Thank God.
I reached for the suitcase, hopeful it wouldn’t burst open the moment I entered, and then stepped out of the car, telling myself I’d remain there for an hour, tops, before getting back on the road.
With a quick glance, I noted that the Mustang wasn’t damaged from the ding into the back fence. It had been scratched and scuffed countless times before on my travels, and didn’t seem any different. Still, it would make sense to rid myself of the car soon, just to get the Seven off my tracks.
But not tonight. Tonight, I’d be out of Iowa City before midnight, passing through whichever state was next until dawn.
I wished that Aaron could show it to me on the map, but I’d have to use my own damn head this time.
Shoving my shoulder into the front door of the diner, the suitcase wrapped tightly in my arms, I entered fresh-baked pie and burnt coffee scented air, grateful for a brief reprieve from the stale smoke smell of the Mustang. It didn’t matter who you were: a murderer, a banker, an ex-member of the Detroit Seven—everyone loved that smell. It made your heart sing.
“Howdy, stranger,” the middle-aged woman said from the counter, stabbing a finger over the coffee machine and brewing another pot. Her voice was raspy, as if she’d smoked thousands of cigarettes in her lifetime. When she flashed a smile, I saw the brown-tinged proof.
“Have a seat wherever you like. We’ve got a special today: burger and fries. Three-fifty, if you can believe it. Best prices in all of Iowa City.”
She leaned across the diner counter, wrinkled breasts pressing against the white top. “But I have to tell you, Bobby back there’s been stoned for the past twelve hours, so I can’t account for much flavor, just a bit of warm food in your belly.” She winked at me, giving a soft shrug.
She reminded me of a great aunt I’d once met, when I’d been maybe nine, who’d smoked like an aging mechanic and chewed at toothpicks, watching horse races on the television while my grandmother refilled my iced tea glass over and over again.
“She’s the most alive person I know,” my grandmother had told me. But she’d looked half-dead.
Chapter Four
Luna
The handsome, muscular, dirty-blond guy who entered the diner that night had a far different air about him than most of our other diners. As he stood at the counter speaking with Marcia, he pressed that strange, vintage-looking suitcase against his chest like it was his lifeblood.
His eyes were focused, blue, and bright, with some kind of secret as he ordered a black coffee from Marcia. His chiseled face and gruff stubble told a story of hunger, of probably not having had a proper meal in weeks. I felt a surge of desire to care for him, to take his coat and feed him. But I forced myself to remain plastered to the broken cushion, reminding myself the truth: he was nothing but a stranger.
“I’ll have that to you real quick,” Marcia said. “And holler at me if you decide you really do want that burger.”
The man didn’t respond. He turned toward my side of the diner, making my heart grow frantic, and chose the booth across from me, sliding the suitcase across his cushion and sitting beside it. He crossed his hands and pressed his chin heavily into them, blinking at me.
He couldn’t keep his eyes off me.
My green eyes, his blue, met across the linoleum floor of the gritty diner, holding onto each other. The electricity between us was intense, making me wonder if time had stopped, if the world had paused on its axis. I could see the depths of his soul, that he’d loved and he’d lost, that he was afraid, that he was running.
What was he running from?
In a sense, both of us were taking refuge at the diner. Perhaps that’s why our eyes met with such penetrating power. Perhaps that was why we couldn’t let go.
Marcia bustled between us, dropping a coffee mug in front of the stranger and then turning toward me and refilling my mug. She stabbed a hand on her waist and gave me a brown-toothed grin, her eyes filled with light. In a way, I was relieved that she’d interrupted the intense moment. It was better this way.
“You know, I was speaking with that guy I was thinking of hooking you up with. That truck driver who comes in here on his way to Nashville about once or twice a month. That Harry character?”
“Oh—” I stuttered. “Harry. Right.”
Could the handsome stranger hear Marcia? Of course he could. Did he think anything of it? Did he care that another man wanted to be with me, to know me?
Jesus, of course he didn’t. Calm down, Luna.
