It Takes Two (20 page)

He scowled at her. “What? No. What are you talking about?”

“I’ll pull over at the next rest area,” she said, her plan forming. “Right now, my boyfriend is a little on edge. It would be better if we do it later.”

“Sure, okay, you bet. I’ll just let you leave with it and
trust
that you’ll pull over later,” Harris scoffed.

“No, really, I will,” she said. “Here—” She pulled her iPod from her purse and thrust it at him. “This will ensure that I’ll pull over.”

He looked bewildered. “I don’t want your iPod.”

“I know—it’s collateral,” she said. “I’ll want it back, so I’ll pull over at the next—”

“No. The pendant. Here. Now.”

“But…I don’t have it,” she lied. The rules to this game were really quite simple—get the pendant to the drop site by midnight and don’t let Harris take it.

She’d already almost screwed that second one up. If the little dragon hadn’t slid into the hole in her purse lining, he’d have succeeded in taking it from her in Mitchell. At least he’d had to chase her there. She wasn’t going to just turn it over to him during a random roadside pit stop. It was a game and she didn’t even know what the prize was, but they were competitors, dammit.

“Well, a quick search will confirm that,” he said, grabbing her purse again.

She gripped the strap. “Hey!”

He tugged harder. “Seriously, I’m not losing this game to some little girl who argues with her boyfriend about gummy bears.”

She yanked the purse toward her. “Hey, don’t judge. There’s more going on here than you know.”

He pulled the purse closer to him. “Oh, I’m sure. I’m sure the gummy bears are symbolic of some bigger, more important issue between you.”

She narrowed her eyes. “As a matter of fact we’re kind of going through something.”

“And it’s life-altering, right?” he asked with an eye roll.

She frowned. “Have you ever been in love?” She managed to make his grip on the purse strap slip a little.

He scowled and jerked on it harder again. “Of course. My wife and I have been married for eleven years.”

“Yeah?” She tipped her head. “Any advice?”

He put a second hand on the purse strap and pulled. “Yeah. Don’t make gummy bears more important than his feelings.”

Isabelle gaped at him, the leather strap slipping from her fingers. “I don’t… They’re not… That’s not what…”

But Harris was digging through her purse and no longer paying attention to her.

“Hey!” He could try to get the pendant from her. That was part of the game. But that was a new purse.

She grabbed the purse, and when he tried to yank it back, she lifted her foot, then brought it down hard on his instep like she’d learned in the self-defense class she’d taken. He released the bag, pulling his foot off the floor instinctively—and swearing. Then she turned and ran.

Right into Shane’s chest.

“Are you okay?” he asked, his words sharp and his frown deep.

She nodded. “Yeah. Of course. No problem.”

Shane pushed her to the side as he stalked toward Harris. The man started to back up, limping slightly, his hands up in front of him.

“You need to quit harassing my girlfriend.”

Dammit. Shane looked like he might hit Harris for real.

She reached into her front pocket and pulled the pendant out, thrusting it toward Harris. “Here, just take it.”

The dragon on the end of the chain seemed to wink at her as the light caught the jewel in his eye.

This was so crazy.

Harris looked from Shane to Isabelle. “Um. What?”

She looked at Shane. “Just take it.” Bradley could get it back for her again. Or not. She needed to not make the gummy bears more important than Shane’s feelings. Reassuring him and letting him support her was more important than her getting her way. And she needed to put him and his feelings—his concern and frustration about her fibromyalgia—before the pendant and this game.

Bradley didn’t say another word. He tucked the necklace in his pocket and headed for the doors.

Shane moved in beside her.

“Nice move. I didn’t know you knew self-defense.”

“Amanda.”

He nodded. He knew her sister well enough to know that forcing a self-defense class on her sisters was exactly something the oldest Dixon girl would do. “I’ve always liked your sister.”

Isabelle smiled. “Me too.”

Shane’s expression—and voice—gentled. “You didn’t have to give it to him.”

“It’s okay. It’s been…a distraction.” It had been a good one in many ways, but she couldn’t keep just distracting him. Eventually they were going to have to face all of this relationship stuff.

Shane looked like he was going to say more, but finally he simply ran the pads of his fingers over her cheek and said simply, “Let’s go.”

They paid for their food and drinks. Shane didn’t say anything about the chocolate-covered pretzels and she gave him a few mental brownie points for that.

They were at the car when Shane suddenly turned her, pressed her back against the car and kissed her.

The kiss wasn’t sweet and tender, but neither was it hot and seductive. It was—possessive, maybe, and definitely a little desperate.

“God,” he said, when he’d lifted his head and sucked in some oxygen. “I know it’s not real, but when I saw that he had you back there alone, I thought my chest was going to explode.”

She cupped his face. “Not real?” Did he know about the game?

He seemed to hesitate for a second, then said, “I mean, he wasn’t really going to hurt you. He didn’t have a weapon and he…doesn’t seem like that kind of guy.”

That made sense. Sizing up bad guys was what Shane did every day. Maybe he didn’t know about the game.

She also liked his reaction. Clearly it was purely based on emotion if he knew that Harris wasn’t a danger. In that moment when she was with Harris, Shane was reacting as a boyfriend, not a cop. “I’m fine.” She stretched up and kissed him. “Totally fine.”

“Okay.” He breathed in and out, then kissed her once more. “Let’s get going. We don’t have to worry about that damned pendant anymore.”

Yeah. No more distractions. Great.

Chapter Eight

Shane knew he was an idiot. Driving across the state of South Dakota to break up with the only woman he’d ever loved was stupid enough. Insisting she eat well and drink more water as they did it was ridiculous.

