Lucas sighed and took a drink of his coffee.
“You will be taking these cuffs off when we’re through here.”
“Breakfast is served,” Jane announced a few minutes later, depositing two steaming plates in front of them. “Can I get you anything else?”
Max glanced up to see Jane had directed that last part to Lucas.
“We’re great, thanks.” Lucas winked, and Max rolled her eyes, ignoring the pair of them.
She dug into her food, taking a small measure of satisfaction in the fact Lucas had to eat with his left hand to avoid showing off their little accessory. Unfortunately, it also meant he took even longer to eat than she did, and she was forced to wait for him to finish.
She watched him nibble on his remaining piece of bacon like it might be his last, then it took him another full minute to finish it off, which was no doubt purely for her benefit.
“Finally,” she murmured when he pushed the plate away.
“How was everything?” Jane magically appeared at the table and scooped up their empty plates.
“Perfect, we’ll take the check now.”
Jane set the dishes on the table behind them. “No problem.” She cast Lucas a blatantly flirtatious look and scrawled something on her notepad before tearing the receipt off and laying it on the table.
Did the woman not see Max practically sitting in his lap? They were joined by the hip to anyone who looked their way and Jane stood there salivating over Lucas like he was today’s special.
“You have a great day, now.” Jane sauntered off, bending down to retrieve something off the floor, making sure to angle her ass in Lucas’s direction.
Feeling a touch nauseous at the display—Lucas, on the other hand, didn’t appear to mind—she glanced over her shoulder just as two RCMP officers walked into the diner.
Max averted her face when the shorter one scanned the room. She waited a beat, then sneaked another peek just as the older, taller officer handed Jane a piece of paper.
A photograph?
Had they tied the truck to what happened in Riverbend and assumed this was the closest town to the wrecked vehicle?
From the corner of her eye, she saw the shorter one head in their direction.
Damn.
Turning her body toward Lucas, she caught a fistful of his shirt and tugged him closer. Surprise registered on his face. “Max?”
“Shut up,” she whispered, her gaze darting to his mouth. She had to be out of her mind to even think about it…
Footsteps echoed behind her.
Yeah. Out of her mind, but desperate enough not to care. With one last tug on his shirt, she opened her mouth over his.
She hadn’t thought far enough ahead to figure out what would happen when she got to this point. It was only supposed to be a quick kiss to prevent the officer from getting a good look at their faces, but the second her lips brushed Lucas’s, she only had one thing on her mind.
More.
More, and soft. God, his mouth was soft, and with every barely-there pass, she felt herself leaning into him until she was pressed up against him as much as her bag allowed. She was half-convinced she would have been in his lap already if they’d been anywhere else.
She tightened her fingers in his shirt, needing something to hang on to as he dragged her bottom lip between his and sank fully into the kiss.
More was right on the money. Loads more.
Lucas slid his free hand up into her hair, his thumb sweeping across her cheek in slow arcs that she felt all the way to her nerve endings. If she wasn’t already headed straight for sensory overload, the slow slide of his tongue across hers would have put her on a collision course.
Whimpering softly, she met the lazy pace he set, lingering over his mouth the way she would a dessert that was entirely too decadent, but tasted too good to even think about stopping.
His fingers curled around her nape, the hold both tender and possessive.
“Wait,” she pleaded a moment later, needing her heart to slow down a little.
“What was that you told me? Oh right, shut up.” He tipped her chin up, deepening the kiss until the feverish rhythm set her whole body on fire.
She looped her arm behind his neck, sliding her fingers up into his hair. He groaned in approval, his hand trailing down her back and slipping beneath the edge of her hoodie.
As much as she craved to feel his hands on her everywhere, she finally pushed him back enough to break from his mouth. He didn’t let her get far though, touching his forehead to hers as they both tried to catch their breath.
That… Holy crap that shouldn’t have been… She never meant…
God, she couldn’t even think straight.
Lucas teased his mouth across hers once more, doing that crazy soft thing until she made a needy sound, and then drew back.
He exhaled slowly. “I think I like it when you get jealous.”
She finally opened her eyes. “You think that kiss was because of our skanky waitress?” He could not be serious.
“It wasn’t?”
Apparently he was serious. She slid away from him. “Please.”
He didn’t look convinced, his cocky smile ruining the buzz humming through her.
“Get over yourself, Casanova.”
“So you weren’t making some kind of statement?”
She really had hit him hard with that gas can. “The only statement I’m thinking about right now involves ratting you out to the guys sitting at the counter.”
His gaze slid over her head to where the RCMP officers were seated, and he frowned.
“One of them was headed in our direction a few minutes ago.” She realized then that the sign for the bathroom was just past them on the right.
“That’s why you did it,” he finally pieced together, sounding a little…disappointed?
That couldn’t be right. Clearly the kiss had just messed with her head for a minute.
Just your head?
Ignoring that last thought, she forced herself to meet his eyes. “We need to go.”
Lucas stared back at her, his expression unreadable. No desire, no surprise, no disappointment, zip.
Great, now she was disappointed?
