by Penny McCall
“It’s possible. I’ve been stationed in this area for some time, and I make it a point to attend the policemen’s charity ball every year.”
“Nope, that’s not it.”
He looked around the office, puzzled, searching for something to jog his memory. By the time he’d finished turning in a slow circle, his gaze ended up on the phone. And recognition dawned. When he lifted his gaze to Harmony again, she had her gun pointed at him.
His eyes crossed on the tiny black hole at the end of the barrel.
“Hands,” she said.
He lifted them about shoulder high, his left hand dangerously close to temptation.
“Away from the radio,” she ordered, meaning the small personal communication device he wore on his shoulder.
The deputy moved his hands out to the sides, but they were still in Wyatt Earp quick-draw range.
“Don’t,” she said, seeing in his eyes that he was considering it.
“You won’t shoot me.”
“You really don’t want to—”
She moved the gun a couple inches to the right and squeezed off a shot.
“—dare her not to shoot you,” Cole finished.
“Yeah,” the deputy said, “I’m getting that.”
“Men,” Harmony muttered. “You’d think after millions of years of evolution you’d stop thinking of the half of the species that can push out a seven-pound human being through a ten-centimeter opening as the ‘softer sex.’ ”
She went around the counter and secured the deputy to one of the metal supports holding up the counter, using a spare set of cuffs she found on a shelf. Then she retrieved the key from his pocket and unlocked Cole.
“Nice jailbreak, Mata Hari,” he said.
“Can we talk about my methods later? The sheriff is going to be back any moment.”
That was all the urging Cole needed. He snagged the envelope holding his personal effects off the counter and followed her outside, halting abruptly when he got a load of the Ford GT, a black wedge that was barely waist high on him, sitting at the curb just out of sight of the windows.
“I talked to Mike,” she said, “told him the whole story. I won’t say he’s behind us a hundred percent, but he arranged for a car.”
“That isn’t a car, it’s a wet dream.”
“Thanks for the visual. Get in.”
“I’m driving.”
“I left you alone for ten minutes; you got arrested.”
Cole simply lifted her up by the armpits and moved her aside, angling into the driver’s seat. He was already revving the engine before she made it around the car, and he had it in gear and moving before she’d completely folded herself into the passenger seat. A glance at the speedometer told her they were going close to sixty by the time she got her door closed and her seat belt buckled.
“This is a small town,” she pointed out.
“Tell them,” Cole said, eyes on the rearview.
She looked over her shoulder and saw a black sedan right on their rear bumper, a gun just appearing out the passenger-side window. “Treacher’s agents.”
“Yeah,” Cole said. “I don’t think having a traffic accident is our biggest worry at the moment.”
He gave the GT a bit more gas and it leapt ahead, the leather-covered wheel thrumming lightly under his hands, vibrating with the leashed power of 550 horses. Harmony’s handler couldn’t have picked a better car if he’d talked to Cole first. If he’d never run afoul of Victor Treacher, and if he’d sold his system and gotten rich, as he’d planned, he’d have one of these in his garage.
“They were probably watching the sheriff’s office,” Harmony said, “waiting to see if I got you out of there.”
“Yeah, and now we’re going to die.”
“You should’ve let me drive.”
“No way.”
“In need of a little redemption because you let yourself get caught?”
“Oh, yeah,” Cole said, choosing not to tell her exactly who’d caught him. He checked the mirror; Treacher’s guys hadn’t caught up yet, and he wasn’t going to give them a chance. “There’s no way they can outrun this car. It tops out at over two hundred miles per hour.”
“They’ll only find us again,” Harmony said.
“What happened to the eternal optimist?”
“You want optimism? I’m positive they’ll find us again.”
Cole shrugged. “Maybe we should take them out permanently this time.”
That stopped her, but not for long. “We can’t kill two FBI agents, even if they aren’t exactly working in the best interest of the Bureau . . .” She put her hand on his arm. “I have an idea.” She turned on the GPS and brought up a map of their immediate surroundings. “Take the next left,” she said. “Don’t lose those guys.”
A shot rang out. “And keep out of gunshot range,” Cole said before she could. Irrationally, it was concern for the car that made him say it. “What’s the plan?”
“There’s a fair-sized town about fifty miles straight along this road.”
“Won’t it have a fair-sized police force?”
“That would be my guess. But they won’t be able to outrun this car, either.”
Cole grinned. He couldn’t help himself. He wasn’t passing up a chance to tweak his nose at any law enforcement agency. “Neither will Treacher’s pet agents.”
“I’ve driven some of the cars the FBI calls company vehicles,” Harmony said. “That one’s a step above, but that’s really not saying much.”
“So what next?”
“Next we call the local authorities and let them know there are two very irresponsible drivers on their way into town.” And that’s exactly what she did, calling Mike directly after and letting him know what she was up to. “All you have to do is keep us out of custody,” she said to Cole, “and hope they’re not that lucky.”
“They’re FBI agents. Even if they get arrested nothing will happen to them.”
