another way.
He pulled into the parking lot of a gas station. They needed to fill up, anyway. Carefully, he pulled up to a pump, then he went back and knocked on the cabin door. She opened it. To his surprise, she didn’t have his laptop open.
“I didn’t want to use up all your hotspot data,” she said thoughtfully. “So I just read on my phone.”
More guilt. She didn’t take stuff he offered for granted. She was a sweet, caring, thoughtful girl.
And you’re going to rob her blind.
He cleared his throat. “We’re at Modesto. I think it’s probably the best place for us to stop for the night,” he said. “I’m getting gas, then I figured I’d grab us something for dinner, and we’d head to an RV park or camp spot for the night.”
“Okay.”
She still seemed down. He blamed himself for that.
“I’ll be right back, okay? Do you want anything from the convenience store?”
She shook her head, her eyes already back on her phone. He shut the door again, then headed out. He set the pump to start filling the RV, then stepped away from it, glancing at the windows to make sure Cressida wasn’t watching. He quickly dialed his Mom.
“Noah,” his Mom said enthusiastically. “I haven’t heard from you in a few days. I thought you were dead! What’s going on?”
“I’m, um, on a road trip,” he said. “I borrowed a friend’s RV, and we’re going to the desert for a while.”
Her sigh was gusty. “This is that treasure hunt business again, is it? You’re never going to find a girl at this rate.”
“Actually,” he found himself saying, “I’m going with a girl. One I like a lot.”
“Really?” Her voice was ripe with speculation. “Is it that girl you were talking about?”
“One and the same,” he said. Then he braced himself. “Listen… is your green card up to date?”
She paused. “Yes,” she said. “I’m careful. Why do you ask?”
How to bring this up? “I just wanted to double check,” he said, trying to force his voice to remain casual. “They’re looking at everybody these days. Especially if somebody, you know, reports them.”
“Do you think somebody’s going to report me? Because of the food truck?”
“I just want you to be careful, that’s all.”
She paused again. “What aren’t you telling me, Noah?”
He should’ve known he couldn’t get anything past her. “There’s a guy, a crazy guy. Rich guy,” he said. “He threatened me. Or rather, he threatened you. He said that he’d get you deported if I didn’t help him find the treasure.”
There was another pause, longer this time. “Noah?”
His mother sounded scared.
“I wasn’t going to tell you,” Noah said. “But I wanted to give you a heads up. I’m doing what I can to figure out how to stop him, but…”
“How rich is he?”
“He’s the son of a rich author, and the whole family’s wealthy – the father’s family, I mean. Trust funds.”
“That’s not good,” his mother murmured, her voice quavering slightly. “That’s not good at all.”
“It’s okay, Mom,” he said. “I’ll do whatever I can to keep you safe, you know that.”
“I’ve worked too hard,” she said, and now her voice sounded watery. Was she crying? “I’ll lose everything. The food truck. I won’t be able to see you,” she wailed.
“Mom. Mom! It’s okay. I promise, I’ll make this right.”
After a few minutes, he finally calmed her down. He hung up, feeling even more despondent. Then he finished gassing up the RV, and headed back in.
Cressida was in the main compartment. “You okay? You were gone a while.”
“I was on the phone. With my Mom,” he clarified.
“Is she all right?” Cressida sounded genuinely concerned. “You look upset.”
“My Mom’s upset,” he said. “It’s a long story, though.”
“It’s a long drive,” she pointed out, then bit her lip. “But I understand if you don’t want to talk about it.”
He thought about it. Then he sighed, leaning his hip against the dining table. She stood close to him – in the main compartment, it was hard not to be close to each other – and he breathed in her perfume.
“My Mom raised me by herself,” he said. “She followed my Dad here. He was a wealthy businessman who was visiting Indonesia, and he fell in love – or at least in lust – with my Mom. He knocked her up. She snuck into the country to look for him.”
“Wow,” Cressida said, eyes wide.
“He wound up acknowledging me, and I was born here. But it’s not like we had a relationship. My Mom just got paid, and not much, to raise me.” Noah felt the usual tinge of resentment and anger, like coals in his chest. “My Mom is the most important person in my life.”
Cressida smiled. “That’s nice.”
He couldn’t help himself. He reached out, stroked her cheek with the back of his fingers. “You’re important to me, too.”
Her breath caught in her throat. “Noah,” she breathed.
“I’m glad you felt like you could share your story with me,” he said. It just burned me with guilt, that’s all. “I want you to keep feeling like you can tell me anything. I just… I don’t know that I’m worth that trust.”
She blinked. Then she moved forward, wrapping her arms around him, and kissed him. Hard.
He didn’t know what was happening until he was in the middle of it. This wasn’t an experimental nibble in the middle of the night. This was a full-blown kiss, and he could no more ignore it or push her away than he could stop breathing.