“He says he’d love to meet you next time. Says he’ll text me when he’s on his way through the city. I really think you’d be into this guy, Luna. I know you’re picky and all, but I’m telling you, you’re 25 years old; you have to make time to settle down, to find someone to love and make a life with. If my Hank hadn’t passed away a few years ago…” She trailed off, glancing up as an elderly couple entered the diner.
When Marcia spoke about Hank, she didn’t do it with a sparkle in her eye, or with any kind of regret. I supposed I understood why. I’d met Hank just about a year before he’d died in a car accident south of town, when he’d been speeding back from a lover’s house, returning to pick Marcia up at the diner. If he had been the only love of Marcia’s life, the one she’d decided to build her world around, then my heart ached for her.
She deserved so much more.
“Anyway, just think about it,” Marcia said, giving me a quick wink. “I care about you is all, sweetie. You should be with someone—you’re too lovely of a little thing to be alone.”
Marcia left to greet the couple, leaving me with full view of the newcomer. The man tried to pretend he hadn’t been listening, reaching toward the side of the booth where the sugars were stashed. He fumbled through them, choosing the pure stuff and stacking them on the tabletop—white wrappers stocked with white powder.
As he began to tear into them, his elbow jerked back and pushed into the suitcase beside him, catching the latch and causing it to spring open.
“Shit!” he mumbled.
Immediately, I felt my eyes grow into saucers. Inside the suitcase were bundles and bundles of dark green cash, tied up with rubber bands and piled on top of one another. With a quick surge of my heart, I realized that that amount of cash was probably thousands and thousands of dollars—perhaps even more.
What on earth was he doing with that much cash at a little penny diner like this?
Sipping the remainder of my coffee, I watched as the stranger pushed the suitcase closed again, shoving it tight against the side of the booth and exhaling, looking rattled.
I couldn’t look away. Not now. I felt I had him imprisoned in my gaze.
Slowly, the man’s eyes turned toward me, catching my eyes once more. He had to fess up somehow, like we had a pact. Just by staring into one another’s eyes, we were indebted to each other, locked into an agreement. He looked oddly embarrassed, as if I’d just walked in on him naked. Shrugging evenly, he tried to play it cool, taking a sip of coffee and giving me a small, calculated smile.
He was so handsome when he smiled, it nearly tore me in two.
“Sorry about that,” he said. His voice was deep, gravelly, attractive. It made my stomach stir.
“It’s quite all right,” I whispered back. Eyeing Marcia, I made sure that nobody else in the diner had seen the commotion. It was time for me to make my first stab in the dark. “What was all that about, anyway?”
The buckets and buckets of cash in your suitcase, I wanted to say. What the hell was he doing with all of that here, in the middle of nowhere? Nobody in this part of Iowa City had ever seen that much money in one place. I certainly hadn’t.
“Oh—” The man gestured towards the suitcase. “It’s really nothing. I, um…work for a rich, famous asshole. I’m his bodyguard. You know.”
He made a lashing motion with his hand, as if he were punching someone. The biceps were very much in line with that line of work, but I still wasn’t sure I believed him. It
seemed too perfect somehow. And why would a bodyguard be eating at a diner?
“Anyone I might have heard of?” I asked. I blinked slowly, like a cartoon character.
“Probably not,” the man said, his nostrils flaring in panic. He hadn’t expected follow-up questions. “He’s mostly famous around Detroit, where I’m from. I wouldn’t guess you Iowans have caught wind of him quite yet.”
“Try me,” I replied. I flashed my white teeth in a smile, loving watching him squirm.
“Ah, naw. I can’t now,” the man said. He was gaining traction. His brain was quick. “The guy pays me in cash so he can avoid taxes. Now that you have this secret, I can’t divulge his name. You already know too much.”
“He’d have me taken care of, would he?” I asked, snickering slightly.
A small bead of sweat dropped down the man’s forehead. I’d never made someone so nervous in my life.
