by Rebecca York
He felt her fear and also a spurt of hope as his thoughts collided with hers.
Are you all right? she asked urgently.
Yeah, he answered, knowing that she immediately picked up on the lie.
She rolled so that her body was half on top of his, and they pressed more tightly together. When she moved her cheek against his, he longed to raise his arms and fold her close. But the tape prevented that.
Still, as he absorbed the physical and the mental contact with her, he felt a profound sense of relief.
I’m sorry, she whispered in his mind.
For what?
For rushing out the window.
You thought your father was coming in.
Now I don’t even know. Was it him—or them?
He had no answer, but he was thankful for the strong mental link that was letting them speak directly to each other.
What matters now is escape.
Who are these men?
No idea. But we have to get away from them, he repeated, trying not to think of horrible possibilities. Unfortunately, he knew Stephanie was picking them up from his mind.
We have to get this tape off.
How?
Remember when you were trying to move that book?
It didn’t work.
Because we weren’t touching. We are now.
He tried to send reassurances along with the silent words. It would have worked better if his head wasn’t throbbing from the banging against the floor of the van.
I’m going to work on the tape on my hands.
How?
I’m going to stretch it. You send me energy. I can’t explain exactly what that means. Just...maybe focus on what I’m doing.
He hadn’t done anything like this in years, and with Sam, it had always been for fun. Now his and Stephanie’s lives might depend on it.
When he heard her wince, he wished he had kept away from that last thought.
The van lurched, and he lost his concentration for a moment. He gritted his teeth as he struggled to focus. He had met Stephanie Swift only a few days ago, and he expected her to help him with a mental task that seemed impossible on the face of it.
We can do it. She answered the unspoken thought.
He made a sound of agreement, not because he was entirely confident but because they had no choice. They had to get out of this mess.
The pounding in his head made focusing difficult, but he kept at it. For minutes, nothing seemed to happen. Finally he felt some small measure of success—a tiny loosening of the bindings on his wrists.
Stephanie must have noticed it, too, because he felt her spurt of hope.
He worked at the tape. It seemed to take centuries, but finally he could part his wrists a little.
He was almost too mentally exhausted to continue, but he kept at it, feeling the tape loosen more and more, and finally he was able to wiggle his hands free.
He glanced toward the front of the van and was relieved to see that the two men were both facing forward.
Reaching for Stephanie, he began to slowly pull the tape off her wrists. It was easier to work manually, and he quickly got her hands free. She breathed out a small sigh and pulled her legs up so that she could remove the tape from her ankles. He did the same.
When his hands and legs were free, he eased the tape off his mouth, seeing that she was doing that, too.
Thank God, she whispered into his mind.
He thought about their next move. They were free of the tape, but they were still in a moving van. He looked around for something he could use as a weapon and saw nothing. Too bad he’d gotten rid of the gun that he’d taken from these guys.
We can’t fight them.
What are we going to do?
Hope they have to stop at a light.
He glanced at the men in front who were paying no attention to the prisoners. Obviously they thought that the man and woman they’d restrained were no threat.
Praying that neither of their kidnappers decided to check on them, Craig inched his way toward the back of the vehicle. Pausing again, he checked on the gunmen. When he saw they were still facing forward, he pulled down on the handle, easing the door open a crack so that he could see out. He was relieved to find they were still in the city—but not a part he recognized.
Stephanie picked up her purse, which had been lying beside her, and slung the strap across her chest before moving to the back of the van with him, her shoulder pressed to his.
Get ready.
Their chance came when the van lurched to a stop again. He pushed the door open and leaped out, then reached to help Stephanie down. They were on a city street with cars immediately behind them.
“Where are we?”
“The financial district.”
They heard an angry shout and turned to see Curly, the one in the van’s passenger seat, jump out with his gun drawn.
“Come on,” Craig said to Stephanie, taking her hand. They wove through the traffic, the maneuver creating a blast of honking horns. As a car came around the corner and almost plowed into them, the driver slammed on the brakes, then lowered his window and started cursing at them.
Ignoring the chaos, they kept running for their lives through the darkened streets as pedestrians stared at the scene. And the car that had almost hit them gave them cover for a moment.
As they ran, Craig looked around wildly, trying to figure out the best escape route.
It was Stephanie who took the lead. “This way,” she shouted, darting down a dark passageway between two tall buildings.
Craig followed. He wanted to look behind him to see if the guy with the gun knew where they’d gone, but turning would slow them down.
Stephanie pulled on a side door. It opened and they stepped into a hallway.
They ran down to the first turn and dodged around the corner. Finally, risking a quick look back, Craig saw the gunman charging after them.