Being pissed off at the guys who were pretending to be bad guys so that he and Isabelle could have some excitement on their trip was unreasonable.

As was calling a halt to the game back at the gas station. No one was getting hurt and Isabelle was clearly enjoying it. But damn. Seeing that guy with her… Shane gritted his teeth. Isabelle was a pain in the ass but she was
his
pain in the ass.

At least until they got to the cabin.

He shifted on his seat again and turned another page. They’d been driving and not talking for about an hour. She was listening to her satellite radio and he was making his way through
Living and Loving with Fibromyalgia
. But the more he read, the more restless he got.

She probably got migraines on a regular basis. She probably felt exhausted more often than not. She was probably supersensitive to the loud music he liked and the spicy food he liked and…yeah…many of the sex positions he liked.

He, of course, didn’t
mind
that she liked oral sex. A lot. That was…awesome. But he hated that she hadn’t told him
why
. She was really good at it. But he’d also thought she loved it. Knowing that it was just the lesser of two evils made him feel a little cheated, frankly.

But she
acted
like she liked it.

She was a good actress. He’d seen her in action at her company’s Christmas party and at a going-away party for a co-worker. He knew for a fact that one of the guys at the Christmas thing drove her crazy, but she sat next to him at dinner and if Shane hadn’t known better, it would have been easy to believe that the guy was charming and brilliant. He knew that she loathed the woman who was leaving and was glad to see her go, but watching at the party, Shane found it hard to believe that they weren’t best friends.

She was very good.

And she’d been faking it with him all along.

He turned the page, rolling his neck to loosen the muscles.

She’d said no the first few times he asked her out. Then he and Ryan and Cody had sung David Lee Roth’s “Just a Gigolo” during karaoke. She’d come up to him after the performance—which had gotten a standing ovation, incidentally—and asked him to dance.

They’d danced, her hands had wandered, she’d flirted and teased, and they’d ended up outside, in the rain, having sex on the hood of his car.

He sat up straighter in his seat. She’d initiated all of that.

He hadn’t been quite ready to give up on her, of course. He’d planned to ask her another dozen times or so before he took no for an answer. But he certainly hadn’t planned to take things that far the first night they hung out.

Not that he’d complained. Not that night or any of the nights that followed.

He frowned and studied the yellow dashed line flashing past the car.

Come to think of it, she’d initiated the second date too. He’d wanted to see her immediately the next day, but had figured he should play it cool.

She’d called him at ten a.m. the next morning. And talked him into meeting at her place for lunch. And a quickie.

It wasn’t always sex she was initiating either. Sometimes it was just the date. And sometimes it was the craziness
on
the date.

They’d gone to an airshow one day—his idea—but she’d flirted with some of the security people and had gotten behind the scenes. Then some additional flirting with a pilot had gotten her and Shane on a private flight over Omaha.

At the casino, she’d been the one that kept encouraging him to play. Even when he lost all but twenty bucks. Of course, in the end, he’d walked out with two grand.

When they’d gone to the carnival, she’d not only used the finger vibrator on the Ferris wheel—she’d paid the guy ten dollars to stop it at the top.
And
she’d been the one with the naughty cotton-candy-all-over-her-body idea.

None of that had been fake. He knew it. Her cheeks had flushed, her eyes had sparkled, she’d been excited and having fun and…had looked a lot like she did with this whole pendant mystery thing.

He looked over at her, eyes narrowed. Maybe she thought she had set all of this up because of him, to entertain him, to make sure he had a good time. But she wasn’t
that
good of an actress. Not for someone who knew her like he did.

Her orgasms were real. Her addiction to gummy bears was real. And that she was as much fun and enjoyed a good party as much as he did was real.

This pendant game was as much for her as it was for him.

“If we break up, who are you going to use as an excuse to get into the demo derbies?” he asked.

She looked over, clearly surprised. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, I get that you didn’t know you liked them before I came along, but now that you do, who’s going to ‘force’ you to go?”

She looked back at the road. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He chuckled at that. “Right. You know, I was going along with this whole thing about me running you ragged and being too much to keep up with. God knows I like to go hard and all night once in a while. But when I was thinking about how much you seem to be enjoying this whole stolen-pendant thing, I remembered that you were the one who got us on that yacht for that weekend party last fall and you were the one who bought me the tickets to the hockey games and then made friends with one of the player’s wives and got us into their post-game party and
you
were the one who snuck us into the last demo derby.”

She still stared at the interstate. “I did that because I knew how much you’d like that stuff.”

“And I did. And I’ll admit, I was the one who wanted to go skiing at the last minute in November and I was the one who wanted to go hot air ballooning.”

“Hot air ballooning in
Arizona
,” Isabelle added. “With three hours’ notice before our flight left.”

“It was gorgeous.”

“And then being in Arizona led to driving four more hours to the one-night-only Toby Keith concert at that dive country bar and then driving back just in time to get on the plane to get home.”

“It was a hell of a good time.”

She didn’t answer. Because he knew she’d have to agree with him.

“I’m not saying that I
never
initiate the stuff we do, but I also don’t
always
come up with the plans,” he said. “And,” he went on, his next point a very important one, “when I called to ask you to come to Vegas to hang out with me and Candy, it was the first time you’ve ever said no.”

That sunk in for him as he said it to her. She’d never asked to go home early, she’d never said, “How about another night instead?”, she’d never invited him to hang out quietly with her at home. She didn’t
know
that he didn’t want to do that because she’d never asked.