Mobster A. J. Moretti? Gangland style murder?
Oh. My. God!
She’d known he was shady, but the Mafia? And what about the two men who had most likely killed him? They had seen her in the parking garage and now WTXF had just obligingly handed them her name. Omigod! Her mind had started racing and, as usual, arguing with itself. I should’ve told the police about them! I should tell them about them now!
Are you crazy? They already think you know more than you were telling them. If they find out you actually do know more than you were telling them, they’ll think you had something to do with the murder! They might even arrest you!
Okay, okay. I won’t go to the police. But what am I going to do? I can’t just stay here like a sitting duck, waiting for those men to come sneaking into my house and slit my throat!
You can disappear. Go to a place where no one would even think of looking for you. At least for a while, until you’ve had a chance to think about it. That way if they do come looking for you, they won’t find you. You’ll be safe until you finally decide on a course of action.
Her face had brightened. Disappear. Of course, I’ll disappear. She’d jumped to her feet, ready to go pack her bag and leave. Wait. I need money to disappear. She’d stood there, biting her lips, flapping her hands, shifting her weight from foot to foot. Okay. First thing in the morning, I’ll pack a bag, go to the bank and close out all my accounts, and just…drive off into oblivion.
Ouch. Oblivion? Really? Not the best choice of words, considering the circumstances.
Okay. How about…light out for parts unknown?
Much better.
Decision make, heart considerably lighter, Kylie had turned off the television and laid back down, falling asleep almost instantly.
That’s why, when her house blew up a little after two A.M., she was able to escape with her life. Because the person or persons who had thrown the incendiary device that destroyed her home, had thrown it through her bedroom window at the back of the house, thus unknowingly giving her a chance to simply walk out her own front door, wearing nothing but a pair of sleep shorts and a scruffy old T-shirt, with a hand-knitted, granny square afghan draped over her shoulders.
That was last night. And now, here she was, out in the middle of Bumfuck, Virginia. On the run in a car that had broken down. And it was raining.
Raining! She snorted. The word “rain” did not even begin to do justice to the deluge that was crashing down all around her. Thunder, lightning, wind gusts so fierce they shook her little car until she feared it would tip over, and a downpour so heavy, she couldn’t see anything beyond her windshield. And so loud, she couldn’t imagine ball bearings beating down on the metal roof would have sounded any louder.
“Shit!”
Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit!
She smiled thinking of how incensed her father would have been to hear that word coming from her lips. He would have given her thirty strokes with his belt for sure. But let’s face it. There are just times when only the “s” word will do. And this is definitely one of those times. Although she used it fairly often these days just to prove to herself that she was no longer under the sway of her asshole of a father, as a means of defying the man who would have beaten her to a bloody pulp for even thinking that word.
She drew a deep breath and plunked her forehead down on the steering wheel. Tears began to stream down her cheeks. Damn it! She hadn’t cried when she’d discovered her boss bleeding all over his desk from a gunshot to the head. She hadn’t cried when she’d discovered Brad in bed with Fiona. The entire time it had taken her to strip the house of Brad’s possessions, she hadn’t shed a tear. Okay, that was a lie. She’d cried for four hours straight. Not because she’d loved Brad and had been devastated by his unfaithfulness. Oh, sure, Brad had been fun to be with, but she hadn’t loved him. Just the wonderful meals he’d prepared. Those she was going to miss. Brad, not so much.
That four-hour crying jag hadn’t been for him. It had been for her. For all the time and effort she’d wasted on him, thinking he was something he wasn’t. For her inability to recognize that salient fact before she’d given herself to him. And for the seeming impossibility of ever finding someone who could love her just the way she was.
She hadn’t even cried when her house blew up. Okay, that was mostly because she’d been in such a state of shock, she hadn’t known what she was doing. The concussion from the blast had blown the front door wide open and she’d just stumbled through it in a daze, not even realizing that she was walking barefoot over broken glass and pieces of debris. In fact, it wasn’t until she had reached her car, parked on the opposite side of the street halfway down the block, that she’d looked back and seen the flames leaping above her roofline.
