by Debra Kayn
His gut told him something was wrong with the situation.
Chapter Six
Gia turned to her right after the motel and made a quick left onto the street before her turn to go back to the duplex. She tightened her fingers on the steering wheel. Fear made her grip slippery.
The blue colored car behind her had followed her for three blocks after she'd left the store parking lot.
She glanced from the road to her mirror in a rapid pattern. They couldn't have found her already. Not yet.
The car continued to follow her.
She'd done everything possible to make sure she left no trail. Her eyes burned. Afraid to blink, she kept watching behind her.
Two months ago, she never would've imagined her life would take such a drastic change.
She peered in her rear view mirror. The dust covering her back window from her trip made it nearly impossible to see anything but a dark moving car. Without using her blinker, she turned to go back to the main road. There was no way she'd lead them to the duplex if there were a slim chance they hadn't found out where she was staying.
The car turned, too.
"Shit," she whispered, leaning closer to the steering wheel, concentrating on keeping the vehicle on the right side of the street and not hitting the cars parked at the curb.
She gazed all around her looking for someone, anyone, who she could seek out for help if she needed to make a run for it. The men after her had already run her off the road back in Seattle. Forced to flee for her life, she'd drove through someone's yard and missed crashing into a big Fir tree by a foot. The commotion of her erratic driving made the men take off and leave the area. Maybe if she pulled out on Main Street and weaved through traffic, they'd take off in the other direction.
A break in traffic came, she pulled out onto the main road and headed toward the store. She needed to keep herself surrounded by people. The men—she couldn't even call them by name, because she had no idea who they were, only what they wanted—would have no choice but to leave her alone. That's why she'd left her condominium and Seattle. There were too many places they could get to her back home.
Ahead, in the other lane, a motorcycle rider rode toward her. Her body tightened with adrenaline and hope. The rumble of the engine roared past her feeding her with relief. She stared in the rearview mirror and squinted, studying the biker until she had a good look at the back of him.
It was Swiss.
She'd recognize his size and skullcap anywhere. She slowed down and made a U-turn in the middle of the road, getting a look at the driver in the navy colored car behind her and almost slammed on her brakes.
The middle-aged woman only glanced her way and continued driving.
Gia sagged in the driver's seat. A female? One who appeared harmless as if she was coming home from a PTA meeting or the library.
She looked in the side mirror. The car continued on in the opposite direction, growing smaller in her view. Caught in confusion, she jerked her gaze to the road in front of her and panic-slammed her foot on the brake.
Swiss had stopped his motorcycle in the middle of the street. The forward movement coupled with the tension in her shoulders left her breathless. She stared at the back of him and panted. What was he doing?
He took off, roaring ahead of her. She groaned seeing the stop sign that almost had her rear-ending Swiss with her car during her negligence. Caught up in her drama believing it was the men after her that had followed her from the grocery store, she'd almost killed Swiss. She needed to get a grip.
Double checking for traffic to her left and right, she pulled across the road safely and drove slowly to the duplex. She parked behind Swiss and instead of getting out of her car, she sat inside and tried to stop shaking. It would do no good to have Swiss witness her falling apart.
Her plan to act normal, hide out in Montana and have the security of knowing someone capable of protecting her lived next door came down to her holding it together and appearing normal.
Swiss swung his leg over his bike, looked her way, and lifted his chin before heading to his side of the duplex. She waited until he'd closed the door, and then got out on shaky legs and opened her trunk to carry her groceries inside.
The hair on the back of her neck tickled. She glanced behind her, dropped the sack loaded with cans of vegetable soup, and groaned as she heard the telltale sign of tin rolling over the pavement in all different directions.
There was nobody behind her.
Her paranoia beating her at every turn, she needed to get inside and regroup more than she needed to eat.
Grabbing the other two plastic shopping bags, she used her elbow to close the trunk and hurried across the overgrown lawn to the door. Her anxiety heightened the closer her hand got to the lock until her keyring rattled against the slot. The urge to run inside and shut herself away from the outside world overwhelmed her, and she stumbled inside when the door came loose.
Throwing the lock, she sank down on the floor and hugged the grocery bags. She rocked back and forth, pushing herself out of her fear. As strength came back and her heart rate calmed, she stood and went into the kitchen. Only a small tremor remained in her body, leaving her exhausted.
Without any cookware to prepare food, she relied on prepackaged dinners and grab-and-eat snacks. The cans of soup and cheap, manual can opener she'd dropped under her car were to fill her stomach and comfort her during the long evenings when she let her mind go places she wanted to forget about.
Nevermind, that her main meal of the day would be cold soup. She was desperate.
She opened a bag of pretzels. If she ate ten sticks at a time, the bag would last her a long time.
A knock startled her. She gasped in surprise, swallowed wrong, and choked. Pressing her hand to her chest, she tried to muffle her cough and failed, sending a spray of pretzel pieces out of her mouth.
Using her forearm to cover her mouth, she hurried to the window and peeked out. Swiss stood on the other side of the door and with her relief that it wasn't a killer, she gave way to a harder and deeper cough to clear her throat and stop her esophagus from strangling her.