Jane took her time reaching the table, which probably had something to do with stopping to pick at some invisible piece of lint on her breast.
This time, though, Lucas seemed oblivious, his gaze locked on Max as though he’d find whatever he was looking for if he searched hard enough.
“What?”
He didn’t say anything.
More than a little distracted by trying to guess what he was thinking, she failed to notice he’d slipped her wallet from her bag to pay Jane.
“Hey!” Instantly aware of how loud her objection was, she tried again. “I thought this was your treat, babe?”
“I’m pretty sure it was dessert that I promised to take care of.” He handed Jane enough money to cover the bill, but never took his eyes off Max. “And I have every intention of making it worth the wait.” Every word dripped with seductive, sinful promise.
For Jane’s benefit, or hers? As if on cue, the waitress sighed and flounced back to the counter.
“After you.” He nudged Max out of the booth, adjusting the sweater and lacing his fingers through hers.
Her pulse kicked up the second his grip tightened, and she fixed her attention on the door ahead of them—and not on the RCMP.
And definitely not on Lucas.
She fell into step with him outside, breathing a little easier knowing no one was looking for them, at least not here.
Three blocks down from the diner, Lucas cut across a gravel parking lot, stopping next to a powder-blue Corvette that had passed its prime a decade or two ago.
He reached under the back tire.
“What are you doing?” She watched him produce a key and unlock the door.
“Probably what it looks like. Get in.” He opened the door and pulled the For Sale sticker out
of the window, tossing it into the backseat.
“You’re gonna steal this car?”
“No, we’re going to steal this car, but only if you get that sassy little ass of yours inside.” He cocked his head when she hesitated. “Do you really think grand theft auto is going to matter when you’re already wanted for murder?”
Since he had a point, she wiggled over the console separating the driver’s side from the passenger’s and settled in the seat. Lucas slid behind the wheel, flashing a smug and-you-didn’t-think-I-knew-what-I-was-doing smile.
When the car didn’t immediately start, she glanced at him. “Guess we know why it was for sale.”
He tried again and the car rumbled to life. She just wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not. Seeing as she was still cuffed to Lucas, she was leaning toward the not column.
“How did you know the key was there?”
“You didn’t hear those guys talking at the counter on our way out? About how their buddy’s car has been for sale over for a month and that by leaving the key he was just asking for someone to take it for a joyride?”
She shook her head. Maybe she would have caught that if she hadn’t been so focused on getting out of the diner without thinking about the mere inches separating her and Lucas.
When they hit the outskirts of town, headed east, she shook her head. “You know this is pointless, don’t you? I can’t help you even if I wanted to. I don’t know who killed Cara. I never saw the guy’s face.”
His fingers tightened around the wheel, his attention locked on the road. “We’ll figure something out.”
“Really? You know being some ex-military private security hotshot won’t help you any more than it helped Cara.”
“Worried about me?”
“Nothing is going to bring her back.”
“I know.”
She turned in the seat to face him. “Then I don’t think I need to tell you that the harder you pursue this, the bigger risk you run of ending up dead too. Or do you think you just got lucky with Snake and Edward Blackwater yesterday?”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“Maybe not to you, but I haven’t spent the last few months trying to fly under their radar to turn around and run straight into their territory.”
Lucas jerked the wheel, sending the car to the shoulder of the road, and slammed on the brakes. When he turned to her, his eyes were sharp, unforgiving. “What if the situation were reversed? Do you think Cara would just walk away from your murder because she was scared?”
“I’d be stupid not to be scared. I know exactly what Blackwater and his guys are capable of. I’ve witnessed it over and over, and I know that whatever proof existed has been destroyed or covered up.”
“By who?”
“Probably by the cops who really are on Blackwater’s payroll. Maybe even whoever was responsible for mine and Glen’s suspension in the first place.”
“Your partner.”
“Right before our suspension we were supposed to meet with an informant who claimed to have information on cops in Blackwater’s pocket. He never showed, but that only made me want to dig deeper. A week later Glen’s fiancée was killed by a car bomb meant for him.”
She shouldn’t have pushed so hard, should have known she and Glen couldn’t take on Blackwater all by themselves. When Glen had lost Jillian, he’d fallen apart. Their suspension, coming right on the heels of his loss, had nearly crushed him. Like Cara’s death, she would never get the memory of the grief on Glen’s face as Jillian’s casket was lowered into the ground out of her mind.
“It wasn’t your fault, you know.”
She met Lucas’s eyes, trying not to be moved by the understanding she saw in the dark green depths. “Just like Cara’s death wasn’t my fault either, right?”
Lucas glanced out the window, and she flattened her hand across her stomach, willing away the horrible ache she couldn’t outrun no matter how many miles she put between her and New York.
A cell phone rang, shattering the tense silence. Lucas dug his phone from his pocket, cursing under his breath when he glanced at the screen. He shot Max a look that warned her not to say a word.
“Are you trying to ruin my vacation?” Lucas asked when he finally answered.
