by Zoey Parker
I twisted the copper wires together and the Saab's engine came to life. I shoved the knife back into my pocket and drove the car around to the west entrance, where Jewel was waiting with a couple of shopping bags.
Chapter 19
Jewel
I did a double-take when I saw Rafe behind the wheel of the Saab. I'd gotten so used to seeing him sitting astride his bike that the sight of him inside a car was jarring.
He smiled at me. The corners of his eyes crinkled warmly again, and I felt a tug of lust below my waist. God, he was gorgeous.
“Nice ride, huh? Do I look like a cager or what?”
“What's a cager?” I asked.
“A non-biker,” Rafe answered. “Someone who willfully spends his life confined to a car instead of riding free and feeling the breeze on his face. Cars are cages to guys like me. So, 'cager.' And you should probably hurry up and hop in before the owner comes out and realizes his car's gone.”
“Jesus! You stole this car?” I gasped.
“Keep your voice down,” Rafe insisted. “And fuck yeah, I stole it. Where did you think I got it from? A vending machine? Now get in!”
I hustled over to the passenger's side and climbed in, tossing the shopping bags on the back seat. I probably should have figured out for myself that he'd stolen it, but I'd been so distracted by his smile and so surprised to see him in a car that I guess part of me thought he'd somehow traded his bike for it. The thought seemed kind of stupid in retrospect, but I'd been on edge for so long that I wasn't thinking clearly.
“This car seems pretty old,” I said as Rafe pulled out of the mall parking lot.
“Sorry, I guess I should have asked what kind of car you wanted,” Rafe smirked. “What would be up to your standards? Lexus? Bentley? Ferrari? I can go back if you want to shop around a little...”
“That's not what I meant,” I said, trying not to sound defensive. I knew how different his world was from the one I was used to, but I didn't like being teased about it, especially when I was so scared. “I just feel bad for the owner, that's all. If he's driving something this old, he probably can't afford to replace it.”
“It's not just 'something,' it's a goddamn Saab,” Rafe replied. “And it's in decent condition, which means he can afford parts for it. Saab parts mostly aren't around much anymore, so replacing them is pricey. I'd bet anything he's fully insured, so his insurance company will buy him a new ride once he reports this one's gone. Besides, it had to be an older car.” Rafe gestured to the wires twisted together next to the steering wheel. “You can't just jump into new ones and hotwire them without fucking with a bunch of computerized shit. Plus, the new ones have tracking chips. We wouldn't get far.”
I nodded. It seemed like he was being fairly glib about having stolen someone's car, and I had a hard time believing the poor guy's insurance company would just snap their fingers and give him a new car. But on the other hand, we were in a desperate situation, and I wouldn't shed any tears for a stranger who lost his car if it meant keeping us alive.
“What happened to your bike?” I asked.
“I called a friend of mine to come up and collect it. I hope he can get here before someone steals it or fucks with it, but that's a risk I had to take.”
I almost pointed out the karma inherent in Rafe hoping his vehicle wouldn't be stolen, but I decided against it. Instead, I asked, “So now what?”
“We look for a hardware store,” Rafe said. “We still have a few things to do before stopping for the night, if we want to make sure we stay under the radar.”
We drove past a sign welcoming us to Wisconsin. Rafe pointed out a sign directing us to Kenosha and we took the exit, heading into town. After driving around for half an hour, we found a shopping center with a large hardware superstore in it and Rafe parked the car. He separated the wires on the dashboard, killing the engine.
“Okay, before we go in, we'd better get changed,” Rafe said. “Let's see these clothes you got for us.”
I rummaged through the shopping bags, handing Rafe the Chicago Bulls sweatshirt and khakis I'd gotten for him. He stared at them for a moment, then turned to look at me incredulously. “Jesus. I'm gonna look like a massive nerd.”
I shrugged. “You said nothing eye-catching, so...”
“Yeah, but I was hoping for something with a little style, at least,” Rafe chuckled. “Damn. You got a baseball cap to go with this stuff? Or maybe a nice propeller beanie?”
“Ha ha,” I said dryly.
Rafe pulled his own shirt off, revealing his muscular body again. I couldn't stop myself from taking in as much of it as possible while the shirt was over his head, and my fingertips tingled as I thought about lightly running them over his chest and abs.
He tossed the t-shirt under the driver's seat and pulled the sweatshirt on. He reached down to undo his jeans, then turned to raise his eyebrows at me. I realized that I'd been watching him the whole time and turned away, blushing.
“You should probably put yours on too,” Rafe said. “If you're done enjoying your peepshow, that is.”
I reached into the bags, pulling out the black leggings and gray t-shirt I'd gotten for myself. As I unbuttoned my blouse, I wondered if Rafe was watching me while he put the khakis on, but I couldn't bring myself to turn around and look.
I put on the t-shirt and wriggled out of my skirt, revealing my pale legs and my simple purple cotton panties. I thought I heard the faint sound of Rafe sucking air through his teeth in appreciation, but I couldn't be sure. Part of me enjoyed the idea that he was having a look at my body the way I'd looked at his.