That was when she’d looked down at herself and noticed that she was barefoot, nearly naked and bleeding from dozens of little cuts all down her left arm, the only body part that hadn’t been tucked under the afghan. She’d also noticed that, for whatever reason, feminine instinct had kicked in and without even noticing herself doing it, she’d picked up her laptop, purse and keys, all of which she’d set down on the floor in front of the couch when she’d gone to sleep. Otherwise she’d be standing out in the middle of the street with absolutely no options and no place to go. It wasn’t until she’d unlocked the car and started to get in that she realized the blood stains on the asphalt had come from the bottoms of her own feet.
For the first time in her life, instead of castigating herself for being lazy, she was profoundly grateful for it. Thanks to an unfortunate habit she had of never carrying through with her plans to stop by the gym on her way home from work, a habit that had caused her endless rounds of self-recrimination, she had a gym bag in the trunk with clean underwear, shorts and a tank top to wear while working out, a track suit to wear after her shower, and a pair of sneaks and socks. But she could hardly change clothes in the middle of the street. People were already coming out of their homes and beginning to gather to watch the licking flames consume her little house. And the distant ululating sounds of sirens were coming closer and closer. She had to get out of here while she could still do so undetected. Otherwise, she would be back at the police station, seeing the suspicion in their eyes as they hammered her with questions to which there simply were no answers. She had started her car and driven quietly away from her house, turning left at the end of the block, just as the strobing red lights of the fire engines appeared in her rear view mirror.
She’d pulled into an office building parking lot a couple of blocks away and gotten her gym bag out of the trunk. Hoping nobody was watching, she stripped off the sleep shorts and T-shirt and quickly shimmied into a pair of panties, then the pants of her track suit. Not bothering with a bra, she slipped her arms into the sleeves of the jacket and zipped it up. It was late August, and while the days were still hot, evenings were beginning to get much cooler. She’d hobbled over to the concrete steps leading up to the office building and sat down on one of them, using the light from her car’s headlights to see by. Slowly, painstakingly, she began to pull bits of glass out of the bottoms of her feet, managing to cut her fingertips in the process. All the blood made the glass slippery, adding to her frustration. Some of the pieces were embedded so deep, pulling them out caused fresh blood to flow.
Crap. No two ways about it. I’m going to have to go to an Emergency Room somewhere. But I need to get out of Philadelphia first. Hands shaking, she’d used wet wipes to wipe away as much of the blood as she could, wincing and hissing—“Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow!”—when the alcohol in the wipes stung her cuts like the very devil. Holy shit! But not even that pain had made her cry. She’d put on her thick, terry socks, then her shoes. Then she had hobbled back to the car and dropped into the driver’s seat, almost numb with shock and fatigue and pure, unadulterated terror.
Somebody just tried to kill me!
Okay. Change of plans. I can’t possibly hang around here until the bank opens. I gotta get as
much cash as I can right now and get the hell outta Dodge. Maybe, if whoever blew up my house is checking on such things, they won’t notice that the withdrawal occurred after the explosion and will think I withdrew it before I died in the burning house.
So she’d driven to the nearest ATM machine and withdrawn her allowable maximum—three hundred dollars. It had seemed like a lot, but she had absolutely nothing, so, in the overall scheme of things, it was piddly. This was going to have to go for clothes, food, gas, basic toiletries and stuff she hadn’t even thought of yet. And it was going to have to last long enough for her to find a new place to live and a new job.
Oh, crap! If I’m dead, I can’t use my social security number! How can I get any kind of decent job without my social security number?
And that’s when it really hit her. Somebody had tossed a bomb into her house. Somebody wanted her dead! And for a while everyone would assume that she was. Until they sifted through the debris and realized that there was no body in the smoldering ruins. Then they would come looking for her. Nearly overwhelmed with terror, she had pulled away from the ATM machine and left Philadelphia behind.