Vacation? It was impossible to hear the other side of the conversation, but Lucas didn’t look happy about whoever was calling.
“Yeah. Now’s not a good time. I’ll have to get back to you later.” He kept his gaze fixed on the road, but seemed to be watching her from the corner of his eye. “It’s complicated and I can’t get into it right now.”
Max tugged impatiently on the arm left dangling as he used his right hand to hold the phone. “You really need to take these off,” she muttered, shrugging when he gave her a sharp look.
Who was he talking to that he didn’t want them to know he wasn’t alone?
Girlfriend? Wife? Cara used to joke that her brother would always be a bachelor, but that had been years ago…
Something nagged at the back of her mind, but she couldn’t figure out what. She gave up a minute later, after Lucas grew quiet, his expression tense.
“I’ll be in touch.” He hung up, and she grabbed the phone out of his hand.
“I need to let Sherri know that I’m okay.” When he opened his mouth to argue, she added, “Please. She’ll be worried about me.” And she really needed to tell her friend that she’d find a way to cover the cost of whatever damage had been done to the shop.
Nodding, he guided the car back onto the road. “Did you and Glen end up with any theories on which cops were on Blackwater’s payroll?”
“Just a few suspicions, nothing concrete.”
“What about your captain? Is he clean?”
She rubbed her thumb back and forth across the buttons on his phone. “I always thought so. Now, I’m not so sure.”
Lost in thought for a few minutes, she started to dial Sherri’s number just as a white car speared across Max’s line of vision. It only took another second for the red and blue lights on the roof to penetrate.
She craned her neck, watching as the car did a U-turn and followed them, lights flashing.
Chapter Seven
Glancing over at the speedometer, she cursed under her breath. “Are you crazy? Ever hear of a speed limit?”
“I was trying to make up for lost time,” he argued, easing off the gas.
“If we stop, we’re done.”
Lucas glanced at the pursuing vehicle in the rearview mirror. “Or they’ll just write us a ticket.”
“For driving around in a stolen car?”
“They don’t know that yet.”
“Unless you can guarantee me that someone couldn’t have reported it stolen two minutes after we drove away, we are not stopping. It’s too risky.”
He shook his head. “I’m driving, it’s my call.”
She looked over her shoulder at the RCMP car closing in on them. Lucas guided the car to the side of the road and turned off the ignition.
“This is insane.” She watched the other vehicle pull up behind them.
“So noted.”
“And how are you going to explain these?” She jerked her arm up to eye-level in case he’d forgotten the precarious position he’d put them in. Even if they could get away with just a speeding ticket, the handcuffs would not escape notice.
“Don’t worry about it.”
“The way I shouldn’t worry about being Bertha’s bitch when this stunt lands me in prison?”
“Bertha?” His lips twitched.
Oh, he was so not grinning at her.
The officer stepped out of his car and approached theirs. The second he reached the rear of the vehicle, Lucas cranked the ignition and punched the gas. Gravel spun from the tires and the cop stumbled back.
He regained his footing and ran for his car just as they zipped around the next bend, leaving him behind them.
Max tipped her head. “What now, genius?”
> “Since he’s probably already on the radio calling it in, meaning more cars will be closing in on us faster than you can say Royal Canadian Mounted Police, we need to ditch the car.”
She surveyed the dense woods they flew past. “Ditch it,” she echoed. “Where?”
“Not now, Max.”
“Hey, I wasn’t the one stupid enough to drive twenty-five miles over the speed limit cuffed to a wanted fugitive.”
The RCMP car rounded the last bend, gaining on them.
Lucas whipped the Corvette down a side road on the right. Max gripped the side of her seat as they bounced over the gravel road, clouds of dust mushrooming behind the car.
“This might lead to a dead end.” She wouldn’t have thought it necessary to state the obvious until Lucas floored the gas pedal.
“You should know that I really hate backseat drivers.”
“Then it’s a good thing I’m next to you—” The rest was cut off as she sank her teeth into her bottom lip as he whipped them around another sharp turn.
They were driving parallel to the Saint John River now. Waterfront lots and cottages blurred past.
“Lucas!” She braced for impact at the sight the Maple tree that was suddenly in the middle of the road that forked off in either direction.
“Jesus Christ.” He wrenched on the wheel, losing the driver’s side mirror as they barely scraped by the tree. “Out,” he snapped a minute later when the car skidded to a stop around another bend, the thick brush partially concealing the car.
She shoved his phone in her bag and slid it up over her shoulder. She was already scrambling over the seats after him by the time he got the door open.
He gave the area only a cursory scan before pulling her after him. Dead leaves crunched under their feet, their breaths clouding on the crisp air as they tried to get as much distance between them and the approaching siren as possible.
“This way.” Lucas led her down a twisting path that took them closer to the water. They emerged beside a toolshed tucked into the woods next to a waterfront cottage.
Breathing hard, Max tugged on the cuffs. “Take these off.”
“I can’t.”
“Lucas—”
He dragged her around to the shed’s front door. “I don’t have the key.”
Trust Me: The Lassiter Group, Book 1 Page 9