“Car crash.” Erin said the words with bemusement, her mouth softening into a weary smile. “Car crash was a good one. Missionaries—we used missionaries, too. Even academics who were off on some sort of sabbatical. That was my personal favorite.” She sighed. “It doesn’t matter, Zander. My mom—they weren’t around. They traveled. All the time.” She was holding something else back but rushed on before he could focus on it. “But they called me the other day, absolutely scared out of their minds. They’ve been abducted, Zander. I have to go get them.”
“You have to—no, no, no,” he said, the reality of what she was saying shaking him hard. Was she insane? “Erin, that’s not going to happen.”
He could see the mutinous line to her lips and his own anger flared, but he forced himself to tamp it down. To get the information first. “So your parents have been abducted. By whom? And where? And why?” And for how much? He didn’t ask that last question, but he could tell from Erin’s demeanor that the money wasn’t really the issue. She’d pulled it out of somewhere—how, he didn’t know. She was also still waging a quiet war with herself, and he eased his stance, forced himself to take a drink of lemonade. She followed suit, then seemed to come to some kind of decision.
“It’s like this,” she said, setting her cup down on the short stone wall beside them. “My parents are in Mexico, just over the border, really. They don’t have a lot of money, typical tourists, no big deal. Well, they went to the wrong place, said the wrong thing—somehow gave people the impression that they came from money.” She smiled grimly. “That would be me, I guess. But more likely they’d just been drinking too much, being stupid. And they must have said it too loud or too long, because the next thing they knew they were ambushed and tied up and a phone was shoved at them. So they called me.”
“Uh-huh,” Zander said. Something still wasn’t right here, but he also set his cup down to give himself another precious second to tighten his control. “And explain to me why you didn’t immediately call the police?”
“Because it’s my mother!” Erin said, which made no sense at all. “My parents, I mean. Both of them. Their abductors said not to involve the police under any circumstances. And I’ve gotten the money together—it’s going to be ready in two days, tops. They—they said they’d wait. But not for long. So I’m getting the money transferred down to a Bank of America in Laredo, and—”
“Laredo?” Zander sharpened his gaze on her. “Laredo, Texas? So they’re in Nuevo Laredo?”
“You’ve heard of it?” The hope in her voice was almost too much for him. And yeah, he’d heard of Nuevo Laredo, from guys who’d been based in Fort Bliss, about two hours north of the border town. The place was an armpit. There was no way Erin was going there. But he just nodded and she went on. “Anyway, we’re going to meet over there once I arrive. I give them money, they give me my…parents. That’s it.”
She sagged a little, and Zander didn’t say anything for a moment. When he did speak, he drew on every ounce of training to keep his voice incredibly calm. “When are you leaving?” he asked.
She sagged a little more. Clearly it was just the expectation of his rebuttal that was keeping her upright at this point. How had she been carrying this around all of these days, not telling anyone? “Wednesday morning. According to my bank rep, the money will be waiting for me in the Laredo branch by noon.”
He eyed her. “You have a passport?”
“Yes, I do,” she said, biting off the words, irritated despite her being overwhelmed. He didn’t doubt that she had one, actually, but he was pretty sure she’d never used it. That thought struck him oddly—safety-girl Erin Connelly, with her shiny blue passport, wondering when she’d finally go off and see the world. His lips twisted. She’d picked a damn fine way to get started.
“All right, fine,” he said. “Let me make some calls, talk to some people. You say you have no idea who took your parents?”
“What?” Erin was already shaking her head. “No, Zander. You can’t call anyone. I have to come alone, with the money—they’ll give me all the instructions I need when I get there. It’s all supposed to be very simple and very straightforward. I just wanted to get a little information from you, that’s all. I don’t need your help.”
“My help is my information,” Zander said. “So how are they going to contact you—your cell phone? Or is there some sort of burner phone you’re supposed to call?”
She blinked at him. “A what?”