Instead of continuing the evasive action, Craig waited for the man to come barreling down the hall, then stuck out his foot, tripping the guy and sending him sprawling. Craig was on him in an instant, grabbing his hair and slamming his face against the tile floor, thinking that turnabout was fair play. The man gasped and went still.
Craig lifted the gun from the man’s limp hand and shoved it into the waistband of his jeans, then covered it with his knit shirt. When he searched the man’s pockets, he found no identification.
“We’d better get out of here.”
“Don’t you want to ask him why they’re after us?”
“Yeah, but his partner could show up at any moment. We have to put distance between us and them.”
She answered with a tight nod and followed him to a glass-enclosed lobby.
They stepped out into a plaza surrounded by office buildings.
Walking rapidly, they crossed to the opposite side, then back to the street. When Craig saw a taxi heading their way in the curb lane, he hailed it.
“Where to?” the cabbie asked.
Craig gave the address where he’d left his car.
As the vehicle took off, he scanned the street for the van and the men who had taken them prisoner, but neither was in sight.
When Stephanie started to speak, Craig squeezed her hand.
Not here.
She clamped her lips together and knit her fingers with his.
They were both breathing hard from the chase and the narrow escape. And now that the crisis was over, he could feel the sexual pull starting to surge between them.
Touching her made him want her, but the physical connection also seemed to strengthen the silent communication they’d first discovered in the dress shop. If they had been in a hotel instead of a cab, he would have taken h
er directly to the check-in desk and booked a room.
She caught the thought and glanced at him, then away.
“Sorry,” he muttered. “It’s a guy thing.”
Not just a guy thing, apparently.
We have to find a safe place where we can figure out what’s going on.
You think we can do it?
I hope so.
The cab pulled onto the street near her father’s house where he’d left his car, but he asked the driver to stop halfway down the block.
The guy pulled to the curb, and they got out.
After paying the man, Craig motioned Stephanie into the shadows of an overhanging pepper tree. “Wait here.”
“Why?”
“They could have staked out my car.”
“If they know where it is.”
“We can’t assume we’re in the clear.”
She waited while he walked swiftly down the block, all his senses on alert, but nobody approached the car. It could be that the men didn’t even know this was his rental. When he gestured for Stephanie to follow, she hurried down the block and climbed into the passenger seat.
He’d kept their physical contact to a minimum. But now they were off the street, and when she turned to him, he reached for her, feeling emotions flowing between them. Relief that they had made their escape, coupled with the sexual need intensifying between them. And, under that, the uncertainty about their situation—on so many levels.
He lowered his mouth to hers for a kiss that left them both gasping. He knew they should drive away because their attackers could come back. But he couldn’t turn her loose, not yet. Everything inside him had gone cold when he’d seen that gun pressed to her head. He’d been scared spitless—for her. And he’d realized in that moment that he couldn’t lose her.
He knew she took in his thoughts. Wrenching her mouth from his, she stared at him.
Yes, she whispered in his mind, telling him the same thing. She couldn’t lose him.
How could I have gotten engaged to John Reynard?
You didn’t know what he was.
It’s more than that. If I’d married him, I would have tried to make the best of it. But that was before I knew you.
He tightened his arms around her. A while ago, he had been unable to comprehend a relationship stronger than the one he’d had with Sam. Now he was starting to understand the depths of what he had found with Stephanie. The link between them had gotten them out of that van—maybe saved their lives.
But we need...
To be closer.
Just allowing that thought sent a surge of arousal through him, yet he eased his body away from her.
We have to find a safe place where we can...
Make love, she finished for him.
“Yeah,” he said aloud.
“My family has a cabin out in bayou country, near New Iberia. We can go there.”
He let the picture of the isolated cabin fill his mind. They’d be alone, uninterrupted.
“Does Reynard know about it?”
“I don’t think so.”
He nodded, deciding he’d make a judgment about the hideout later. “Right now, I need to get my laptop from my bed-and-breakfast.”
She tightened her hand on his. “Isn’t that dangerous?”
“It’s dangerous for my hard drive to fall into enemy hands.”
“Enemy hands. You mean Reynard—or whoever those men are working for?”
“Right. Either one.”
“What do they want with us?” she asked in a strained voice.
“I don’t know, but we’d better find out.”
“I know it’s a stretch, but do you think it has something to do with...that clinic?”
“Someone who wants to hurt John could be after you.”
“He didn’t share that with me if it’s true. And they came after both of us.”
“Well, they could be mad that I rescued you.”
“Okay. Right.”
