I Got You, Babe (8 page)

“Yes?”

“Why didn’t you tell me about your boyfriend sooner?”

Because I hadn’t made him up yet.

“I don’t know. I guess I was afraid to.”

“Afraid? Why?”

Renee paused. “After all that stuff I said to you in that diner, I was afraid of what you’d do if I told you I didn’t want to...to go through with it.”

“What did you think I’d do?”

Renee was silent.

“Did you think I’d hurt you? Is that what you thought?”

She shrugged. “Well, you did yell a lot—”

“That’s right. I yelled. Because you were driving me nuts. Because you wouldn’t tell me the truth. But yelling’s all I did.” He paused. “It’s all I’d
ever
do.”

Renee heard the note of insult in his voice, and all at once she realized he was telling her that no matter how angry he’d gotten, he was nothing like her imaginary abusive boyfriend. And when she remembered how he’d kissed her, like a man who enjoyed giving pleasure as much as taking it, she knew it was true.

“And no matter what you promised me in that diner,” he added, “I never would have made you do anything you didn’t want to.”

What if I want to now?

The thought came so clearly into Renee’s mind that she was afraid for a moment that she’d spoken it out loud. It was the weirdest thing. Now that she knew he wasn’t a sex-crazed maniac, sex with him was all she seemed to be able to think about. She didn’t actually want to do it. Well, not all of it, anyway. But she wondered what would happen if she inched closer to him, laid her hand against his cheek, and kissed him. Just one kiss to bring back the memory of how wonderful it had felt. What would he do?

After all the protesting she’d done earlier, he’d probably skip right past the police station tomorrow morning and take her straight to the loony bin.

“Don’t let men hurt you,” John told her. “You don’t have to put up with that.”

The concern she heard behind the brusque tone of his voice sent her guilt level soaring. “I know,” she said softly. “I won’t. Not anymore.”

A frustrated sigh escaped his lips, as if he didn’t believe a word of it, as if he had volumes to say on the subject but realized it was pointless.

“Good night, Alice,” he whispered. Then he closed his eyes and was still. Minutes later she heard his soft, rhythmic breathing and realized he’d fallen asleep.

Renee turned to look at him, taking advantage of the first chance she’d had to stare at him all she wanted to without his looking back with anger or pity, or her worrying that he was going to catch her in a lie. The serenity of his face in slumber highlighted by the glow of the fire made him fiercely handsome, and she inhaled the sight of him. As afraid of his touch as she’d been before, that was how consumed she was with the thought of him touching her now.

Every memory of sexual intimacy she had was with a few teenage boys who knew nothing about sex. If the way John kissed was any indication, he clearly did. For a long, seductive moment she let her mind wander again, wondering what it felt like to have a man make love to her. Not a boy, who got it up and got it over with before she even realized it had started.

A man.

She felt a rush of longing so powerful it hurt. She’d had plenty of boyfriends over the years, but when they found out that her no really meant
no,
they hadn’t stayed around long.

It wasn’t as if she didn’t want sex. What she didn’t want was the consequences of sex. Not just the pregnancy/AIDS/social disease thing. She remembered the few times she’d given herself to boys who’d given her nothing in return, the shame and loneliness she’d felt, and she was determined never to feel that way again. After her wake-up call eight years ago, she had promised herself that until Mr. Right wandered along, she’d use her body only to hang clothes on and to transport her brain from one location to another. And it was a promise she’d kept. During that fateful summer of her eighteenth year when she’d begun her journey toward self-respect, she vowed that the next man she gave herself to would be a man she trusted. A man she loved.

A man who loved her.

Then she breathed a soft, regretful sigh. Even if she
did
find a man she could trust, a man who wanted more from her than sex on demand, how could she let him love her when she’d be a fugitive for the rest of her life?

She rolled to her side and lay still, trying to put thoughts of tomorrow out of her mind, hoping to get at least one restful night’s sleep before she was forced to start deceiving John all over again. Then the glint of something silver on the kitchen counter caught her eye.