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. Zander tightened his jaw. “Erin, you have no business going anywhere and doing anything with these people. You should call the—”
“Fine!” She exploded in front of him, but the little mini kind of explosion that was her stock-in-trade. Her voice was a hiss, not intended to draw attention. Her hands were clenched, but down at her sides. “I appreciate you talking to me, Zander. I appreciate you giving me the information you have. Even this little bit is more than I had coming in here, and I feel better. So thank you. Now you can forget we ever had this conversation and I will go on about my business and you can go on about yours. Please give my regards to your mother, and…” And here she faltered, looking away from Zander and then looking back at him, her eyes shining with tears she refused to shed but which were there, dammit, barely banked. “Take care of yourself, Zander. I know I didn’t say this when it mattered, and I don’t deserve to say it even now. But please take care of yourself. Do everything you feel you need to do, but just…” She ended the words almost on a sob. “Stay safe.”
Aw, for the love of—
“Erin,” Zander said, and she stopped, already half-turned away from him, though he knew it was more her steeling herself against the long walk through the yard, than for any hold his words really had. “Erin, wait a minute. I’ll walk you to your car.”
She shook her head furiously, still not meeting his gaze, and he smiled, though she couldn’t see it. He held out his hand, and she slipped her small, white fingers into his. And despite all of the insanity she’d just dumped on him, he felt the jolt again. Just as much as he had the very first time he’d ever laid eyes on her.
He was so screwed.
Chapter 5
Erin drew up sharply as Zander’s hand closed around hers. She lifted her chin, meeting his gaze as he smiled down at her from what seemed like a great height. “You ready to do this?” he asked, as if he wasn’t simply walking her across a lawn, but running through enemy territory.
“I’m good,” she said, appreciating the illusion for what it was. Look, see? The two ex-friends making up, look at how happy they are, happy and normal and not just about to leave each other again forever, whatever, it’s over, who cares. She smiled more fiercely. “Do I look okay?”
“You look great.” The words were automatic, but they bolstered Erin anyway, because she realized that she probably looked the same as she always did in Zander’s eyes. He’d had no idea how much she’d labored over her makeup back when they were dating, piling it all on only to wipe the vast majority of it right off again, so she didn’t look like some sort of clown. He’d never once told her she needed to do anything different with herself. He took her however she showed up. And today—well, today she barely had any makeup on at all. Mascara and funerals didn’t mix in the best of cases. Mascara, funerals, and coming face-to-face with the ex-boyfriend you’d screwed over four years ago was a recipe for cosmetics disaster.
But still. Even Zander would notice if she had runny black lines streaking her face. And he’d tell her, too.
They made their exit, smiling, chatting, steadily walking through the crowd of mildly curious onlookers, and Erin managed to get out of the house and down the long sidewalk, approaching her car before she realized how…awkward this all was. She had basically told Zander that she wasn’t interested in his help. That he’d done all he needed to do, that she’d gotten the information she’d wanted. But what was that information, actually? She couldn’t remember much beyond Zander’s stormy gray eye
s, his locked-up jaw, his beautiful mouth tightening into a frown—
“Erin?” She heard the voice as if from far away, and she blinked up at him, confused as he gestured to the row of vehicles lining his street. “Car,” he said, when she didn’t immediately respond. “Which one is yours?”
“Oh! Oh. Sorry. It’s the blue Beetle, right at the end of the…” Fumbling, she reached for her purse. And her fingers brushed empty space. Her purse wasn’t there.
“A Beetle?” Zander asked, scandal clear in his voice. “All the cars in the world you could buy, and you bought a VW Beetle?”
Her purse was in her car. Of course it was in her car.
Erin sighed and started walking. “It gets great gas mileage and I can park anywhere,” she said. And yup, sure enough, she spied the tiny clutch purse exactly where she’d flung it, on her front passenger seat.
“This it?” Zander asked from behind her, and she turned around to him resolutely, all bright eyes and happy smile.
“Yup! Thank you so much for talking with me,” she said. “I really appreciate you—”
“Where’re your keys?” Zander, ever one to cut to the chase, narrowed his gaze on her.