“Except they’ll be making a one-way trip back to Washington, D.C. They’re not exactly on a sanctioned mission. Hell, they’re not even agents. Treacher will have a lot of explaining to do. Mike will make sure of it.”
The inner workings of the FBI had never made much sense to Cole, so he didn’t ask any more questions, just punched the GT up to about eighty miles an hour. The government-issue sedan kept pace, even when Cole blew by two black-and-whites sitting on either shoulder of the road about two miles outside of town.
The police cruisers swung out behind the agents’ sedan, lights flashing and sirens blaring. One of them stayed behind, and the other blasted around it to take up a position on the GT’s back bumper. Cole just smiled and hit the gas. The GT shot forward. The cruiser didn’t even attempt to stay with them. It slowed, making a wide turn that left it sitting across both lanes of the road.
The last thing Cole saw was the government sedan bracketed by the two police cars. He slowed down to about sixty, bypassing the town and keeping to little-used roads, following Harmony’s instructions and trying to keep a low profile in the GT.
“That was fun,” Harmony said.
Cole glanced over at her. She’d been half-turned during the short car chase, watching the feds out the back window. Now she’d relaxed into her seat, head back, her face alight with laughter.
“I told you I wouldn’t let you go back to jail,” she said.
That pissed Cole off, although he knew it was irrational he didn’t stop to ask himself why he was burning. “You put me in that position to begin with.”
“How do you figure? I was three hundred miles away when you got arrested.”
“Exactly.”
“And as soon as I found out, I put my own ass on the line to get you out.”
“It wasn’t just your ass.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Cole pulled the GT into a narrow dirt road, more a path than anything else, that led into an unharvested wheat field edged by trees. “You let that d
eputy drool all over you,” he said, jamming the car into park when he was sure it couldn’t be seen from the main road.
Harmony turned sideways to face him, arms crossed, her mood notching down to his level. “I didn’t want him to focus on my face,” she shot back. “I was on TV, too, you know.”
“It worked. He wasn’t looking at your face.”
“Until you turned into Mr. Hyde and broke his concentration.”
“Concentration? Nice euphemism. Good thing he didn’t know about the thigh holster. He’d have concentrated you right there on the counter.”
“You mean this?”
She hiked up her skirt to show the leather holster, and the heat in Cole turned from anger to lust in the space of a heartbeat. Or maybe it had been lust all along, mixed with jealousy, he admitted before he dove at her. She met him halfway, the kiss wild, almost a continuation of their argument with both of them trying to come out the winner.
She pulled back and met his eyes, and then they were both out of the car and heading around it, meeting at the hood on the passenger side because Cole’s legs were longer. He thought his need was more extreme, too, but Harmony stripped off her jacket and shoulder holster, slipped out of her panties, and leaned back against the hood of the car wearing nothing but a wisp of blue dress and that band of leather around her thigh.
“This is only adrenaline,” she said, apparently mistaking his hesitation for something it wasn’t. “Danger gets you wired, and once the danger is over, you need a place to work it off.”
“I’m just taking a moment to enjoy the scenery,” Cole said. He wasn’t talking about the countryside.
She must look like an ad in one of those car magazines, Harmony realized. And judging by Cole’s ability to spout the GT’s specs at a moment’s notice, he had to have seen his share of half-naked women draped over prime automotive machinery. She wasn’t quite sure how she felt about that.
Cole took a step forward and put his hands on her thighs, his touch like fire on her sensitized skin, and she knew exactly how she felt about it. Like the foreplay was over. She popped the snap on his jeans, and he pushed them down along with his boxers.
His hands moved up, curling around her bare bottom and pulling her toward him as he drove forward and surged inside her, hot and hard and deep, touching some part of her that sent pleasure rippling outward in waves so strong she thought she saw the air shimmer around them. She felt a fumbling at her neck and then her breasts were free, and his mouth was there, taking in one throbbing crest and working it as his body moved within hers.
All she could do was brace herself, overloaded with sensation, barely able to breathe as her body wound tighter and tighter. The pleasure became so impossibly intense she heard herself begging and didn’t know what for until his hand slipped between them and rasped over her flesh, and she exploded even as he drove himself deep one last time, the clenching of her body easing enough to feel the echo of his climax from deep inside her.
He slipped away and collapsed onto the ground, and Harmony slid off the car, her muscles lax and her body limp, to lie beside him. Her breasts were still bare, the warm sun and soft breeze playing over her skin, but she didn’t care.
“You really know how to concentrate,” she said to Cole.
He laughed, still a little out of breath. “Those car magazines are going to have a whole different meaning for me from now on.”
“What meaning did they have before?”
“Touché,” he said with a little chuckle, his breath coming more easily. “Let’s just say the attraction is gone, because the fantasy could never live up to the reality.”
chapter 18
“SO HOW DID YOU GET CAUGHT?”
They were back in the car again, heading for the interstate. Cole was still driving, and for a second Harmony thought he wasn’t going to answer her.
“An old lady with cats, and a mall security guard with a nose for trouble,” he finally said.
“Mall?”
“Food court. And that’s all I’m going to say about it.”