I decided, in that moment, to continue toying with him—to measure my success by the beads on his forehead. As I did, a dangerous idea formed in my head, one built from the desperation and sadness I felt regarding my and my father’s misfortune.
Desperate times called for desperate measures.
And I wasn’t going to go down without a fight.
Chapter Five
Colt
A bodyguard? Who the fuck was I kidding? With my blood-shot eyes and my tired, battered suitcase, I looked like I’d only ever existed on the wrong side of the tracks, the wrong side of life. The only celebrity I’d ever seen up close was a basketball player who’d grown up near my grandma’s place—and he’d ignored all of us when he’d come through to get his mother out of her crooked house.
I should have bolted from the diner, knowing the pretty redhead’s questions wouldn’t stop. She was sniffing me out, wanting her own piece of the pot. But for some reason—perhaps because it had been two months since I’d had a proper conversation, perhaps because my body ached at how gorgeous she was—I remained, paused, awaiting her next questions. They fell like swords across my throat.
“So,” she said, easing toward the edge of her booth and abandoning her coffee. “What on earth are you going to spend all that money on?”
“What does anyone spend money on?” I asked, trying to play it cool. I swiped my hands behind my head and leaned back against them. I pulsed my biceps, knowing she’d sensed my dominance over her, my strength. She couldn’t intimidate me. “Life stuff.”
“Life stuff?” she repeated, knocking her head back in a raucous laugh. “And here I assumed you were going to waste it on only things you couldn’t use in this life. You know, like a coffin.”
“A really good gravesite could be nice. Overlooking the ocean,” I said.
“Why not a gold watch that you’ll only receive at the morgue?”
“Or a place in heaven itself,” I said. I couldn’t help but grin at our rapport. In a strange way, she reminded me of the way I used to speak with Aaron, dancing from one joke to the next. If our other friends couldn’t keep up, we left them in the dust.
The girl rose from the booth and walked toward me, swirling her hips left and right. I wasn’t immune to how sensual she was: those firm breasts caught up in a red, V-neck dress, the slimness of her waist emphasizing the crest of her ass—stunning, really. Something you could really hold on to as you railed her.
Not that I was already thinking about that, of course. I wasn’t a monster.
But I hadn’t been in the company of a woman in quite some time.
She sat across from me, looking almost conspiratorial, like we were gang members meeting at the local Italian deli. Her eyes danced first across my face and then over the suitcase, and she shrugged her thin shoulders. She, too, seemed underfed and stressed below the surface—even if she put out this sunny, together exterior.
There was a reason we were both at this crummy diner alone, after all.
“It’s all right,” she said, shrugging. She parted her red lips slightly, in a cute way she perhaps didn’t recognize herself, allowing her tongue to glide along her bottom lip. “It doesn’t really matter to me what you’re going to spend the cash on. I don’t care where you got it. Money comes from all sorts of places, doesn’t it? When we run out, the government just spits out more. And someday, we’re all going to die.”
Her eyes flashed. I placed my large palms against the shining table, aware that the waitress was bobbing around the diner now, cleaning tabletops with an off-yellow sponge.
“As you said,” I murmured, “it comes from everywhere. And it’s mine now.”
I edged closer to the side of the booth, conscious that if I grabbed the suitcase and bolted, I could be at the Mustang in less than 30 seconds. My heart slammed against my ribcage, reminding me of how it had felt to break into the loan shark shack and tiptoe across the beige carpet.
“Right. Of course,” the girl said, her eyebrows rising. Stabbing her hand through the air across the table, she asked for a handshake, and I gave it, feeling electricity spark through my skin upon our touch.
“I’m Luna, by the way. I don’t like to make a deal without knowing names. Just a matter of preference.”
Luna. It was gorgeous, so fitting for her with those big, sparkling eyes.
“Luna means moon, right?” I asked her. Pushing my shoulders back, I removed my hand from hers, conscious that our handshake had gone on a bit too long.
“Smart man,” Luna said to me, pressing her lips together.
