Sweet Dreams Boxed Set (148 page)

The warm, soft body curled up against him brought him quickly back to the matter at hand. He was in a hotel room with Angela Chack. Her soft breasts were pressed against his arm. Her head rested on his shoulder and he inhaled the clean scent of her hair.

Big mistake.

A jolt of awareness shot through him. He’d told her she wasn’t his type but that was a lie. There wasn’t anything about her that didn’t light him up. He enjoyed watching the subtle sway of her hips when she walked. The sound of her voice soothed him. Her green eyes mesmerized and the feel of her against him was too much to bear.

He placed a hand on her shoulder and tried to gently move her away, but instead, she rolled on top of him and kissed him, a soft feathery kiss on the edge of his mouth.

She had no idea she was playing with fire. “You don’t want to do that,” he said in a low growl.

She kissed him again.

This kiss wasn’t anything like the first. It was hot, wet, passionate. Her lips were on his, her tongue exploring. She was intoxicating. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close. The kiss grew deeper, hotter.

Suddenly, both of her hands were on his chest, pushing him away. “What are you doing?”

He could hardly see her in the dark, but he could hear the accusation in her tone. “You kissed
me
. Not the other way around.”

As best she could, she moved away from him, and pulled the sheet over her. He could hear her breathing, but she didn’t utter another word. Whatever that was, it ended as quickly as it had begun.

Chapter Six

They drove straight through Indiana and Illinois, didn’t stop until they entered Iowa and found a rest stop.

Jason leaned against the outside of the women’s bathroom and waited for Angela to finish up. If the place wasn’t empty, he might have worried about her talking to a stranger, alerting them to her situation. When she appeared, though, she smiled, revealing dimples he hadn’t noticed before. “You didn’t think I would come out of there, did you?” she asked.

“I was never worried.” He started off back to the car. She followed.

“About that kiss last night—”

“Forget about it,” he said as they walked.

“I want to apologize. I was half asleep. I thought you were Rob.”

“No need to apologize. I enjoyed it as much as you did.” He started walking again.

“I didn’t enjoy it at all.”

He grunted.

“Please, just let me go. My friends are probably worried about me. Kidnapping isn’t going to help your case.”

“I already told you. I’ll let you go when we get to California.”

“Why not now?”

“It’s too soon.”

He didn’t want to look at her, afraid if he did he might get the urge to take her right back to the hotel and finish what they had started last night. Having her warm body next to his had made it difficult to sleep, but the truth was, even if she wanted to make love to him, he wasn’t sure he would go through with it. For one thing, they didn’t trust each other, and he wasn’t that callous. But besides that, she was a young, beautiful woman who had her whole life ahead of her. He could end up back in jail, or worse, dead. He didn’t want her to do something she would later regret. Once they got to California they would never see each other again.

It wasn’t until he reached the car and opened the passenger door that he noticed she was gone.

He looked around, then frowned when he saw her jogging across the parking lot toward a semi idling across the way. She didn’t waste any time chatting it up with the driver. By the time he caught up to her, the truck driver had opened the passenger door and invited her to get inside.

Jason grabbed hold of her arm. “What do you think you’re doing?”

She looked over her shoulder at him, her green eyes sparkling beneath the bright rays of the sun cracking through the clouds. “This nice man said he would be happy to give me a ride.”

“I bet he would.”

The truck driver was, as they say, built like a truck. He also had a shaved head, and his neck was bigger than a tree trunk. The sleeves of his dirty shirt were rolled up to his shoulders, so that Jason could read
Stan
tattooed on his right arm.

“Move along, mister,” Stan told him. “The woman wants to go with me.”

“Give me a minute to talk to her and then I’ll leave her be.”

Stan nodded and Jason pulled Angela far enough away so he couldn’t overhear. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“What does it look like? You don’t need or want my help. Besides, you can’t exactly throw me over your shoulder and take me back to the car now, can you? I would scream so long and loud, a dozen cops would be on your tail within five minutes.”

“I want you to turn around and take a good hard look at the man you’re thinking of hooking up with.”