When she caught her breath, she inhaled deeply to test if the tickle stopped. Hopeful that her coughing fit was over, she opened the door a crack.
"Hey," said Gia, then coughed hard, tears filling her eyes. Her throat seized, and she needed a drink. "Sor...hang..."
She shut the door, bent at the waist, and coughed as hard as she could. Her throat protested every attempt to talk. She walked into the kitchen, put her head under the faucet, and drank from the stream of water. Wiping her mouth, she coughed one more time and cleared her throat.
"What happened?" said Swiss behind her.
She jolted and turned around. "Shit. I...what are...?"
She cleared her throat again and wiped underneath her eyes. He wasn't supposed to be in her side of the duplex. She'd shut the door to keep him out. She was sure of it.
"I swallowed a pretzel wrong." She pointed to the door and inhaled a hot breath. "We can talk outside. The fresh air will probably help sooth my throat."
He held up a bag containing her cans of soup. "You dropped them at the back of your car."
Oh, God. Her chest warmed, and she ducked her head to hide the pleasure. He'd picked up her mess for her. She'd have substance to put in her stomach. He saved her from going back outside.
"Thank you." She took the sack from him and put it on the counter. "I was going to pick everything up and then I got hungry."
"The pretzels," he said.
"Yes. The pretzels." She shook her head, covering her embarrassment. "Thank you, again."
"You need to stop with the thanks," he muttered.
"Oh..." She bit her lip. "It's the polite thing to do."
"No needed with me." Swiss stepped back, took one full sweep of her side of the duplex and frowned.
She walked around him to the door and held on to the handle. The excuses she'd planned in the chance that he'd
glimpse inside her place fled. She couldn't come up with even one believable justification for having no furniture or even a fork. Or, leaving the place in the hideously slum-like condition she found the duplex when she'd arrived.
"What's going on, Gia?" Swiss's eyes softened. "You've been here four days and today was the first day you've bought groceries."
"Are you keeping track?"
His cheek twitched, deepening his scar and making him squint more. "Gia?"
"I had a flat tire," she said.
"Which was fixed two days ago."
She laughed his concern away. "You work during the day. How do you know this wasn't my second or third trip to the store?"
"I know what goes on where I live, and lady, you live on the other side of the wall from me."
"But, that's—"
"You have nothing in here. Not even a suitcase," he said.
She gave him a slow blink. "Everything is in my bedroom. Furniture will have to wait until I get a job. Maybe you don't understand that money doesn't materialize because we wish it and..."
Swiss walked away from her, deeper into the room, and stopped when he had a view of her bedroom. She gritted her teeth at his audacity to look at her living space.
"What are you doing?" she asked.
"You have a backpack and a black garbage bag on the floor in your room. Where's your bed?" Swiss walked toward her, and she pressed her back against the doorframe.
He seemed twice as big stalking her way.
"I'll get one," she said, hating the way her voice cracked. "Really, Swiss. I don't know where any of this is your concern."
"Because this part of the duplex isn't livable or can you not smell the mold or see the rot all around you?"
"Again, it's not your place to question how I live," she said.
He turned around and stepped into her kitchen, went through her bags, and finally looked at her. "Are you running from an ex?"
"No." She crossed her arms. "Of course not, and stop looking through my stuff."
"Who are you running from?"
"Stagnant life." She shrugged. "My last job wasn't a comfortable fit for me. The area I lived in no longer seemed exciting. I needed a change, and the timing was right for me to take another step toward my future. I'm hoping Montana will give me somewhere to call home, and I can find a job that brings me happiness. Are you telling me you've never picked up everything and taken off for somewhere better?"
"No."
His sharp, blunt answer brought her head back. "Maybe because I'm younger, you can't understand a single woman's wanderlust to try new things and meet new people."
Wanderlust? She had to shut up. Explaining herself for no reason when he had no need for the false information she fed him, served her no purpose.
Whatever stance he took in life, he'd never know how desperately she needed his presence to keep the men hunting her away.
"Yo, Swiss," yelled a voice outside.
She recognized Mel's voice and stuck up her chin. Swiss could leave now.
His eyes hardened, and a huff of air escaped his lips and fanned her cheek. She stepped back, only now aware of how close he'd come to her. The intense strain between them bowed tight, her skin itched.
Swiss glanced into her kitchen and said, "Come with me."
She pressed against the doorframe. "Where?"
"To get food." He walked past her, brushing his arm against hers.
She only took a second to make up her mind that wherever he would take her, she'd go, because it was better than being alone and even though the car following her ended up not being the people she feared, she still shook from the fright.
Chapter Seven
Mel handed Swiss the bag from Jolyn's Burger Barn and opened his mouth. Swiss shook his head, cutting off any talk. The only thing he needed to do at the moment was feed Gia and get her situated on his couch before she fell over from whatever bothered her.
She shook, and her voice had trembled the whole time he stood in her part of the duplex. The other times he'd been around her, she held her own. Something fucked up was going on, and the last thing he needed was to get involved with a woman running away from trouble.
