In less than a minute Neil swung her small bag over his shoulder and pulled her to her feet. “Not one word until I say.”
She’d never seen Neil like this. His eyes appeared to see everything, even in the dark. The intensity of his stare and the taut muscles twitching under his snug shirt proved he was more alert than a cheetah ready to strike.
Neil kept to the shadows inside the house and out. They skirted through the courtyard and quietly made it into the garage. A second town car sat beside Blake’s with Dillon behind the wheel.
Even standing right next to the car, Gwen found it nearly impossible to see the driver. She narrowed her eyes as they moved to the second car and he shoved her in the backseat. He took her head in his hand and gave a gentle nudge down to the seat.
Gwen took the hint and lay flat in the seat. From then on, the only thing she saw was the back of Neil’s head.
He pulled on a stocking cap…all black. They backed out of the garage along with Dillon in the other car. Both of the cars inched up the drive in the dark.
Neil drove on a winding road, taking the turns faster than normal. Gwen braced herself to avoid being tossed around.
Adrenaline pumped as quickly as the car’s speed. Gwen had to admit, if only to herself, it wasn’t fear that charged her. It was excitement.
Even without an explanation, she knew Neil was protecting her and doing it so fiercely it sparked an unexpected flame of desire.
She shot her hand out as they rounded another corner.
Bad time to get turned on, Gwen!
It didn’t help that before she woke up, she was dreaming of him. He held her with those arms of steel and leaned into her with parted lips. Then Neil woke her.
They hit a bump on the road and Gwen fell to the floor with an “Oomph!”
“Are you OK?” Neil asked as the car slowed.
Gwen scrambled back onto the seat. “Yes.”
“Just a little farther,” he said. “Then we’ll switch cars.”
“Can I sit up?”
“No. Not yet.”
She stayed down and matched his silence with her own.
A lifetime passed in the backseat before Neil slowed the car down and pulled it off the road.
Neil slammed the car into park and jumped out. He opened her door and reached for her hand. Her stiff muscles protested as she stood and moved to a different vehicle.
What felt like forever was less than an hour. While Neil opened the trunks of both cars and transferred objects between them, Gwen sat in the front seat and stared into the night. They were parked in a commuters’ park and ride lot with a dozen cars surrounding them.
Gwen waited until they were on a narrow highway without a car in sight before she uttered a word. “Neil?”
He glanced at her and then looked back at the road.
“What are you doing?”
His fingers gripped the wheel and for a full minute he didn’t say a thing.
“Backing off wasn’t an option.”
At first, Gwen didn’t understand what he meant. Then she remembered her ultimatum in the bar.
Gwen folded her hands in her lap and rested her head back on the seat.
All of her questions and more importantly, all of Neil’s answers, could wait.
Chapter Thirteen
Heat-sensitive night vision goggles captured the cars as they crawled out of the Malibu driveway.
Both cars indicated the heat of the driver and heat in the backseat.
He scrambled from his perch, tossing the candy from his hand, and jumped into the front seat of his car.
Looked like MacBain was taking matters into his own hands.
“Wouldn’t be good if you rolled over on your back and gave up, now would it?”
Both cars were identical, the license plates removed. His tracking was down.
Even a stupid man knew not to turn on his cell phone if he wanted to hide. Sooner or later he had to turn it back on. But the man wasn’t in a hurry. In fact, he could do this all year.
The cars split up, going in separate directions. He took a chance and followed the car going east.
The other moved west.
The sun glistened on the horizon as it rose over the eastern sky.
Dark sunglasses kept Neil from staring directly into it. On his right, Gwen’s head slumped against the passenger window and the even rise and fall of her chest told him she was fast asleep.
He kept his speed only a couple of miles over the posted limit. He didn’t need something as simple as a speeding ticket breaking his cover.
The deserted highway stretched for miles in front of him. The only thing to break up the dirt landscape was the occasional high desert mountain range off in the distance.
And Gwen slept.
He was proud of her for what she’d done or maybe more importantly what she hadn’t done. She could have insisted on knowing what he was doing, argued with him…but she hadn’t done that. Gwen followed his instructions to the letter and he left Southern California without a good-bye.
Neil swept his gaze up and down her lithe frame. Dressed like a cat burglar, she’d never been more beautiful. And even though he never said one word to her about his naked thoughts about the two of them, someone else had figured it out.
Figured it out and used it against him.
Stay out of Vegas, Mac, he told himself. His poker face needed some work.
Gwen moaned beside him. A throaty sound that tightened his balls and made him squirm.
She blinked her eyes awake and stretched. “Good morning,” she murmured.
Her simple greeting made him want to smile. “Good morning.”
“Where are we?” She looked behind them.
“We’ll be in Nevada in about half an hour.”
“Nevada? Is that where we’re going?”
“Driving through.”
“Oh.”
He waited for several breaths before he spared her a glance. “What…no questions?”
