Before The Fall

by Patricia Rosemoor

  “Well, I care,” the trucker said, stopping also. “The little lady don’t want to go with you no more, she don’t have to.”

  “Stay out of this.”

  “Yes, please,” Angela said, trying her best to sound sincere. “I wouldn’t want you to get hurt. You don’t know what he’s like when he’s riled.”

  “I ain’t afraid of the likes of him, ma’am.” The burly man’s supportive gaze swept over her. Then his eyes widened and his forehead furrowed. “Hey, what’d you do to your wife’s arm to make her bleed like that?”

  Bleed?

  Angela quickly glanced down and saw a dried trickle of red trailing from her forearm to her wrist. The mosquito. She gasped and pretended to go all woozy.

  And Micah made the mistake of shaking her. “Let’s go!” Then tried forcing her.

  “No, you go!” the trucker said, grabbing the front of Micah’s T-shirt and pulling him a little off balance.

  His expression both surprised and angry, Micah released her. “This isn’t your business, buddy.”

  “I’m makin’ it my business. You hightail it outta here and I’ll see to the little lady.”

  “See to yourself.” Micah shoved at the stranger. “She’s my bride.”

  Angela was struck by the possessive tone that sounded far too real, and her pulse skittered as the trucker’s face twisted with ire.

  “Your bride ain’t interested.”

  His free arm pulled back. He swung, his hamlike fist going directly for Micah’s face.

  Cringing, she experienced a moment’s regret.

  Wasted energy.

  Micah ducked out of the way, threw up his arm to break the other man’s hold and landed a hard punch directly in the middle of the broad solar plexus.

  The trucker caved in with a soft “Oof!”

  And Micah simply grabbed Angela’s wrist and dragged her. Fighting was useless.

  “I’m sorry!” she yelled to the stranger, who was bent forward, clutching his gut.

  “I’ll get you help!” he promised, staggering back to his rig.

  Several other people exiting the information center stopped at their vehicles as Micah shoved her into the Thunderbird. Two men who’d parked the tan four-byfour under the tree got out and watched. No additional offer of assistance came her way, however, convincing Angela that she was, for some unknown reason, cursed.

  Doomed to be Micah Kaminsky’s captive until the end of time.

  Or until they reached Nevada.

  Whichever came first.

  “WE SHOULDA STEPPED IN,” one man said as they clambered back into the rental Jeep.

  His fair-haired companion gave him a withering look. “With all these witnesses?”

  He fastened his seat belt as one of the nosy tourists approached the trucker. The burly man was fishing for something in his cab.

  “She was trying to get rid of the wild card. These yokels woulda applauded us.”

  “And remembered what we looked like.”

  He didn’t take his eyes off the trucker. Damn! The buffoon was on the CB.

  “Yeah, you got a point,” the dark-haired man said.

  “Now that we’re on their trail, we just gotta wait for the right opportunity. We’ll get ‘em.”

  They certainly would….

  “If the cops don’t catch up to them first.”

  Chapter Eight

  “I figured we were done with all this game playing,” Micah said as soon as they were back on the road and he was certain no eighteen-wheeler was bearing down on them.

  “What you’re doing to me is no game.”

  “You’re right, Angela. Your situation is serious.”

  And far more complex than he’d been led to believe. He checked his rear mirror again. All clear. For now. That trucker wasn’t going to let this alone, not after promising Angela that he’d get her help. Micah knew this in his gut. He expected to see a column of state police vehicles overtaking them at any moment.

  Maybe that would be the best solution for her, no matter what she believed.

  As for him…claustrophobia was already threatening to choke him…he could sense those familiar prison walls closing in.

  “Micah…”

  Angela startled him from the nightmare into paying attention to his driving. “Yeah?”

  “Why are you so determined to hand me over to the authorities when I’m perfectly willing not only to match but to exceed the reward you’ll get for bringing me in?” He unclenched his hands, clammy with anticipation and dread. “I never said I was doing this for money.”

  “Next you’ll be telling me you’re only interested in seeing justice done.”

  “Is that so unbelievable—that my kind respects the law?”

  Her passing judgment on him without knowing anything about what he’d done with his life continued to rankle.

  “I saw proof of how much you respect the law when you broke into Mariscano’s house.”

  He couldn’t believe it. “Getting inside was your idea. I went along with it to get you off my back,” he rationalized. Even knowing the penalty if they’d been caught. “And—”

  “And you disarmed a sophisticated security system. I wonder where you developed that kind of talent.”

  “Maybe in my former life as a burglar,” he said acidly.

  “Former?”

  Meaning she thought that’s what he did for a living now?

  Micah was ready to strangle her. Again. No woman had ever been able to get to him the way Angela did. She got under his skin in the worst way.

  In the most frustrating way.

  He should have left her to the trucker. Then they’d both be happy. Sighing, Micah knew that was a lie, at least for him. He warned himself not to get involved. The moment Angela was out of sight, he’d start worrying about her.

  He hadn’t worried about a woman in more years than he cared to count. Why this one?

  “Look, I’m ready to make a deal,” he said, not seeing any other way. “No more games. What would it take to get you to agree?”