He tilted his head, slanting his mouth over hers as she pressed up on the balls of her feet to give herself better access. She moaned softly, pulling his head tight against hers. His fingertips dug into her hips, pulling her against him – and against the hardness that was quickly forming as a result of her onslaught.
After a few too brief minutes, she pulled away. “I care about you, too, Noah. You have to know that.”
He growled, reaching for her again, then forced himself to stop. “You’re a virgin,” he pointed out.
She smiled, a surprised laugh tumbling from her lips. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“It means I’m really, really attracted to you, but we’ve only been physically together for two days… and I don’t think you want your first time to be at a Gas-n-Sip in Modesto.”
Now her laughter burst forward, rich and full throated. “Um, no. Probably not.”
He turned. “Then let’s go get you some food.”
He was walking towards the driver’s seat when he heard her murmur, “Noah?”
“Yup?” He sat down, buckling his seat belt.
She cleared her throat again, a nervous habit he assumed. �
�I wouldn’t mind it being somewhere else in Modesto,” she said. “Just saying.”
Noah was still thinking about Cressida’s words when he hastily pulled into a fast food joint, some nondescript burger place, to pick up dinner.
So she wouldn’t mind somewhere else in Modesto?
That meant tonight. She wouldn’t mind her first time being tonight.
His body tightened painfully, and he squirmed, adjusting himself as discreetly as he could before stepping into the restaurant. She had to know how much he wanted her. He had to tell her he’d had a crush on her for a while now, and seeing her in real life – wow. Just wow. And those kisses?
Oh, yeah.
Her virginity was a little bit daunting. The only virgin he could remember sleeping with was Maryanne Petrov, and that’s when he was a virgin himself, so the two of them sort of bumbled through it. As he recalled, it wasn’t really good for either of them. He wanted to make sure that Cressida’s first time was both memorable and as pleasurable as possible. His body tingled. Damn, did he want that.
He ordered the food and stood, looking at the window, thinking of the night to come. What would…
Wait a second.
His eyes narrowed. There, in the parking lot, was a dark blue Mini Cooper. He liked that particular shade of midnight blue, so he tended to notice it. And he’d noticed this particular car before, he remembered. At the Trees of Mystery. And, now that he thought about it, hadn’t he seen a dark blue Mini Cooper on the freeway when he’d headed up to Frost Fandoms to collect Cressida? He just hadn’t thought anything about it at the time.
What the hell was going on here?
He grabbed the food and headed out. There was a man sitting in the car, looking at his phone. He might simply be lost, Noah tried to reason, but his gut clenched in denial. No, there was something off about this guy.
Acting on instinct, Noah went up to the guy’s window and knocked on it. The guy had a buzz cut that, matched with his harsh lantern jaw, made the guy’s head look squared off. The guy glared at him, rolling down his window.
“Can I help you?”
“Was just about to ask you the same thing, pal,” Noah said genially. “Since you’ve been following us since at least Klamath.”
He waited for the guy to deny it. Instead, the man’s eyes narrowed slightly, and he opened the car door, getting out.
It might be better to say he unfolded himself. It was like a clown car – the guy emerging from the sedan was enormous. It was hard to believe he fit in there. He stood a full six foot four if he was an inch.
“You going to give me trouble, little man?” the giant said.
“Who are you?” Noah said, his voice cracking a little. “Are you from the boards? You another treasure hunter?”
“What the hell are you talking about?” The giant scowled at him. “Mr. Killian said to follow you, so I’m following you.”
Killian. God damn it. He should have known. This is how Killian knew he was “taking an excursion” and how he’d known he’d picked up Cressida. “Why is Killian having you follow us?”
“Because he thinks you’re going to do something stupid, like try to take whatever it is he wants you to find,” the giant replied. “I’m here to make sure he gets what he wants.”
“You’re not exactly subtle about it,” Noah said. “I mean, you’re right there, not even trying to hide.”
“You’re in a giant blue RV,” the giant shot back. “And you average about fifty-five miles per hour. How were you planning on losing me?”
Noah hated to admit it, but the guy had a point. “What’ll it take to get you off our backs?” Not that he had money to buy the guy off, but it was worth a try.
“Nothing. I got hired to do a job by Mr. Killian.” His eyes glinted. “I do my job. That simple. Although…”
“What?” Noah latched onto the hesitation.
“You let me spend a little time with that hot redhead in the RV, maybe I can give you a head start.”
Noah tensed. “Maybe I just call Killian, tell him that you’re a shitty tail.”
“Maybe I just ride with you from now on,” the guy said, stepping up on Noah. “And maybe I beat some goddamned obedience into you, how about that?”
Noah didn’t back down. You back down to these guys, they kill you. “You’re a thug and an idiot,” Noah said derisively.
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” the guy said, and his right fist came out of nowhere. “Mr. Killian told me not to touch you unless you were doing something stupid – and I’m about to show you challenging me is probably the stupidest thing you could do.”