I took the time to carefully fold the blouse and skirt. Rafe grunted impatiently. “Hurry up and toss the clothes under the seat, will you?” he demanded. “This isn't a fucking origami project. We're in a hurry, here.”
“I'm going as fast as I can,” I answered. “This outfit was a gift from my parents. I don't want it to get messed up and wrinkled.”
Rafe looked like he was about to say something else, but instead he closed his mouth and waited, tapping his foot on the floor of the car.
When we'd both finished changing, we got out of the car. I almost reminded Rafe to lock the doors until I remembered that he didn't have the keys to open them again.
A stolen car, I thought. I'm riding around in a stolen car. My life has gone completely crazy.
I followed Rafe into the hardware store. He moved through the aisles quickly and purposefully, picking out cans of black spray paint, face masks, plastic ponchos, and rolls of masking tape. I wanted to ask what they were for, but I figured he wouldn't want to talk about it with so many other people around. When he was done, he went to the check-out counter and paid with cash. As we left, he stopped to pick up a thick stack of advertising newsletters.
“So what was that about?” I finally asked as we got back to the Saab.
“This baby's probably been reported stolen by now,” Rafe answered. “If we want to stay under the radar, we'll need to give her a fresh paint job. But first, keep a lookout and let me know if anyone's coming.”
Rafe pulled a Swiss Army knife from his pocket and extended the screwdriver tool, crouching down in front of the car's front license plate. He quickly removed it, then did the same to the rear plate. “See anyone coming?” he asked.
I looked around. The closest people were two rows away. “No, you're fine,” I said.
Rafe shifted over to the car next to ours and unscrewed its plates too, replacing them with the ones from the Saab. Then he screwed the other car's plates onto the Saab instead. “There. That should help a bit. Now let's roll.”
We drove away from the shopping center and Rafe steered us onto the back roads again until we came to a barren field next to a deserted farm. “This looks pretty perfect,” Rafe said, driving up the dirt road to the dilapidated farmhouse. He hopped out of the car, knocked on the front door, then walked all the way around the house before getting back in.
“Yep, this should work
,” Rafe said. “No one's been here for a long time, from the look of it.” He pulled the car around to the back of the house and we got out. He handed me a stack of advertising pages and a roll of masking tape. “Start taping these over the windows. Make sure they're totally covered or it'll fuck the whole thing up.”
I carefully taped the pages into place on one half of the car as he did the other half. Then he handed me a face mask and poncho. “Go ahead and put these on.”
We put on the safety gear, and each of us took a can of spray paint. “Now remember, it doesn't have to look nice,” Rafe said. “It just has to cover the whole car so people think it's just a shitty paint job instead of a cover-up.”
We spent the next hour carefully walking around the car and spraying every inch of it. Even with the mask on, the paint fumes were nauseating. Not only that, but I kept expecting to see people with guns running toward us, since that seemed to happen almost every time we stopped.
But no one came, and we were able to coat the entire car. The paint was clearly not intended to be used on cars and it had a dull, flat look to it, but at least the original color was completely hidden.
While the paint dried, Rafe stripped off his poncho and wandered over to the back door of the house. I followed him, taking off my gear too. Rafe tried the door, discovered it was locked, and used a nearby rock to smash one of the panes of glass in it. He reached in gingerly and unlocked it from the inside, stepping in. I walked in after him.
Dust motes hung thickly in the air, dancing in the pale beams of light from the windows. Most of the furniture was gone, but in the kitchen, there was a row of empty beer bottles standing on a high shelf.
Rafe looked at the bottles for a long moment, then turned to me, smiling.
“Ever fire a gun before?” he asked.
I shook my head.
“Well,” he continued, “there's a first time for everything. Help me get those bottles down.”
Chapter 20
Jewel
As the sun started to set, Rafe and I carried the empty bottles out of the house. Rafe found a few old wooden crates in the barn and arranged them upside-down in a row behind the barn before carefully setting the bottles on top of them. Looking at them reminded me of scenes from the old Westerns I used to watch with my dad when I was a kid, when the grizzled gunslinger teaches the young deputy how to shoot.
Except Rafe was far from grizzled. Even with the ridiculous-looking sweatshirt and khakis, he still looked lean and handsome, especially when the reddish-gold sunlight caught the natural highlights in his brown hair.
Rafe walked over to me and pulled a handgun from under the sweatshirt, offering it to me handle-first. But as I looked at it, my arms felt like they were glued to my sides.
“Go on, take it,” Rafe said encouragingly. “It won't bite.”
“I've never liked guns,” I said, hearing the tremble in my own voice. I was thinking about the nightmare I'd had the previous night. “And now that I've had them fired at me, I like them a lot less.”
“Well, the only good way to conquer that fear is to be able to fire back,” Rafe said. “I mean, I'll keep right on doing everything I can to protect you, but that'll be a hell of a lot easier for me if you're shooting too. Especially if I know you're good enough at it to keep from shooting me by mistake.”