She smiled and something inside him burst. “Somewhere last night, between you dragging me out of bed and throwing me in the back of the car, and falling asleep once you stopped driving like a madman, I decided to take each moment as it comes.”
“You’re not going to ask me where we’re going?”
“Would you tell me?”
No. The less she knew the easier it would be for her to keep where they were a secret. A stop at a gas station could result in a simple conversation that would blow their location.
“That’s what I thought. Which is all well and good for a little while.”
He only needed a little while. He hoped.
“Did you tell anyone where we’re going?”
“No.”
Her brother would worry, and her mother would be frantic.
“Are we going to call—”
“No,” he interrupted. “We can’t call…not until I say. The phones in Malibu were bugged.”
“If you knew that, why not just remove them?”
“If the man following us thinks some of his toys are still in place he’ll hear only the information I want him to.”
“Then how are we going to tell Blake and the others that we’re OK?”
“Leave that to me.”
Gwen rubbed her forehead. “You think someone is after us?”
In the rearview mirror, a car approached. Neil kept his speed steady and squelched the urge to stay ahead of the car.
“I know someone is after us.”
“Why me? I’ve not made any enemies here, or anywhere that I know of.”
The car moved up on them fast and sped around.
Neil sighed. “Whoever they are, they weren’t after you…they’re after me.”
“Then why did they murder my neighbors? How does that affect you?”
Neil swallowed, thankful his sunglasses hid his eyes.
“He was making it clear that he could get to you just as easily.” It could have been her facedown in a
bathtub. Lifeless.
“That’s crazy, Neil. The house is wired from top to bottom.”
“Yet the back door was open and the system was armed. Anyone could have come in.”
“That still doesn’t explain why someone would use me to get to you. You work for my brother and hardly give me a second glance.”
He glanced…more than glanced. Someone had noticed.
“Neil?”
He decided a defensive tactic was best right at that moment. “We’re stopping at the next open gas station. You can use the restroom, but don’t talk to anyone.”
As Gwen glanced out the window where not another living soul could be seen…not even abandoned houses were on the road he chose, he knew what she was going to say.
“I don’t see anyone after us out here.”
“Your accent will give us away if the man following us finds our trail.”
“I hadn’t thought of that.”
“Leave the thinking to me.”
The half smile on Gwen’s face fell. Oh, damn. Wrong thing to say.
“I’m blonde, not stupid.”
“I didn’t say you were stupid.”
“You told me not to think.”
“No, I said leave the thinking to me. Bad choice of words. Until I figure out who’s out there, and know you’re safe, you need to trust me.”
“I believe I’ve proven my trust in you by making the cloaked exit from my brother’s home in the dead of night. I didn’t do that by not thinking. I did that by making wise choices and trust. Both of which take thinking.” She glared at him now, her brows tight together.
He gripped the wheel hard and searched for the right words to dig him out of what he’d just said to her. She wasn’t a soldier under his orders. He’d do well to remember that. Finding his softer side was impossible when it wasn’t there. He avoided deep conversations with women for this very reason.
“I’m sorry.” There. That should make her happy. He dared a glance.
Not happy.
Instead of stepping deeper in the pile of shit he’d spewed from his mouth, he reduced himself to silence.
Painful silence.
The filthy bathroom provided little relief. But it was better than a bush on the side of the road. Although it killed her, she didn’t utter one word while at the petrol station. She knew Neil was right about her talking to anyone. Her British accent gave her away better than her blonde hair and high cheekbones.
As for Neil’s silence…he had no idea how proficient she was at the silent game. The British were known for their cool, dry humor and patient silence. In her family anyway. Americans were the ones who spoke excessively. She had to admit that chatting with her friends was much more entertaining here than back home. Eliza called Gwen on everything. In fact, Eliza had made the first comment about Gwen’s attraction to Neil.
The big jerk.
Let me do the thinking.
She rolled her eyes as she pulled a paper towel from the holder so she could open the dirty door. No use coming down with whatever disease the bathroom was incubating.
The hot Nevada morning was even warmer in the black spandex clothing covering her body. The thought of taking anything off in the bathroom left her ill, so she decided to wait until they stopped for the night.
Besides, she wasn’t even sure what clothes were in her bag. Neil had packed most of it.
She had grabbed a pony clip to tame her hair before running out the door, so at least her hair wasn’t lying hot upon her back.
Neil finished pumping the gas and returned the spout while she took her place in the car.
In the center console were two steaming cups. The smell of coffee filled the interior of the car.
Neil took his seat, fastened his belt. “I know you like tea, but they only had coffee.”
“Don’t most Americans drink coffee in the morning?”
Neil pulled away from the pumps. “Yes.”
“Then I think it’s best I drink coffee. Ordering one coffee and one tea might give us away.”
“Humph!” he said, with a grin on his face.
Chapter Fourteen
“What do you mean we’re sleeping here?”