And she hadn’t cried, not in all that time. Until now. Until the rain.
Seriously? Her mind began its routine back-and-forth debate. You’re crying now? Because of a little rain?
OMG! You call this a little rain? It’s like fucking Niagara Falls out there! And, no, I’m not crying because of a little rain! I’m crying because it’s raining on top of everything else that’s happened in the last forty-eight hours. And it’s the last straw! Just the absolute, God-damned last straw!
Folding her arms across the top of the steering wheel, she leaned forward and rested her head on them. She cried until she was utterly drained of both tears and energy. Since she was obviously stuck here she might as well make the best of it and try to get some sleep. She released the seat back, pushing it down as far as it would go, curled up on her side, and closed her eyes.
But sleep eluded her. The rain was so loud, it was like being inside a steel drum during a hail storm. And she was cold. She couldn’t turn the car on for heat, so she huddled, shivering, teeth chattering, mentally consigning her asshole of a boss and her faithless lover to the eternal fires of hell.
* * * *
Simon Rafferty drove past the little red Honda, then realized that that dark shape he’d just glimpsed through the driver’s side window was someone’s head. Holy fuck, I hope no one’s hurt! Swerving onto the shoulder, he made an illegal one-eighty and crossed the highway, stopping his Dodge Ram truck nose to nose in front of the little car. He exited his truck and walked around to the driver’s door of the Honda. It was so much smaller than his pick-up, it reminded him of one of those little clown cars that drive into the center ring and disgorge a dozen clowns in full clown regalia. The thought made him smile. He bent to look in the window.
It was a woman and she was asleep. Her hair was the first thing that caught his eye. Long, straight, luxuriant, a dark, silken curtain of liquid chocolate, with rich chestnut highlights. She was lying on her side, facing the window, her mouth open. She appeared to be hiccupping, as though she’d fallen asleep during a crying jag. She’d definitely been crying. The tracks of dried tears were clearly visible on her cheeks. She wore no make-up, but then, she didn’t need it. Her skin was absolutely flawless. Christ, she was so beautiful. The hideous lime-green track suit she was wearing was oversized, but it couldn’t hide her voluptuous figure or the generous curve of her ass, his favorite part of a woman’s anatomy. The thought of baring that ass and taking her there hardened his cock so fast, his vision blurred. Steadying himself by placing one hand on the roof of the car, he rapped on the window with the knuckles of the other.
Knock. Knock. Knock. “Hey. Miss. You all right?” Knock. Knock. Knock. “Miss, wake up!
Blinking groggily, Kylie looked around, disoriented, every muscle in her body stiff and aching. With a deep groan, she pushed herself partially upright, trying to blink the sleep out of her eyes. Wiping the moisture from the corner of her mouth, she reached down and pulled the lever to raise the seat back. It jerked her upright so fast the bottom of the steering wheel dug into her ribs. “Owww!”
“Miss, are you all right? Open the window. Let me help you.”
She twisted awkwardly in her seat, shocked to realize that it was daylight. She had managed to sleep after all. And the rain had stopped.
Another tap on her window had her turning her head and she received another shock as she found herself staring at one of the most ruggedly handsome faces she had ever seen, with thick, unruly black hair, blue eyes, and a two-day growth of beard. Yum! Trying not to drool, she just sat and stared, mesmerized, not wanting to break the spell lest he disappear.
When she still didn’t respond, the man—because all the things that held her in thrall did, indeed, belong to a man, a tall, hard-bodied, very large man—smiled at her and that smile had her heart skipping and leaping and doing somersaults like a demented cheerleader. Oh, my.
“Miss, open the window.” On the off chance she didn’t speak English, he made cranking motions with his hand.
