License to Thrill (26 page)

And she didn’t see the white Chevy Malibu slinking down the street behind her.

Mason tore out of the Beverly Hills Grand Piazza as if his hair had been dipped in kerosene and set ablaze. Charlee had a good three-minute lead on him. He swiveled his head right, then left, staring down the street in each direction for as far as he could see.

No sign of her.

Ah hell. Which way had she gone?

“Are you looking for your wife, Mr. Hammersmitz?” asked the ponytailed valet.

“Yes, yes. Did you see her?”

“Cute chick in the coolest blue boots and hot black T-shirt.”

“That’s her. Which way did she go?”

The valet held out his palm, the universal signal for you-want-information-it’s-gonna-cost-you.

Mason stuck his hand in his pocket in search of a twenty-dollar bill to press into the man’s greedy fist before remembering he was penniless.

“I’m sorry, man. I don’t have any money on me.”

The valet shrugged. “Dude, maybe I was mistaken. Maybe it wasn’t her after all.”

He was accustomed to money greasing wheels, making life easier. He’d never really thought much about it in his daily life. Money had always been a tool and he’d used it freely. It spoke for him so he didn’t have to speak for himself.

The valet turned away.

Anger spurted through Mason. Anger at the system he had helped to engender. Anger at the blasé valet. Anger at Daphne.

But most of all, Mason was angry with himself.

Without even thinking, he did something he would never have done even four days earlier. The dark wild-ness he’d kept hidden for so long burst free in an unstoppable torrent and he turned into a complete and utter Neanderthal protecting his own.

He grabbed the impertinent valet by his lapel, lifted him off his feet, and slammed him against the brick building. “Tell me which direction my wife went and tell me now,” he growled with so much intensity he startled even himself.

“Hey, man, okay, okay.” The valet’s eyes rounded with fear. “Don’t have an aneurysm. She was headed toward Rodeo Drive.”

“Appreciate the information.” Mason let go of the man’s jacket.

As he hurried away he heard the valet mutter, “White trash.”

His gut constricted and he managed to keep himself from whirling around and giving the guy an earful by reminding himself Charlee was in jeopardy. She was out there on the streets of Beverly Hills alone with those two goons who had followed them from Vegas. He had to get to her before they did.

He took off at a dead sprint and turned right. A woman walking her dog glared at him. He jumped over a hedge to avoid her, got caught in the spray from a sprinkler system and kept on running without missing a beat.

Dread filled his mouth and he knew with a horrible certainty Charlee was in trouble.

And then he saw her.

Relief washed through him. Thank God, she was all right.

She was a football field length ahead of him, marching with her head held high. Her coal black hair swaying provocatively just above her gorgeous butt. Those jaunty cowboy boots blazing a neon blue path across Beverly Hills as defiantly as a nose thumbing.

Something pinched inside his chest. Something tight and heavy. The stab of pain came not from running but from the very sight of her. Damn, he loved those neon blue cowboy boots.

And he loved the way that little skirt flounced sassily over her thighs. Since he was coming clean with himself, he might as well admit it. He loved a lot of things about her.

He loved her passion, her directness, her power. He loved the way she grabbed life in both fists and truly lived each moment to the fullest. But most of all he loved the way she made him feel like a better man for simply having known her.

Mason slowed to catch his breath, his heart thudding perilously loud in his ears. Charlee, Charlee, Charlee, his blood seemed to strum.

Mason was so compelled by the sight of her, his eyes feasting upon her luscious body, he didn’t see the Chevy Malibu creeping along behind her until the back door was flung open.

“Charlee,” he yelled.

But he was too late.

Just as she turned her head, one of the muscle-bound thugs tumbled frome the car, slapped one hand around her waist and the other around her mouth, and then pulled her into the backseat.

Before Mason could react, the door slammed and the Malibu sped away.

“Oww!” the thick-necked goon cried as Charlee sank her top teeth into the base of his thumb. “Stop that.”

“Get your hands off me, you big ape.” She fought him but he held her tight against his lap.

“You’re feisty,” he said. “I like that.”

She elbowed him sharply in the ribs.

“Oww! Sal, make her stop hurting me.”