Erin smiled more determinedly. “In my car,” she said. “In my purse right there.” Surrendering to her better sense, she caved. “I don’t suppose you’d mind lending me your cellphone to call Triple A? I have a membership.”
“Of course you do,” Zander said. He leaned down to peer through the glass, then ran his fingers along the edge of the window. He glanced back at her, shaking his head. “You don’t need Triple A.” He reached into the pocket of his khakis and pulled out something that could have belonged to Inspector Gadget. Then he unfolded it. And unfolded it again.
“What’s that?” Erin asked, letting the doubt leak into her voice. “I don’t really see how this helps—wait, what are you doing?”
“Relax. Consider it a souped-up butter knife.” Zander peeled back the lip of the rubber edge of the Beetle’s window, then slipped the flat of a very long, thin blade into the narrow space. His entire body tensed as he concentrated on the task at hand, and Erin allowed herself just to gaze at him, unconcerned with what he thought. He wasn’t paying attention to her, after all. He was focused on the car, on the lock he had no chance of picking, on the—
Chink.
Zander straightened, grinning, and popped open Erin’s car door.
“You have got to be kidding me!” Erin scowled first at him, then at her door. “Anyone could have opened that!”
“Well, not just anyone,” Zander said, but his smile didn’t lessen any.
“This is what they taught you in the army?” She couldn’t help it, she sounded like a kindergarten teacher.
He shrugged. “This, I already knew. The army only perfected it.”
“Well, I mean, thank you, of course.” Erin felt ill at ease all over again, with Zander looming so close. “I mean, I really appreciate it and I also appreciate you talking to me and—what?” She frowned up at him. He’d said something, but she’d talked right over his words. “I’m sorry, what?”
Zander shook his head. “I said, give me ’til tomorrow night. I can come over with the intel—the information you need. I’ll have maps, hotel information, rental agencies…” He skewered her with a look. “I don’t suppose you have any of that, right?”
“I was going to get it,” Erin said defensively.
“Well, now you don’t have to,” he said. “I’ve got to do something tomorrow. Might as well be this.”
“Zander, I…” She paused, her mind full of too many things to say and no way to say them. No way to thank him again without running the risk of falling apart. No way to tell him how sorry she was without sounding like a broken record, a useless broken record that he’d put on the shelf years ago.
The pause went on a little too long. Zander’s mood shifted, his tone turning just a touch harder. “Erin, you got something else I should know about? Something you’re not telling me, for whatever stupid reason you’ve created in your head?”
“What? No!” Just like that, anger zipped through her. “You know, forget about it. Don’t bother coming over tomorrow. I’ll ask someone else for help.”
“Someone else.” The skepticism in Zander’s voice was palpable, which just served to irritate her further. “Someone else like who?”
“Someone else like…like my boyfriend,” Erin snapped, instantly warming to the idea. After all, the fake boyfriend story had worked for her housemate Anna, why couldn’t it work for her? It wasn’t like she was some sort of troll. She could have a boyfriend. She should have a boyfriend. And as far as Zander needed to know, she did have a boyfriend. And he was awesome. “He’s not a trained soldier or anything, so I didn’t want to make him worry. But suddenly it seems like a much better idea than bothering you. So forget I asked.”
“A boyfriend.” To her surprise, Zander didn’t snap back at her. He barely missed a beat, in fact, smiling down at her as his eyebrows drifted up. “Your boyfriend know you came all the way out here today?”
Erin stiffened. “Of course he did. Why wouldn’t I tell him?”
“No reason at all.” Somehow, he’d shifted closer. How had he been able to get closer? They were just standing beside the open door of her VW, where she was inches away from freedom, but now all of the air seemed to have been sucked out from between them, with nothing left but memories, memories too sharp in Erin’s mind to ignore. Zander’s lean, lanky body against hers, his fingers in her hair, skimming her skin, tracing every minute curve and dip of her breasts, her waist, her hips, her legs, her—
“But I’m still going to get you that information, Erin,” Zander said, his voice now low, almost hypnotic. “So you still don’t need to worry your boyfriend about it. Besides,” he said, when Erin made to protest, “how would he feel about that, knowing you went and looked me up, when all the time he was just sitting there, completely out of the loop on something that clearly has you all jacked up. You think that would go over well?”