Frowning, she touched the window button. Nothing happened. Oh, right. Electricity. She turned the key to Accessories and the window came down.
The man smiled and leaned his forearms on the open window and she nearly passed out from the lust that swept through her.
“You okay?” he asked.
“I am,” she said, mustering an answering smile. “Herkimer’s not.”
“Herkimer?” He looked puzzled.
“The car.”
“You named your car?”
“Doesn’t everybody?”
It took him a second to regroup. “What seems to be the problem? Flat tire?”
Her sigh was wistful. “If only. Loud, clanging noise in the engine.”
“Uh-oh. That’s not good. Pull the hood release.”
She found it and pulled it. She barely had enough time to take in his lean hips and the well-rounded curves of his ass, outlined lovingly by the worn denim of his tight jeans, before all that male deliciousness disappeared behind the open hood.
“Start it for me.”
“Uhhh, I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Go ahead. I just need to hear what it’s doing.”
“Ooookay.” Wincing, she turned the key. Clank! Clank! Clank!
‘Okay, okay, that’s enough! Shut it off.” He lowered the hood and came back around. His smile was back in place and now her breathing was doing crazy things. Like stopping. And shuddering. And stopping again.
He hunkered down beside her door. “Sounds like you might have blown the engine,” he said, taking a cell phone from his shirt pocket and punching in a number. “I’m calling Sam Olsen to send his tow truck out here. He owns the local garage.” He put the phone to his ear. “Sam. Simon Rafferty. Got a little Honda out here on County Road Seventy-One. Needs a tow. Might have a blown engine.” He looked directly at her. “What year is this, darlin’?”
She was so flustered she nearly gave him the current year before realizing that he meant the year of her car. “Um, ninety-three.”
He gave her an incredulous look before turning his attention back to the phone. “You hear that, Sam? No, ninety-three. You gonna be able to find parts that old?” While he listened, he tipped back his Stetson with the pad of his thumb, then leaned his elbow on the roof of the car, two moves that placed his crotch right at Kylie’s eye level and sent both her heart and her breathing going absolutely haywire. Holy shit! This man is so drop-dead sexy I’m creaming my panties!
Not that it matters, of course, that prim voice in her head replied. You have no business creaming your panties over anyone, much less a total stranger. You need to avoid total strangers. When are you ever going to learn?
She licked her lips, taking stock of her situation. She had no job, no boyfriend, no home, and now no car. And a dwindling supply of cash. She’d al
ready spent part of it on some cheap clothes and personal items at a Walmart she’d passed some time during the night. Damn it, if only I’d gone ahead and packed my bag the minute I saw that news story last night! I’d have a suitcase full of everything I need and ready access to my money!
Guess again, Ferrell. If you had been in your bedroom packing your suitcase after the news, you’d be dead. So it was probably just as well that she hadn’t done that. But now all she had was a couple hundred bucks, a few cheap T-shirts and shorts, and three changes of underwear.
She’d used Walmart’s rest room to clean up some of the dried blood from all the little cuts she’d sustained on her left arm. She’d had to wet her bloody socks to unstick them from the deeper cuts on the bottoms of her feet. Then she’d applied an antibiotic cream to the worst of those, covered them with Band aids, and put on a new pair of thick socks. Plus she’d stopped at a twenty-four-hour fast food place and splurged on a large burger combo because she was absolutely starving. But now she was hungry again. And she needed to pee really, really bad. Shouldn’t have gotten that humongous soda. And she desperately needed a place to hide out for a while. A place where she could think, plan out her next move, find a job—a place where she felt safe, god damn it! How could the world be so big and yet have not even a tiny little corner for her to shelter in?
Again, the cowboy leaned down into the open window. “Sam says it’ll be at least an hour before he can get the tow truck out here. So get your stuff and I’ll take you into town where you can wait in comfort, get something to eat, and, you know, use the facilities.”
Passion's Fury (The Doms of Passion Lake Book 2) Page 2