The guy behind the wheel raised a handgun and pointed it over the seat at her. “Behave.”

Charlee settled down. Not because she was afraid of them—if she had a dollar for every time someone had pointed a gun at her she would be on vacation in the Caymans right now instead of stuck here with these two—but because she could think better if she wasn’t having to battle Mr. Personality here.

“Who are you guys?” she demanded. “And where are you taking me?”

“You’ll find out soon enough,” grunted Sal the driver who thankfully lowered his gun and returned his eyes to the road. “Shit! Look at the freeway. It’s backed up for miles.”

“Take PCI.”

“I can’t turn around now.”

“Well, take the next exit.”

“We’re gonna be stuck in traffic for hours,” Sal complained.

The thug beside her had retrieved his handgun from his shoulder holster and held the nose of the thirty-eight pressed against her ribs. Charlee sighed and longed for her own gun.

“Who do you work for?” she asked him.

“None of your business.”

“Why have you been following us since Vegas?”

He just grunted.

“You’re the guy who shot through my grandmother’s window, aren’t you?”

“So what if I was?” he asked petulantly.

“Don’t tell her anything,” Sal commented.

“Did you ransack the trailer too? I saw your car at my grandmother’s place.”

“She had something we wanted.”

“What?” Charlee demanded. “What’s this all about?”

“Shut up.” He prodded her with the gun.

“Were you the ones who set my father’s apartment on fire? What was that about?”

“That wasn’t us. We didn’t start the fire. We were just looking for your old man.”

“I said not to tell her anything,” Sal snapped. “Are you listening?”

“He’s right. Shut up.” The other man dug the gun deeper into her side.

“Where are we going?” Charlee asked, figuring if she threw enough questions his way he’d answer some of them eventually.

“You don’t take orders too good, do you?”

“Not from cretins who didn’t finish high school.”

“Hey! I got a GED, it’s the same thing,” the man beside her protested.

“Sure, go ahead, delude yourself,” Charlee said.

“It is.” He glared.

“Petey, she’s giggin’ you, man, don’t fall for it,” the driver said. “Just gag her and tie her up and be done with it.”

Petey frowned. “You really think a GED isn’t as good as a high school diploma?”

Frankly Charlee had no personal prejudice about anyone’s level of education but Petey obviously had a problem with his credentials.

“Well, you did end up as hired muscle,” she pointed out “Probably wouldn’t have happened if you had stayed in school. Who knows? You might even be running your very own Subway sandwich shop today if you had just gotten that diploma.”

So much for her smart mouth, Charlee decided five minutes later when they hadn’t budged two feet in wall-to-wall traffic and she was trussed up with more tape than a Miss America contestant in the swimsuit competition and lying facedown on the seat.

On the up side, she hadn’t thought about Mason in good ten minutes.

Mason.

Ah, hell, why had she thought about him?

“Hey,” Petey said. “Don’t cry. We’re not going to kill you, I promise.”

Tears rolled down her face.

“Come on now.” Petey patted her awkwardly on the shoulder. “It’s going to be okay.”

She must look pretty bad if her kidnapper was trying to console her. That made her cry all the harder. Damn Mason Gentry.

And just like that, all the fight left her. What did it matter if Sal and Petey did kill her? At least she’d be out of her misery.

Mason sped down the Pacific Coast Highway in the rental car he’d commandeered from a disgruntled Daphne. By some miracle, the Malibu had gotten stuck in a traffic jam and he’d managed to catch up with them. But he only saw the two men in the car.

What had they done with Charlee?

Savage vengeance, unlike anything he’d ever felt, coursed through his veins. If they’d hurt one single hair on her head, he’d wring their necks with his bare hands.

What had happened to the controlled, success-oriented businessman who’d walked into her office a mere four days ago? Where was the guy whose family name meant everything to him? Who was he now?

Something hard, solid, and certain burned directly to the left of his breastbone.

He was in love with her. Stone cold in love and he had no idea what to do about it.

Romantic love made no sense to his logical investment banker’s brain or the fact that it had happened so suddenly, so unexpectedly. But there it was.

She was his soul mate. His better half. He knew it with a certainty that rocked his world.