She glanced at the truck driver. Jason did too. The top of Stan’s shaved head was blinding in the sun. He was big and brawny and didn’t need to smile for Jason to see he only had a few teeth left. He could smell the guy’s body odor from here.

“What about him?” Angela asked.

“He’s going to give you a ride all right, but he’s not going to take you anywhere you want to go. He could be a serial killer for all you know.”

“That’s calling the kettle black, don’t you think?”

“Listen. I know you don’t trust me. And there’s not a lot I can do to convince you of my innocence, but you’re not thinking this through. If you’re going to go with the truck driver, that’s your decision. I’m not going to try and stop you again. But I want you to know that once I drive out of here, you’re on your own.”

She crossed her arms. “Tell me something I don’t know.”

“I haven’t given you any reason to be afraid of me. I haven’t touched you in- appropriately or—”

“You took advantage of me just last night.”

“You kissed me. You’re lucky it stopped there.”

She looked him straight in the eye. “Why? I thought I wasn’t your type.”

He was
this
close to telling her the truth…that he had hardly gotten any sleep last night. That she was a beautiful woman and her douche of a boyfriend was a fool for letting her go. But reality set in and he kept his mouth shut. His freedom was on the line. This was his chance to prove his innocence, and here he was trying to convince a woman he’d known for less than forty-eight hours that she should pick him instead of some toothless truck driver. The notion made his jaw hurt. “I need to get going,” he said. “You do what you need to do.”

And then he walked off.

***

Angela watched him walk away. She tried to tell herself it was for the best.

He was a convicted felon who had spent the last eight years in prison. He’d kidnapped her and was keeping her against her will. And yet he hadn’t taken advantage of her last night, she thought, as she turned back toward the truck and its driver.

The trucker grinned as he watched her walk toward him. “My name’s Stan,” he said, holding out a hand.

“Angela,” she said.

He licked his cracked lips before he said in what she assumed was supposed to be a comforting voice, “You’re doing the right thing.”

He helped her into the truck, both hands squeezing her ass as he pushed her high enough so she could easily climb inside. She’d never been inside an eighteen-wheeler before. And she didn’t like it one bit.

The inside of his truck smelled worse than Stan himself. Dirty boots, empty water bottles, half-eaten food and trash littered the floor. A filthy curtain separated the back of the truck from the front. When she moved the curtain aside, something skittered to the rear of the vehicle. Then her gaze fell on a pile of used condoms in one of the cup holders. The smell of rotted meat and body odor grabbed her by the throat and shook her.

What was she doing? Had she completely lost her mind?

The driver’s door creaked open just as she was reaching for the handle on her side. The door was heavy, though, and she had to use her legs to push it all the way open. She jumped out—half fell—onto the hard ground. Her knee hit the pavement first.

Before she could get to her feet, she watched her car pull out of its parking space and move toward the exit. “Don’t leave me,” she called out. Scrambling to her feet, she limped hurriedly toward her abductor, Chris Patterson, waving her arms above her head, praying he would see her. She didn’t have a phone or a dime to her name.

But it was too late.

She watched her car roll out onto the long road and then merge onto the highway.

She had done what she said she would do. She had escaped a convicted felon. And yet she felt nothing but dread. Taking in a deep breath, she headed for the benches lined up near the restrooms. Both knees ached. She stopped at an old payphone to search for quarters.

No such luck.

She picked up the receiver, then saw the “out of service” sign.

A car she hadn’t noticed before, parked at the other side of the rest stop, backed out of a parking spot. She waved her hands in the air, hoping they would stop but the car never slowed before merging onto the freeway.

Overwhelmed by her predicament, and needing a moment of clarity, she took a seat at a wooden picnic table, folded her arms in front of her, and let her head drop.

“Come on, girlie girl. It’s okay. We’ll take good care of you, I promise.”

Her head snapped up.

It was Stan. And he wasn’t alone. His friend was as skinny as a broomstick—a broomstick with long, stringy hair. Dirty jeans hung low on his hips.