She blinked at him, anxiety streaking through her, which made no sense, since it was anxiety about a completely nonexistent boyfriend. And there was Zander, as smug and self-assured as he always was, as if he knew exactly what she was thinking even before she knew it herself. “Fine!” she said. “Fine. I do need the information, so thank you in advance. I’ll see you, um, tomorrow, then. I’ll make dinner or something.” As soon as she said the words, she wanted to call them back. “I mean—”
“Dinner sounds good,” Zander said, cutting her off, his grin going a little broader. “I’m always up for food. Your boyfriend going to be there, too?”
“What? Oh. No, of course not.” Erin felt her cheeks flush, and prayed Zander couldn’t tell in the bright sunshine. “I mean…he has to work late tomorrow. At the office.” There, that sounded good. Not only a boyfriend, but a boyfriend who worked in an office, and who worked late. A very conscientious boyfriend, then. Someone looking to get ahead. Probably someone who didn’t make her heart pound in frantic confusion so intense it bordered on fear, even when they weren’t doing anything but standing next to each other. Someone who didn’t make her breath uneven and set her hands trembling, just by the fact that he was so big, so close, so real that every one of her nerve endings was sitting up and taking notice. A nice boyfriend. A safe boyfriend.
She was really beginning to see the allure of this whole fake-boyfriend thing, and gave Zander one last smile. “So I’ll see you tomorrow…wait. What are you doing?” Zander had placed one hand on the roof of her car, the other on her door. He was leaning down toward her, and there was nowhere for Erin to go. He was warm and vital and his gaze was searing hot, and Erin found herself staring at his mouth, a mouth she suddenly wanted so badly that her own lips parted, her breath ragged in her throat.
“Don’t you think we should get this thing between us out of our systems, then, Erin?” Zander murmured. “Before it becomes something you
do need to explain to your boyfriend?”
“This…thing?” she asked, and honest to God, she meant to raise her hand and place it on his chest to push him back, to stop him, only when her fingers connected with the solidity of Zander’s abs through the thin cotton shirt, her eyes almost crossed. “We don’t even like each other anymore,” she said faintly.
His words were so quiet she barely registered them. “Who said we needed to like each other? It’s just a kiss.”
For some reason, that made infinite sense. Without saying another word, Erin stood on her tiptoes and it still wasn’t enough. Zander met her more than halfway, though, not reaching down, not forcing it, just leaning in close enough for her to feel his breath against her face. Then his lips came down on hers.
—
The heat that blasted through Zander was so intense that he was glad for the grip he had on the bright-blue roller skate Erin called a car. He’d known this was coming the moment she’d put her hand in his and allowed him to drag her across the yard and out into the street where they could actually be alone, without the covert stares of everyone with an ounce of James blood in their veins. Some of the stares had been amused, some of them had been worried, some of them just curious. But none of them mattered now.
The taste of Erin’s mouth made his pulse go apeshit as every muscle in his body clenched. She’d intended the kiss as a quick good-bye, he knew. She’d been a master of the quick exit four years ago, quivering with anger and outrage and shock. But this time, Erin was shaking in an entirely different way. This time her breathing was as ragged with need as his was. And this time Erin did make a sound, and it cut right to the core of him, her fingers gripping his shirt as she gave a low, almost desperate moan.
Boyfriend, his lily-white ass.
Zander let go of the car and reached for Erin, hauling her up against him. She would have squeaked if she could draw breath, but the wide skirt of her dress didn’t prevent her legs from parting, her body from arching. Because he didn’t have a death wish, Zander lifted her over the part of his body that was so hard and ready to go that he’d probably explode if the breeze shifted, and instead pulled her against his chest, her breasts soft and round and perfect against him, her fingers suddenly in his hair, her mouth open and giving as much as she took, even—God—even shuddering hard when he pressed his tongue inside and claimed that much more of her.
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