John’s car keys.

Renee froze. It took her a full five seconds to comprehend the opportunity she saw before her, and when she did, she kicked herself for not thinking of it at a more opportune time. When he was in the shower, for instance. Car theft was a little easier when the owner was preoccupied. Or naked. Or both.

No.
She couldn’t steal his car.

Well, maybe it wasn’t exactly stealing. Not if she just used it for a little while, then left it somewhere and called him to tell him where to find it. Car theft involved tearing up steering columns and hot-wiring and generally trashing a car, then taking it to a chop shop, where it would be dissected into an unrecognizable pile of auto parts.
That
was car theft. This was more like, well...borrowing.

She figured she’d have to ditch the car pretty fast, though, because if he woke up and found her missing, then found his car missing, he’d call the local authorities and report it stolen. She’d get picked up before she knew what hit her.

Wait a minute.
He couldn’t call anyone. From what she’d seen, the cabin didn’t have a phone. The only phone she’d seen was a cell phone in his car. Which she would be driving.

That meant she’d be leaving him out here alone in the middle of nowhere, with no communication and no transportation. For a moment her conscience shouted at her, telling her she couldn’t do that. Then she weighed their respective situations. If she took his car, he’d be faced with a ten or fifteen-mile walk back to civilization. If she didn’t take his car, she’d probably end up spending ten or fifteen years in prison.

She told her conscience to shut up.

She lay deathly still for a long time, blinking to stay awake. When fifteen or twenty minutes passed and John still hadn’t moved, she lifted the covers carefully and sat up, swinging her legs around. The sofa bed creaked, and her heart turned a somersault. John stirred a little, then was still again.

She grabbed her shoes and carried them with her to the kitchen counter. Watching John with every step she took, she picked up his keys as deftly as she could to avoid clinking them together. His wallet sat beside the keys. Wallets generally contained money, and she needed some. Badly.

She sighed inwardly. That stealing thing.

Then again, if she sent him the money back later with interest, it wouldn’t exactly be stealing, would it? It would be more like...well, like she’d invested it for him. If she gave him, say, a fifteen or twenty-percent return, how could he possibly complain about that?

She opened his wallet to pull out whatever paper money was in it. But money wasn’t the first thing she saw. And when it dawned on her what she was looking at, she had to slap a hand over her mouth to keep from gasping.

A badge.

She tilted it slightly so the badge glinted in the firelight, then read the ID beside it. John DeMarco. Tolosa Police Department.

God almighty, John was a cop.

A sick, sinking sensation swooped through her stomach, and her knees went weak. For several seconds she just stood there as if her feet were fused to the floor. She’d propositioned a cop. She’d walked right into that diner, and with all the intuition of a dodo bird, she’d managed to zero in on the one man who had both the power and the authority to make sure she never saw the light of day again.

She had to get out of here.
Now.

She pulled all the paper money out of his wallet and stuffed it into her jeans pocket. She walked silently to the door, her heart hammering in her chest. She turned the dead bolt until it clicked softly. When she opened the door, it squeaked a little on its hinges. John stirred. She spun around and held her breath as he turned over, his back to the door, then became still again.

She slipped out the door, pulling it closed behind her. She tiptoed along the tree-lined dirt path toward the Explorer, her warm breath fogging in the cold night air. She clasped her shoes to her chest, trying to avoid big patches of fallen pine needles she knew would crunch beneath her feet. She glanced back over her shoulder. The cabin was silent.

Would he hear her start the car?

It didn’t matter. All that mattered was that she got inside the car and locked the doors before he made it outside. Then he’d have no way of stopping her.

She reached the Explorer and slipped the key into the lock, her teeth chattering from the cold. Bits and pieces of prayers ran through her head, promises to God for all the wonderful things she was going to do with her life if only he’d get her out of this one little pickle. If only he’d make John sleep until about ten o’clock tomorrow morning. If only the person who really committed that robbery would step forward, confess, and get her off the hook. If only...