I wasn’t entirely sure if she was making fun of me. My mind was centered upon the slimness of her wrists, on what it would feel like to push them far above her head, to pin her against the wall and kiss her deeply, inhaling her scent. It was flowery with a bit of vanilla. I could identify it even after all these years away from the aromas of my grandmother’s kitchen. The exterior had always smelled like pollution, like violence, with the engineering plants down the road swamping the air. But the interior, that was where the air had sung.
“And what kind of man are you, thinking you can get away with not telling me your name?” she asked, easing her arms across her chest, which shoved her breasts upward and caused them to crest over the V-neck in a mound of cleavage.
“It’s, um…” What the hell? I thought. “Colt.”
She turned the name over on her tongue, like something she was sure she wanted to taste in full.
“That’s a good name. It suits you,” she murmured. When she leaned forward, her nose was mere inches from mine, bringing the intensity of her smell forward. “Well, Colt, I have a proposition for you. In exchange for all the cash you have there in your suitcase, you can have anything you want. Anything I can give.”
The tone of the conversation had shifted, growing increasingly sexual. My groin became hot, pulsing against the fabric of my jeans. She was offering herself to me, her body stretched thin, gleaming, and naked. All I had to do was agree. All I had to do was pass the suitcase to this thieving, sexual creature.
But it wasn’t worth it. I’d gone out of the way on my straight path to Mexico for this cash, and I needed it, dammit. How was I going to make it across the border without it?
Sliding forward a bit, feeling dominant and powerful, I whispered back, “You think you have some power over me, don’t you?”
“I’d like to think I do,” Luna murmured back. “In any case, I know one thing about you. You’re running from something, Colt. You’re running as fast as your little hooves can take you. And I don’t think you’ve totally thought this through. I can see it in those deep blue eyes.”
She was bursting with something, an energy that told me she would stop at nothing until she got what she wanted. I leaned backward, pressing my thick forearms against my chest and shaking my head, giving her a firm “no.” Of course, I wouldn’t allow this to continue. I could crush her with my pinkie finger.
But there was that smile again.
“All right,” she said, shrugging evenly. She rose from the booth, tilting her ass
this way and that—making it almost impossible not to reach out for it. “Suit yourself, Colt. I offered all I have. Remember that.”
As I watched her walk back to her cold cup of coffee, my mind raced. I could see it all stretched out before me: the open road, alone, just a scraggly 28-year-old man with a suitcase, looking suspicious as hell. If I showed up at the border, my hair in strings at my shoulder, did I really believe the government wasn’t going to yank me to the side and demand to know where I was going, who I was?
“Married couples always look best,” Aaron had told me once, his eyebrows high. We’d been smoking at the park, allowing our hollow smoke rings to roll up to the bright blue sky. “If you’re trying to get away with something, always have a good-looking chick with you. Seriously. The cops will be too busy looking at her tits to notice what you’re taking from them. It’s hilarious. That’s how Monique and I got the last round of groceries. Fuck, I’m going for the best quality steak next time, believe me.”
“Wait,” I said, my voice booming, echoing against the wide windows of the 24-hour diner.
Slowly, Luna shuffled her feet, turning back around. She put her hands on her slender waist, blinking her bright green eyes.
“Yes?” she asked.
Oh, God, that sweet, sexy voice.
“I know what you can do for me,” I said.
Luna eased back into the seat across from me, looking business-like, squaring her shoulders like a CEO. Lending her a large, scheming grin, I leaned forward and spoke softly, my voice carrying under the sizzle of the burgers grilling just a few feet away from us.
“I’ll hand over the cash if you agree to pose as my wife and help me cross the border into Mexico.”
In a fluid motion, I raised my hands to my chin and leaned against them heavily. Inhaling the scent of her, I imagined us hand in hand, speeding across the Texas–Mexico border, the sun setting in front of us, laughter filling the car, and the memories of Iowa City and Detroit flying behind us like dark shadows.
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