Chapter 8
Cressida felt… fluttery, for lack of a better term. She couldn’t believe that she’d had the guts to tell Noah that she was willing to lose her virginity. Based on his kisses, she got the feeling he’d be willing to help her.
It wasn’t that she was desperate to lose her virginity. She wasn’t. She’d gotten along on batteries up to this point, and while she wondered what it’d be like with another person, it wasn’t something that kept her up nights. She didn’t feel like a freak for still being a virgin at twenty-five, although a lot of society might view her that way. Of course, the whole agoraphobic thing probably slapped that label fairly firmly in place, and if she cared what other people thought, her life would be an utter misery as a result.
No, she wanted Noah simply because she wanted him. They were alone. They were attracted. Yes, there was the treasure, but they were splitting that fifty-fifty… they were partners. She figured they could keep the two things, sex and the treasure, completely separated.
And even if you couldn’t, so what? Her body was in the driver’s seat, and any logical arguments fell by the wayside in the face of sheer, hormonal lust.
And maybe a little more than that.
She frowned. “Stop that,” she muttered to herself. She hadn’t even had sex with him yet. It was way too early to romanticize what she and Noah had. Whatever it was that they had, anyway.
You’ve had a crush on him for over a year.
“A little crush doesn’t mean anything.” Of course, she’d had a crush on him before she knew that he kissed like a god – before she’d even known what he looked like. She’d fallen for his personality. That did muddy the waters a little bit.
“Just stop it,” she chastised herself. “You’re making too big a deal out of this. You guys will eat some dinner, go to a rest stop, and then, hopefully, have sex. No muss, no fuss.”
But she knew it was a big deal. And she couldn’t wait to get started.
Impatient, she rolled up the curtains in the main cabin, eager to get a glimpse of him. It seemed like forever since he’d gone in to get burgers and fries for the two of them.
At first, she didn’t make sense of what she was seeing. There were people yelling, and a big man was beating up another man, who was lying on the ground. The bigger man was saying something…
Noah!
Adrenaline and panic warred in her bloodstream. Without thinking, she went to her bag, opening it in a rush. She pushed past the condoms, to the bear spray she’d also packed. Then, taking a deep breath, she sprinted out the door.
A moment of vertigo hit her. She shook it off, running to where the prone Noah and the big bully were.
“I’m callin’ the cops!” someone said.
“You do, and you’re next,” the big guy said, and the person scurried off. “Come on, tough guy. You’re the one who thinks I’m stupid. Think you can ditch me? Fucking try.”
“Stop it!” Cressida shouted.
The big guy was about to kick Noah again, and he turned to her. “Well now,” he drawled, and the way he looked at her made her stomach give a slow, nauseous swirl. “The redhead. Aren’t you cute? I’ll deal with you in a second. In fact, I think you and I are going to become real good friends.”
She didn’t hesitate. She pulled out the bear spray and nailed him right in the face with it.
The
sound he made was inhuman. He fell to the ground, narrowly missing falling on Noah like felled lumber.
“Noah! Come on, come on!” She tugged at him. He groaned, rolling over and rubbing his chest. Then he scrambled to his feet, and to her surprise, went to the Mini Cooper nearby, the one with the open driver’s side door. He reached in, then came out with a set of car keys that he neatly dumped down the nearby storm drain. She heard it ricochet on the bottom with a small clank-sploosh.
“Hurry,” Noah said, as the big guy started to bawl and yell, clawing at his eyes. They both ran to the RV, bolting in and slamming the door. Noah jumped in the driver’s seat and buckled up, then started the engine and all but peeled out of the parking lot.
Noah was all but shaking as he drove off from the burger joint. “What the hell did you nail that guy with? Pepper spray?” he asked Cressida, as he zoomed towards the highway.
“Bear spray,” she said, her voice shaking a little. “I think he’ll be down for the count for a while. Are we going to get in trouble with the police?”
“He was the one who was beating me up, and he threatened someone else. If anything, I think we could make the argument for self-defense, but also, I don’t think he’ll be talking to the cops about us.”
If anything, he thought, the biggest problem is that the guy finds us. The giant hadn’t necessarily been acting on Killian’s orders when he’d started whaling on Noah; he’d just been pissed that Noah was trying to boss him around. Killian obviously hadn’t hired talent when he’d hired this guy to follow them. He was a crappy tail. And the guy didn’t even know what he’d been hired to retrieve. Once he found out it was money, he got the feeling that Killian would’ve been screwed out of the treasure either way.
“I hope you’re not starving, because our food got scattered all over the place in the parking lot of Johnny’s burgers,” he said apologetically. “And I think it’s best if we keep on driving. I don’t want this guy to try following us. It’s going to take him a little while to get over the effects of the bear spray, and he doesn’t have his keys, but this RV stands out – it wouldn’t be hard for him to drive around Modesto and find us. Another two hours will put us in Visalia. I don’t think he knows where we’re going, so we should be safe from there.”
Playing Doctor Page 10