“On the other hand, they could have just killed me and left me there—then taken you in the van. But they took both of us.”
She sucked in a sharp breath.
“But back to your question about that clinic. You have to wonder why they wanted to keep testing the children.” Deliberately he took his hand away from hers.
She leaned back against the seat with her eyes closed.
Hell of a day, he said.
Hard to imagine, she answered.
His head jerked toward her. “We weren’t touching.”
Her eyes widened. “That’s right.”
“But we spoke mind to mind.”
Yes.
“We have to strengthen that skill.”
“Yes,” she answered again. “We have to see how far apart we can get and still do it.” She turned her head toward him. “Did you and Sam have to be touching to speak mind to mind?”
“At first we did. Then later we could do it farther and farther apart.”
Excitement bubbled inside him as he contemplated the possibilities, but he ruthlessly cut off those thoughts. The first thing he had to do was make sure they were safe. From Reynard and from whoever else was after them.
* * *
“WHY HAVEN’T YOU reported in?” John Reynard asked the men he had stationed outside Stephanie’s house.
“Nothing to report,” Tommy Ladreau replied. “She’s still home.”
“How do you know?”
“Her car is still where she left it when she came home from her father’s.”
John considered that assessment. He would have called the shop if it had still been open. Was she still holed up in her house?
The tracking device he’d had the men put on her car showed the vehicle hadn’t moved. But what if she’d left on foot. Or—in another car?
That question brought to mind the man who’d been stalking her. Craig Brady. There was no information about him, which probably meant that Craig Brady wasn’t his real name.
“Give her another hour,” he said, “then go knock on the door and tell her you’re just checking in.”
He got off the phone and called a man in the police force who often did some work for him.
“This is John Reynard,” he said when his contact picked up.
“Yes?” came the cautious reply.
“There was an incident at Stephanie Swift’s clothing boutique earlier today.”
“Like what?”
“Two men came in and threatened her, and another guy charged in afterward and fought them off.”
“Okay.”
“I want you to go over there and dust for fingerprints. I want to know who those men were.”
“I can’t do it right away.”
“I think you’d better drop what you’re doing and get busy,” he said, then hung up.
* * *
CRAIG DROVE BACK to the French Quarter and found a parking space around the corner from his bed-and-breakfast. He would have told Stephanie to wait in the car, but he knew from her thoughts that she wasn’t going to let him go back there alone.
They held hands, trying to look casual as they kept to the sides of the buildings, heading back toward the antebellum mansion where he was staying. But all his senses were on alert as he scanned the area around them. Before they reached the mansion, he spotted one of the men who had kidnapped them, waiting in the shadows across the street. It was the bald guy.
Stephanie caught Craig’s thought and went still, then followed his gaze.
The man was looking toward the house, and they were able to back up and around the corner.
“We have to get out of here.”
“I need my computer.”
“That’s too dangerous.”
“Let me think.” He laughed softly. “Too bad we can’t convince him we’re invisible.”
“Oh, sure.”
He shrugged. “It’s worth considering.”
She stared at him. “You think we could do something like that?”
“I think we may have a lot of possibilities we can explore. But not until we can get out of the city.”
He knew she wanted to ask him to give up on his computer, but he wasn’t willing to do it—not with so much data in it. Of course, it was password-protected, but an expert could probably hack his way in.
“If this guy is out front, you can assume the other one is at the back.”
“Yeah.”
“Let’s check that out.”
They reversed their steps, heading back to the alley on the perpendicular street. Staying close to the buildings, they walked quietly toward the mansion. They spotted the curly-haired man in the yard across the street before he spotted them. As Stephanie stared at him, she took Craig’s hand.
He caught his breath when he saw what she had in mind. “No.”
Chapter Nine
“No,” Craig repeated.
“You have a better idea?” Stephanie asked as she scanned the alley, which was empty of people.
When he couldn’t come up with one, she said, “There’s a drugstore in the block back there. Let’s go get some duct tape.”
“You like the idea of poetic justice?”
“You know I do.”
They went back for the tape, then separated. Stephanie walked to the end of the alley where they’d entered before, and Craig went the other way. When they had visual contact with each other, she started walking down the alley as though she wasn’t aware that she was in any danger. Craig hurried to get into position.
As she’d predicted, the man saw her and stepped out of the backyard where he’d been hiding, his gun in his hand.
Stephanie stopped and gasped.
As the man closed in on her, Craig rushed behind him. The thug must have heard him, because he whirled. Before he could fire, Stephanie pushed him to the side, throwing him off balance. Craig brought the butt of his gun down on the man’s head, and he collapsed.