“I can’t go with you,” she said, trying to remain calm despite the voice in her head telling her to get the hell out of there. “My friend is coming to pick me up. She’ll be here any minute.”

“How did you call your friend? The payphone is out of order.”

“My other friend…the guy who just left…called her for me.”

His grin told her he knew she was lying. “Why don’t you come with us and wait for your friend there? I set up a nice little lunch in the back of my truck. The three of us are going to have a good time. We’ve got everything you need until she comes for you.”

“No, thanks. I’d rather wait here.”

She didn’t think her predicament could go from bad to worse, but that’s exactly what had happened. Panic settled over her in waves. There was no way she was climbing into that truck again.

Her heart beat faster as she scanned the area.

Where had everybody gone?

Both men’s gazes feasted on her, their intentions clear. They weren’t asking her to join them, they were telling her.

The skinny man pounded a fist on the wood table.

She jumped.

“Come on. Let’s go. Now!” His eyes were wild. He was as high as a kite.

She stood, pretending she might go with them. Instead, she pushed off from the table and took off, sprinting across the wide expanse of grass. Her ankle hit a soft spot in the ground and nearly buckled. But she regained her balance and ran into the women’s restroom before she remembered there was no main door to the bathroom, no way to lock the men completely out.

Hidden within the middle stall, she stood on the toilet, trapped. Her breathing was uneven, her chest rising and falling. She’d never been so afraid in her life.

Footsteps echoed off of the cement walls. “I know you’re hiding in here.”

It was the skinny one.

“No reason to try to run off again. We just want to have a little fun.”

The first stall door creaked slowly open and then slammed shut with a bang.

He moved down the line, one door at a time.

When he got to her stall, she kicked the door as hard as she could.

Broomstick fell to the ground. She darted from the bathroom and slammed into Stan’s barrel chest. He held her close, his dirty hands clinging to her waist as he grinded against her like a dog in heat. She was going to be sick.

“I got her, Al,” Stan shouted to his friend.

“I think the bitch might have broke my nose,” the guy called from the bathroom.

“Leave her alone!” a third voice challenged.

Angela looked in the direction of the voice. It was Chris. He’d come back for her.

“Fuck you!” Stan shot back. “You had your chance.”

Al exited the bathroom. He pulled out a three-inch blade, making sure everyone saw it, then looked at Chris when he said, “You best turn around and go back the way you came.”

Chris waited for Al to approach. Just as he had done in the morgue, he took a couple of long strides toward the man and grabbed hold of his wrist, twisting until Al let out a wild screech and dropped the knife.

He went for Stan next, told Angela to duck, then punched him in the side of the head. As the trucker fell to his knees, Chris grabbed hold of Angela, stopping her from falling to the ground with him, and said, “Get in the car.”

She didn’t have to be told twice.

She ran toward the vehicle and jumped inside. Chris was right behind her. He slid in behind the wheel and peeled out of the parking lot.

Chapter Seven

They had been driving for hours. The sign on the side of the highway told Jason they had just entered Nebraska.

Neither of them had said a word since the incident at the rest stop.

Until now.

“Since we’re in Nebraska,” Angela said, “I was thinking we could stop at my mom’s house for the night. I haven’t seen her since she moved here. We talk on the phone every so often,” she went on after he said nothing in response. “I was thinking I could borrow her computer, so you could do some research, figure out if that defense attorney you’re planning on visiting still lives in California. It would be a shame to get all that way and discover he moved.”

He remained silent, kept his eyes on the road.

“I could say you were Rob, since she’s never met him. She wouldn’t even know the difference.” She sighed. “She doesn’t watch television, so even if you happened to be on the news, she would have no idea.”

Jason had been doing a lot of thinking since leaving the rest stop. He might actually entertain the idea of staying the night at her mother’s house, because he’d realized it was time to set off on his own. Worrying about Angela running off had become exhausting. He couldn’t do it any longer. But he also needed to know she would be okay. Leaving her with her mother sounded like the perfect solution.