As she turned the key, she heard a faint crunch on the path behind her. She whipped around, and all at once she realized the cop sleeping less than thirty yards away was the least of her worries. Her biggest problem had just become the ugly, sneering, tattooed mountain of muscle standing behind her, his single gold earring glinting in the moonlight.

“Hey, there, sweet thing. Going somewhere?”

Chapter 5

R
enee yanked the key out of the lock and flung the car door open. She leaped into the Explorer and jerked the door shut, but before she could lock it, Leandro yanked it back open. She lunged over the console, heading for the passenger door. But Leandro clamped his meat hook of a hand onto her leg, his fingers digging in like claws. She kicked wildly, her foot smacking him in the chest. He made one of those Batman-like
oof
noises, and she knew she’d knocked the wind out of him. But not enough wind, she realized, when he grabbed her by the waistband of her jeans and hauled her backward.

Renee clung ferociously to the steering wheel. “Let me go!”

“Not this time,” Leandro said. He peeled her fingers away from the wheel and dragged her out of the car. “You and me got a score to settle.”

Renee twisted left and right, kicking and screaming. She knocked an elbow into his ribs and stomped on his toes. Nothing. It was like whacking an elephant with a flyswatter. He dragged her backward, his arm clamped around her chest. She twisted and fought, clawing at his arm and screaming, knowing the instant he got her into his car she wouldn’t stand a chance of getting out.

And then he let her go.

Suddenly and unexpectedly free, Renee spun around to discover that Leandro hadn’t released her out of the goodness of his heart. An arm was wrapped around his neck. An arm that belonged to a certain police officer who was no longer sleeping like a baby.

The look of shock on Leandro’s face quickly gave way to one of those ugly snarls generally reserved for championship wrestlers. He slammed an elbow into John’s ribs. John sucked in a sharp, painful breath and fell away, leaving Leandro free to wheel around and land a solid blow to his face with his doubled-up fist. John recoiled, then countered with a right hook that smashed Leandro’s nose, spun him around, and sent him face-first into the dirt. When he hit the ground with a howl of pain and a string of four-letter words, Renee decided she’d seen enough of round one. It was time she headed out.

She leaped into the Explorer, knocking her shoes into the passenger seat, thanking her lucky stars that she’d had the foresight to hang on to the car keys. She clicked the door locks, then started the engine. She glanced back to see that John had evidently paid attention in cop school, because he’d leaped on top of Leandro, his knee between his shoulders and his hand clamped around the back of his neck, shoving his already mangled nose even deeper into the dirt. Leandro squirmed beneath him like a squashed bug. It was a beautiful sight, and under normal circumstances she’d have paid dearly to have a ringside seat. Unfortunately, she had more pressing things to attend to, like getting the hell out of there.

She backed the car around in a semicircle, ignoring her conscience, which was screaming at the top of its imaginary lungs. It was reminding her that the only reason John had come to her rescue was because he undoubtedly believed Leandro was her abusive boyfriend. He was trying to protect her, and she was thanking him by stealing his car.

No. Not stealing. Borrowing.

She hit the accelerator and sped down the dark, forest-lined road, intending to put as many miles between her and that cabin as she possibly could. Sooner or later the insane bounty hunter and the enraged cop would stop beating each other senseless and compare notes, and the minute they did, they’d stop going after each other and start coming after her.

Even though John had managed to maneuver himself into a superior position, he wasn’t at all sure he had King Kong under control. The guy was rumbling beneath him like a volcano ready to blow.

“Let me
up,
you bastard!”

John felt a little dizzy from the blow the guy had given him to his face, but finally he managed to catch a good, solid breath and inched his knee farther up the guy’s back.

“Police officer!” he shouted. “And you’re staying
down
!”

The guy went still beneath him. “A cop? You’re a
cop
?”

 
John felt a flush of satisfaction. A certain abusive boyfriend hadn’t counted on the law showing up, now, had he?

“You’re a
cop,
and you let her get away?”