He pointed at the sofa. "Sit."
Gia stepped over to the couch and sat on the edge. He grabbed a plate out of the cupboard, took one of his hamburgers and half his fries out of the sack and dumped everything on the plate. Most of all, he wanted Gia sitting down with a cushion under her ass, no smells interrupting her appetite, and a meal in her. Maybe then, she'd feed her nervous energy.
She had no furniture, not even a bed in the fucking place. How long had it been since she'd relaxed?
He returned to her and put the plate in front of her on the coffee table. "Eat."
"I can't eat your dinner," she said.
"There's enough for both of us. Get some food in you. I'm going to go outside and talk to Mel. When I get back, make sure at least half of that's gone." He walked out the door not giving her a chance to argue with him.
Outside, Mel pointed behind Swiss toward the duplex. "What's going on in there?"
"Nothing." Swiss lowered his voice. "Do you have your phone on you?"
"Yeah."
"Do me a favor and take down the info on the license plate of the Honda parked at the curb, along with the name Gia." Swiss lowered his voice. "Send it to Rod and ask him to pull the specs and get me everything he can on Gia."
"Is she in trouble?" whispered Mel.
"Are you going to do the run or not?" Swiss stepped backward toward the door. "Do this for me, and our night of working together is good."
Mel grinned. "Got you."
Swiss turned and went inside. Hopefully, Rod would run the plates with no problem, and he'd have answers before it got dark outside.
Gia sat on the couch where he'd left her. The plate now on her lap and only half the burger remained in her hand. He grabbed the sack with his food in it, skipped sitting on the bar stool, and leaned against the edge of the counter facing his guest.
She chewed rapidly gazing at him. He took a bite of his burger and let her have time to get used to him. To know what motivated a person, he must first observe.
Hell, he'd observed her from the moment he surprised her in the middle of the night and almost got his head blown off. In the looks department, she couldn't be ignored. He'd have a hard time finding any man who wouldn't enjoy sitting across the room from her watching her eat.
A solid woman. Not too skinny. No extra weight that wasn't appreciated. Hell, she walked out of his fantasy and into his side of the duplex, and he still wasn't sure why.
He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "How old are you?"
Her chin dipped with her swallow, and she said, "Thirty-two."
He nodded. That proved his theory wrong. She wasn't alone and out on her own for the first time, and her recent tire blowout wasn't the end of the world to have upset her enough she showed fear. Not at her age. At thirty-two years old, women had a good grasp of life and how to adjust to changes without falling apart.
Gia stood holding her empty plate. "Thank you for dinner. Can I pay you back tomorrow night by cooking for you?"
His chest warmed, surprising him. He'd seen what Gia could offer him for a meal, and yet she'd offered. Her manners more than what he was used to, he had a hard time thinking of how to answer her. One thing was for certain, he wasn't stepping back in her side of the duplex because the noxious fucking smell even ruined his appetite.
"I'll tell you what." He set the almost empty bag on the counter beside him. "I need to go to the clubhouse tomorrow after work. You can come with me. The members usually hang around, drink, eat, and whatever. We can eat there."
"That sounds fun." She approached him. "Will I need to bring anything?"
"Nope." He slid off the countertop and took the plate out of her hands. "I'll swing by here after work, take a shower, and then you can ride with me out to Prez's house."
Her eyes roun
ded. "On your motorcycle?"
"Problem?"
She shook her head. "I don't think so."
"Good."
"I should probably go and leave you alone to enjoy the rest of your evening." She inhaled deeply, raised her shoulders, and never made a move toward the door.
Her hesitation had him opening his mouth. "I'm not doing anything."
"Oh?" She dropped her encouraged gaze when he continued looking at her.
The hope in her voice called to him. If any other woman stood in front of him, waiting around, hoping to spend time with him, he'd know exactly what she wanted and how to entertain her. He'd take her right back to his bedroom and fuck her.
Gia was different. The vibes she gave off weren't centered around sex.
Usually, he hung around women who hung around the club. They were after companionship and to feel good, and expected nothing in return. Solitary women who enjoyed their independence. And, they enjoyed sex.
Gia needed more, or maybe she expected more from him. He had nothing to give her, except a place to sit and waste an hour or two. He inhaled through his nose suddenly and ripped off his skullcap. He had Rod on point to get him information on Gia. Maybe it wasn't a bad idea to keep her close until he found out what she was doing in Haugan.
"Remote control for the television is on the coffee table." He stepped away.
She could quietly watch a show and get comfortable on his couch, and he'd find something else to do. He walked into his bedroom, scanned the area, and grabbed the weakened chain Mel had taken off his motorcycle the other day, and Swiss had promised to fix and returned to the living room.
He opened the toolbox at the end of the couch and removed a screwdriver.
Gia turned the volume down on the television. "Is it broken?"
He fingered the chain until he found the bent bar on the bad link and held it up. "I need to switch this link with a new one."
"Is it Mel's chain he took off the other night?" she asked.
He glanced at her and nodded. "Riders always care a spare. Mel will need this one for a backup once I fix it."