I kept looking at the gun in his hand, trying to work up the courage to take it. “What kind is it?”
Rafe raised an eyebrow. “Why? Were you planning to write a fucking review of it later? Are you worried that someone will ask you in the middle of a firefight? 'Hey, by the way, that gun you're shooting at me is swell! What kind is it? I want to put it on my Christmas list...'”
“You can really be a sarcastic asshole, do you know that?” I asked. I wanted it to come out sounding tough, but I found myself laughing instead.
Rafe laughed too. “It's my best feature. Well, that and...” He trailed off into a fit of laughter.
It seemed strange to see a big tough biker guffawing uncontrollably like a little boy, but I liked it. It made the corners of his eyes crinkle again, which was very cute. For the first time, he didn't seem like some badass outlaw from a violent world I could never hope to understand. He just seemed like a man who got a little silly and giggly sometimes, like the rest of us.
“What?” I asked, snickering. He doubled over with laughter, holding up his hand to indicate that he couldn't talk. “What, were you about to make a penis joke?” I continued. “'Well, that and my huge dick' or something like that, was that it?”
Rafe nodded and I laughed too, snorting uncontrollably. “I knew it!” I exclaimed. “That's classy!”
“I'm a biker!” Rafe gasped out between laughs. “How classy do you expect me to be?”
“No, no, no!” I snickered. “No, see that Saab over there? You're totally a cager now!”
Rafe looked down. “Well, I'm sure as shit dressed like one, right?”
We both exploded into peals of laughter at that point. By the time we'd managed to collect ourselves a bit, I was feeling a lot less nervous.
“So how 'bout it?” Rafe finally said, wiping a tear from his eye. “You wanna give it a shot, or would you rather play 'Damsel in Distress' for the foreseeable future?”
“All right, fine, give it here,” I groaned, holding out my hand. Rafe put the gun in it. The barrel was short and it seemed very compact, but the weight was surprising and dragged my hand down immediately.
“Is this the one you took from the man at the outlet mall?” I asked.
“Yup. He won't be needing a gun where he's going. A harp maybe, but...”
I shuddered at the thought of handling something that belonged to a dead man, especially one who'd been alive just a few hours before. Still, I knew Rafe had a point. I was getting pretty tired of feeling powerless whenever people were chasing us or shooting at us. It would be good to feel like I was more in control of my own safety.
“Okay, here goes nothing,” I said. I raised the pistol with one hand, aimed it at the first bottle, and squeezed the trigger. It didn't move.
I looked down at the gun, confused. “What happened?” I asked.
“The safety happened,” Rafe said. “And that's your first lesson, right there.” He walked over to me and pointed to a small switch on the side of the gun. “If you're gonna carry, you always need to know whether the safety is on or off. Here, see how I carry mine?” He turned around and lifted the back of his sweatshirt, revealing his own gun tucked into the back of his pants. I tried to keep my eyes on the weapon instead of the tantalizing curve of his strong, lithe back.
“Uh-huh,” I said.
“Well, the safety is what keeps me from accidentally shooting off an ass cheek if I sit down the wrong way or take a bad step,” Rafe continued. “So you always need to keep the safety on until you're actually ready to pull the trigger. Then you just use your thumb to flip it, and boom, you're ready to rock.”
“Okay,” I said, thumbing the safety switch. I raised the gun with my right hand again.
“Whoa-whoa-whoa!” Rafe exclaimed. “Not like that!”
I swung around to face him. “Why? What now?”
“Recoil, that's what now,” Rafe said. “You try to shoot with one hand like that, the force from the shot is liable to tear your arm out of its socket, or snap the gun back into your face.”
“This is how I've seen people do it in the movies,” I said, confused.
“Yeah, well in real life, it's a good way to miss your target and fuck yourself up,” Rafe countered. “You want to plant your feet and use your other hand to brace it from the bottom. Here, let me show you. Which leg is your good one?”
“Um, I thought they were both pretty good, actually,” I joked lamely.
Rafe chuckled. “You can say that again,” he muttered under his breath, walking over to me. I felt myself blush again and hoped he couldn't see it.
He positioned himself behind me and used his boots to re-arrange
my feet so my right foot was in front and my left foot was behind and sideways.
“Oh, like a tennis stance!” I exclaimed. My mother had taught me how to play when I was young. “Why didn't you say so?”
Rafe rolled his eyes. “Gee, I guess it slipped my mind since my membership at the country club expired. These days I mostly stick with croquet and sailboat racing.”
“Yeah, yeah, you're a big bad bruiser from the wrong side of the tracks. We all get it,” I teased. “Just show me what I need to know, tough guy.”
“Okay, so you've got the legs down,” Rafe said. “Now for the arms.” He put his arms over mine, guiding my hands so they cradled the gun firmly—one on the handle, the other under it to steady it. His hands felt rough and calloused against mine, and his chest was pressed against my back.