  “You’re ready to let me go?”

  “Other than that.”

  “Don’t take me back to Nevada.”

  “That’s the same thing and you know it.”

  “All right” Desperation edged her voice. “When we get there, don’t turn me over to the authorities. If I don’t find out who set me up, no one will.”

  He hesitated, as if thinking it over. “Agreed.”

  He felt her narrowed gaze on him when she echoed, “Agreed?”

  “My word as a…rough-around-the-edges man.”

  She didn’t even crack a smile. “I don’t understand. Wasn’t the whole idea to—”

  “Get you back to Nevada. I’ll deliver you directly to your doorstep.”

  Her voice was filled with distrust when she said, “After calling the authorities, right?”

  “No call to the authorities. Pinkie swear.” He crooked and held out his little finger, which she ignored, maybe because he hadn’t sworn that he wouldn’t call anyone at all. “So what do you say? Do we have a deal?”

  He uncurled the rest of his fingers and waited.

  “I haven’t had a better offer lately.” She slipped her hand into his. “Deal.”

  Most women had a soft shake that he loathed, as if they were trying to prove how delicate—feminine?—they were. Angela clasping his hand as if she meant it both impressed and affected him. In her handshake, he recognized not only her strength—which he found sexy if not delicately feminine—but her transfer of trust.

  Why? He couldn’t figure it. She held on to that trust the way some women held on to their virginity. She withheld it from her old man because of something he’d done decades ago that had nothing to do with her. That she’d given it to him, a near stranger, was downright puzzling.

  Either that or she didn’t mean a word of this deal, and he was a bigger fool than he wanted to admit.

  “And I promise I’ll make it
up to you,” Angela was saying. “Monetarily, I mean.”

  Micah removed his hand from hers and clenched his jaw so he wouldn’t say something he couldn’t take back.

  Realizing she’d been holding his attention a bit too closely, he automatically checked all his mirrors. A tan recreational vehicle kept its distance directly behind him, but on his right he caught the reflection of a transport truck coming up fast. He started until he remembered the guy he’d decked had been driving a semi with a yellow cab. This one was shiny red.

  He relaxed and let his mind drift back to Angela and the offending offer.

  Her phobia about money probably stemmed from what she saw as her father’s abandonment. To having everything and then nothing, at least in her mind. Micah was pretty sure she appreciated what she did have in her mother and siblings, but she seemed to measure the outside world—and therefore him—in monetary terms. Natural, he expected, considering her circumstances.

  Because he figured Angela was being sincere and offering him what she thought he wanted, Micah decided his best bet was to not say anything to her on the subject at all.

  ASSUMING MICAH WOULD HOLD up his end of the bargain was a stretch for Angela, and yet she imagined he might come through for her. She wanted to believe it.

  Wanted to believe in him.

  Worrying at the tear in her sleeve, she accidentally made the hole bigger, then decided to finish the job in hopes of feeling a bit more comfortable. She purposely ripped at the material, until all that was left was a cap to cover her shoulder.

  “It was looking pretty shabby,” she said, knowing she had Micah’s attention. “Now I have to figure out how to make the other one match.”

  He fished something from one of his vest pockets. “Use this.”

  The object she took from him proved to be a knife barely large enough to cradle in the curve of her palm. Of solid ebony on one side, the handle was inlaid with varicolored hardwood on the other.

  “This is a beautiful piece of work.”

  “Pop gave it to me.”

  Unable to miss the depth of emotion in Micah’s voice, Angela ran her finger along the marquetry. “You must trust me if you’re letting me use it.”

  “Let’s say I don’t think you have it in you to literally go out for someone’s blood. Not even mine.”

  And that’s not what she’d meant. He obviously treasured the present from his father and trusted her to treat it with the proper care.

  She slipped the three-inch blade from its sheath and made quick work of the second sleeve, then sliced through the threads that attached the silk roses to her bodice. Only after she’d removed the bunch and chucked it to the backseat did she realize her neckline was even lower than before. From her point of view, it looked as if she would spill out of the dress if she so much as leaned too far forward. She fought the urge to grab the material and tug it up toward her chin.

  Without taking his eyes off the road, Micah held out his hand. So much for his trusting her. She snapped the knife shut and dropped it into his palm.

  Not much else she could do to the dress to make herself comfortable, anyway. If only she could rid herself of the corset, which had become an object of torture. She wanted in the worst way to be free of the straitjacket feeling that threatened to cut off her air supply. Permanently.

  “You know, we really need to stop somewhere so I can get a change of clothing.”

  “You won’t be stuck in that thing much longer.”

  “Hah! My best guess is that we have approximately two thousand miles to go, a day and a half of straight, no-sleep driving…and we know that’s not going to happen unless you trade off with me.”

  “Let you drive?”

  Disliking his incredulous tone, she informed him, “I do have a license…though not on me, of course.”

  “But the Thunderbird?”

  He acted as if the old bucket of bolts were sacred. Men and their attachments to rusting hunks of metal!

  She should have saved her breath. No way would Micah let her behind the wheel of his precious car. With only him driving, Angela figured she’d be spending at least three more days in Micah’s company, a fact that didn’t bother her as it should. As it had before…

  Before what?