He felt like cracked lightning. Raw, stark, dangerous. Charlee had done this to him. She stripped off his controlled exterior and exposed the man beneath. The man who’d been shambling through life without really living it. The man who’d been afraid to break free and go for what he really wanted. The man who’d been almost; dead inside until he’d met her

She’d changed everything and now he was about to lose her.

This whole thing was his fault. If he’d just told her about Daphne beforehand, they’d be safely ensconced in the hotel room waiting for Pam to come take them shopping for Oscar clothes.

Ha!

The thought of that leisurely afternoon spent watching Charlee try on designer outfits evaporated.

He gripped the steering wheel and moistened his lips. Once they’d gotten off the congested freeway and onto the Pacific Coast Highway, they’d been moving right along. Past Santa Monica, past Venice Beach, past LAX.

Where were they going and was Charlee still with them? And if she wasn’t, what could they have done with her? Was she in the trunk of the car?

Was she dead?

Fear bit him. She wasn’t dead. She couldn’t be dead. He had so much to say to her, so much to explain.

He had to apologize and he had to tell her how he felt about her. It didn’t matter if she didn’t love him back. What mattered was that he was in love with her.

Steeling his jaw, he narrowed his eyes with resolve. He was sticking to the Malibu like Velcro. Nobody but nobody was going to abduct his Charlee and get away with it.

Nolan paced off the cramped confines of the mineshaft for the one-millionth time since Blade Bradford and his illegitimate son Elwood had abandoned them here the afternoon before. What in the hell were those two up to, he wondered.

A thin beam of light slanted through a hole in the ceiling, barely illuminating the constricted space. That dinner plate-sized hole was too far away to reach and every time he moved a fresh dusting of earth crumbled from the dirt wall.

What had once been two tunnels leading right and left from the underground room to the mines were now blocked with debris and rocks from a massive cave-in. Elwood and Bradford couldn’t have entombed them any more effectively if they had actually buried them alive.

Come to think of it, this had all the makings of a Poe short story.

“Nolan,” Maybelline chided, “please stop pacing.”

“I’m trying to erode the damned wall.”

“More likely you’ll cause it to fall in on us.” She waved at their precarious surroundings, then put the hand up to shield her nose and sneezed.

He paused. She was right. Plus he was kicking up enough dust to choke an asthmatic.

At first, Maybelline had been as antsy as he, pacing and cussing both her offspring and her ex-lover for dumping them here the day before. But during the last few hours she had grown so calm Nolan got worried. Maybelline wasn’t the quiet type.

She sat with her back against the north wall, her eyes tightly closed.

“Are you okay?” He squatted beside her and ignored the creaking in his knees.

“I’m fine. I’m just trying to think.”

Nolan exhaled sharply and sat down. He’d spent the last sixteen hours wracking his brain for a solution and he’d come up with nothing.

At gunpoint, Elwood and Blade had forced them into the mine shaft, slammed and bolted the rusted but solid metal door, and walked away. They’d had the decency to leave them three two-liter bottles of Evian, four apples, a bag of Doritos, and a Heath bar.

It wouldn’t take long to go through their meager provisions. Well, except for the Heath bar. His teeth not being what they used to be, the chocolate-covered hard toffee was not his candy of choice.

He got to his feet, unable to sit still, and squinted up at the shaft of light taunting him from overhead. He looked back over at Maybelline and watched her press her tongue to her lips.

A trickle of perspiration pearled at the hollow of her throat and the quick kick of lust that had him wanting to lick away her salty sweat startled him. He was as randy as a young buck. Go figure.

“Thirsty?” he asked, reaching for the Evian. They had been careful to ration the water, not knowing how long they had to make it last.

Maybelline shook her head. “We need to conserve.”

“Your lips are dry.”

She opened one eye to peer up at him through the thick haze of dust motes. “I’ll live.”

“One sip,” he urged, fretting over how pale she looked. His gut clenched. He thought of how they’d made love in the back of the camper. How good she’d made him feel. How much he enjoyed being with her. “One sip won’t hurt.”

“Okay,” she gave in. Obviously she was pretty darned thirsty if she acquiesced this easily.