Neil had pulled the car far off the road and tucked it behind an outcropping of rocks that littered the Nevada desert. They’d driven until dusk and from what Gwen could tell, they were driving as slowly across the Nevada desert as humanly possible. No, make that meandering through the desert. They’d started out heading east, then north, then back to the west on a major highway for a short time then northeast again. And since she was hell-bent on winning the silent game, Gwen kept her mouth shut.
That was until now.
Not even the fast food Neil had tossed her raised her tongue.
“Yes here.”
She looked out the window at the jutting cliff that rose to the left of the car.
“I don’t see a hotel.”
Neil backed the car up to the cliff, put it in park, and jumped out of the car.
From the trunk, he removed a pillow and blanket and tossed it in the backseat. “You’ll sleep in the back,” he said from the back door.
“You’re serious.”
“Problem, Gwendolyn?”
She pushed out of the front seat and glared at him over the car. “You know…I used to think you using my full name was endearing, now I realize it’s thinly veiled sarcasm. Which might humor me after a shower and a good night’s sleep, but I suppose that will just have to wait.”
“We’ll stay in a hotel once it’s safe.”
“And if I have to use the bathroom?”
He spread his hands open and looked around them.
Of course. Somehow, she knew the dirty toilets at the stations were a luxury.
“Did you at least remember a toothbrush for me?”
He moved back to the trunk and fished through her bag with a flashlight.
Gwen stood next to him to see exactly what he’d packed for her.
He pushed her knickers aside, a nightgown, socks, a real bra, a pair of jeans, and a couple of shirts. His hand wrapped around a hairbrush and deodorant before finding her toothbrush and a tube of paste.
“That’s all you packed for me?”
“We’ll find a place to wash what you have on.”
She pushed him aside, grabbed his flashlight, and looked again. But no matter how far she dug the results were the same. “You expect me to wear two outfits and that’s all?”
“One to wash, one to wear.”
The expression on his face was a complete blank. She shone the light in his face and he turned away.
“Where’s my makeup?”
“I’m sorry, Gwendolyn,” he said dripping in sarcasm. “I thought finding safety was more important than packing your war paint. Besides, you’re more beautiful without it.”
“War paint?”
“A mask men put on their face before battle.”
“Yes, yes, I know what war paint is. Why do you call makeup war paint?”
Neil pushed the flashlight from his face. “It’s an American saying.”
“Oh.”
She batted a bug away from the beam of light and turned to the dark. After placing her toothbrush and paste in the backseat, she found an extra napkin from their pathetic dinner of warmed over hamburgers and fries and started to walk away from the car.
“Where are you going?”
She stopped, turned toward him, and raised her arm to the outside. “The ladies’ room. What do you think?”
The flashlight kept her from stumbling over rocks and bushes.
“Watch out for snakes.”
She hesitated but kept moving. Of course. He would have to pick a part of the world infested with poisonous snakes to hide out.
A large rock separated her from Neil. She was about to set the flashlight down when he called out. “And coyotes. They run in packs. If you see one, there are three surrounding you.”
“Brilliant,” she
whispered to herself. She flashed the light in a full circle, assuring herself she was alone.
When she finished, she walked quickly back to the car. Neil leaned on the hood, his arms crossed over his chest.
“That wasn’t so bad, was it?”
She grabbed her toothbrush and paste with a bottle of water from the car. “Not bad at all…if you enjoy relieving yourself with the snakes and coyotes.” She swatted a bug from her arm before splashing water on her hands in a feeble attempt to wash them. After smothering the tip of the brush with minty paste, she shoved it in her mouth and tried to wash the day’s greasy food away.
Neil was watching her, a smile on his face.
“What’s so amusing?” She never saw the man smile yet he did now at her expense.
“Only you can make peeing in the bushes sound elegant.”
“Did not.”
His smile only grew with her agitation.
“Errr!” She moved behind the car, rinsed out her mouth, and returned to him.
The beam of light found his face again. “You’re laughing at me.”
“Relax, Gwen. I’m not laughing at you.”
She swatted another bug and found three more ready to land on her.
Neil pushed off the car and took the flashlight from her fingers. He switched it off and plunged them into the dark. “There. No light, no bugs.”
The light from the moon was barely visible as she cast her eyes to the sky.
She gasped. “Oh, wow.”
“Beautiful, isn’t it?”
“Magnificent.” Undaunted by the city lights, the night sky held millions of stars. “I’ve never seen it quite like this.” While staring at the sky, Gwen didn’t mind their stop in the desert nearly as much as she had a moment ago.
“The desert has the best view of the universe,” he muttered.
She leaned against the car and tilted her head back. After a few minutes she asked, “Do you ever wonder if there’s something else out there?”
“Intelligent life?”
“Yeah.”
Neil sighed. “I hope so.”
She smiled at that. “Me too. I’d hate to think we’re it.”
“When I was a kid, I wanted to be an astronaut.”
Gwen looked at him. “You did?”
“Yeah.”
Fiancé by Friday Page 11