  Barely an hour ago she’d set Micah up to take a fall. She’d been willing to see him sprawled across the pavement, nose bloodied—if not worse—so she could get away. She couldn’t explain her own change of heart, not when she didn’t understand it herself.

  Her only excuse was that stress had to be warping her judgment. “So what about the clothes?” she asked, returning to her original point.

  “I always carry a spare in the trunk,” he offered. “Next pit stop—”

  “Oh, that’ll do swell. Now you want me to wear rubber. A little too kinky for me, even if I do like spankings and all,” she said, reminding him of his bawdy comments to the ladies at the gas station.

  “Actually, I was thinking of denim.”

  “You won’t mind if I cut several inches off the pant legs, will you? Or perhaps I should make do with that T-shirt you offered me last night. T-shirt dresses are always in fashion, you know,” she said sarcastically. Though the idea didn’t sound too bad, comfortwise, she still had some pride in her appearance. She refused to consider how the shredded gown looked. “And you undoubtedly have a piece of rope in the trunk that I can use as a makeshift belt.”

  “I’m sure I do,” he said amiably. “And if you get chilly at night, I have a long-sleeved flannel shirt you can throw over it.”

  “Plaid, I assume?”

  “It’s even your colors—red and black.”

  “With socks to match?”

  “Sorry. I don’t color coordinate my—”

  “Get real!” Angela snapped, having no clue whether or not he was serious. “I’m not prancing around like an idiot in your clothes.”

  “You’d be a more comfortable idiot.”

  “I’d be a happy idiot if we stopped somewhere so I could buy a few things that fit me properly.”

  “With what? You don’t have any money, remember.”

  “Not since you retrieved it.” She swallowed hard at the memory of his fingers fishing around beneath the corset. “So float me a loan and I’ll pay back—”

  “Every penny?”

  “And make up your mind before we pass Rochester.” She’d already seen signs announcing the exits were coming up in the next several miles. “It isn’t Minneapolis, but surely they have a shopping center or two. Heck, I’ll do a jig for an outfit from some discount place.”

  “Is that a promise?”

  “You want me to put it in writing? I’ll sign it in blood if you insist.”

  “All right, all right. But don’t open a vein yet. You’ll ruin your new outfit.”

  She gaped. “Really? You mean it?” She’d actually talked him into something?

  “Whatever you can buy for a double sawbuck.”

  “Twenty dollars?” Worrying that he might withdraw the offer if she sounded ungrateful, she quickly finished, “Will do me fine.”

  Even though she normally paid more than that just for her underwear, she’d manage to make do or her name wasn’t Angela Dragon.

  “In the meantime,” she went on, “where’s that file of Mariscano’s you printed out?” His vest was nowhere in sight. “About time we took a good look, don’t you think?”

  “It’s in the trunk. I’ll fish it out when we stop.”

  For a woman who expected instant results when she wanted something, Angela decided she was becoming far too well acquainted with the virtue of patience.

  MICAH FIGURED he was being paranoid, but he wasn’t crazy about the red-cabbed truck exiting behind them.

  Nor about its turning in the same direction and following them the half mile to the busy suburban intersection flanked by businesses. The tension didn’t flow out of him until the rig slowed and turned in at a gas station advertising diesel fuel. Relieved,
Micah headed for the Target sign at the end of the strip mall on the other side of the road.

  “Ready to do that jig?”

  “Once I’m wearing something I can move in.”

  “Seems to me you’ve been moving pretty well.”

  “Just think of what I can do in real clothes.”

  Micah grinned. Although as feisty as always, Angela sounded as if she was in a better mood than he’d experienced since nabbing her. She almost sounded happy. He could get used to the change.

  He could get used to her.

  That thought was wiped clear out of his mind, however, when he crossed the road and saw the state police car cruising the parking lot. Why? Normally, private security forces would be on patrol. His antennae out, he avoided the official vehicle, purposely circling a row of cars.

  “What are you doing? You keep passing up empty spots.”

  “Checking things out.”

  Since the patrol car seemed to have disappeared, Micah parked. But when he left the Thunderbird, caution remained foremost in his mind. That Angela was practically doing that jig down the aisle alarmed him.

  “Wait up.”

  “I can’t wait any longer.” She stepped into the road fronting the store. “You hurry!”

  She was moving fast. And from the corner of his eye he saw a blur moving even faster—a vehicle heading straight toward her.

  “Angela!” He started running as he yelled, “Get out of the way!”

  She glanced over her shoulder, then ducked to the side as a tan Jeep nearly sideswiped her.

  “Idiot!” she yelled. “Where’d you get your driver’s license?”

  The Jeep squealed to a stop and began to back up.

  People were stopping to watch.

  And the state police car was heading their way.

  Not about to wait for introductions, Micah grabbed Angela’s wrist and jerked her back the way they’d come.

  “Hey, what do you think you’re doing?”

  “Saving your butt.”

  “From who?”

  “We could wait to find out if you don’t mind talking to the state police.”

  “My new clothes!” she wailed while putting on some speed. “I’m never going to get out of this cursed gown.”