Harmony grinned, but she decided to leave it at that. Maybe it had something to do with what had just happened in a stranger’s wheat field, maybe it didn’t. Whatever the reason, they were on pretty good terms at the moment, and she was enjoying the peace too much to ruin it. She already knew it wasn’t going to last.
If anyone had asked her a week ago if she really thought they’d make it this far, she’d have said no. Richard was the only family she had; she wouldn’t have been able to live with herself if she hadn’t gone after him. But she really hadn’t thought she could pull this off. Then. Seven days down the road she was beginning to believe she might succeed. Because of Cole.
And it wasn’t just the mission that was better. She’d been lonely a long time. True, she was always surrounded by people—coworkers, friends—but she’d never connected with any of them the way she had with Cole. Really connected, in all the ways that counted. They could practically read each other’s minds. Of course it wasn’t that hard to do when your life was on the line.
And that was all Cole was thinking about, she reminded herself. His life, his future, his freedom—complete freedom, including from her. Sure, he was enjoying her company now, but he was sex-starved, not lovelorn. His heart wasn’t involved, and she’d better put hers on ice before it got any foolish ideas about long-term commitments with a man whose trust she was about to destroy. If he couldn’t trust her, he couldn’t love her. Not the way she wanted to be loved. Unconditionally.
“How did you know where to find me?”
“Mike Kovaleski,” she said, putting her head back in the present, which was all she and Cole would ever share. “He was keeping an eye out for activity involving either one of us. When I called to fill him in on your history with Treacher, he told me you’d been arrested. Mike did a little digging and found out where Victor had sent his stooges. We both knew they’d get there before me, but—”
“He called and pissed off the sheriff so he wouldn’t hand me over,” Cole finished from firsthand knowledge. “I only have one question, did you have a plan when you walked into the sheriff’s office?”
“Yep, get you out and don’t get caught.”
“That was it?”
“I called just before I got there.”
“So that was you on the phone.”
“Posing as a reporter,” she confirmed. “I needed to know whether or not you were still there, and I was lucky enough to hear Treacher’s agents come in and get turned away. When I got to town, I did a quick reconnoiter, so I knew the sheriff and at least one deputy were there, and I knew Treacher’s guys were somewhere in the vicinity. When I saw the sheriff leave with that kid wearing a security guard’s shirt . . . Hey—”
“I was hungry. Get over it,” Cole said. No point in revisiting his humiliation.
She grinned again. “I always said your stomach was going to get you into trouble.”
He glanced over at her, unamused. “You were filling me in, remember?”
“Right. After they left I knew there was still at least one guy in there aside from you, but it was the best odds I was going to get.”
“That deputy was outnumbered,” Cole said. “One poor guy against you and the girls.”
“It’s not my fault he was so easy to distract.”
Cole didn’t say anything, just stared out the windshield. She had a feeling that steering onto the highway wasn’t what he was so focused on. “What?”
He bumped up a shoulder. “I was wondering what Mike said when you told him about Treacher.”
“He didn’t say anything, really. He didn’t seem all that surprised, either, and I know he’s checking into it.”
“There won’t be anything for him to find.”
“No crime is foolproof,” Harmony said. “There must be some truth to what you’re saying—”
“Some truth,” Cole repeated, shaking his head.
“Look at it from our v
iewpoint, Cole. All we have to go on is Victor Treacher’s suspicious behavior. He wouldn’t be so hot to get his hands on you if he wasn’t afraid of who you’d talk to and what you’d say.”
He did his silent routine, but she knew his brain was worrying over the facts of the matter, so it was no surprise when he said, “You’re right, but he doesn’t want to get his hands on me. He wants me dead.”
“At the moment he has no way of accomplishing that. By now his agents are on their way back to Washington, and Treacher is being asked what they were doing and why it wasn’t on the grid. He won’t be able to send anyone after us until this blows over, and he’s not going anywhere.”
“Okay,” Cole said, “so we go get Richard. Tomorrow. Tonight we get a room and a meal, not particularly in that order.”
“Your stomach talking again?”
“I missed lunch, but I was thinking of you. It’s going to be a long, rough night.”
Her mind went in the obvious direction, her body helping by going halfway down that path just at the memory of that wheat field. But she hadn’t forgotten about the phone call she had to make later.
Or the confession.
COLE DIDN’T FEEL COMFORTABLE ENOUGH TO GO INTO a restaurant to eat, but he had Harmony order dinner from one of the medium-priced chain restaurants that brought the food out to your vehicle. That way he could keep his head down and go unnoticed. He hadn’t factored in the car.
“Cool ride,” the girl who brought them the take-out bag said. “How fast does it go?”
“Give me the food and I’ll be glad to show you.”
“Oh, sure.” She handed him the bag and took the money he gave her in return, backing into the restaurant, her eyes on him and the GT the entire way.
“This car isn’t exactly low profile,” Harmony said, watching the waitress watch him. “Maybe we should get different transportation.”
“I wouldn’t worry about that waitress too much,” Cole said, handing her the food. “She forgot she was holding a bag full of take-out boxes she picked up five minutes ago.”