Christmas Getaway (11 page)

“True,” he said, “but Tommy didn't know that, and when Connor didn't show for his own wedding, he probably thought he'd been double-crossed. He suspected Connor had the diamonds, and had every intention of skipping town with them on his romantic honeymoon. Or maybe Connor told him what you'd overheard. Where was it Connor and Molly were planning to go for their honeymoon?”

“Australia, I think,” Jean said. “But what I heard was hardly enough to implicate him.”

“Seems Connor might have thought so. He knew something had gone wrong at the point you overheard his conversation. All he had to do was put in a phone call to Tommy to take out the one person who'd heard him threaten the children and talk about diamonds. Whether it was suspicion on Tommy's part or Connor ordered a hit on you is something we'll know eventually.”

Jean could feel a tremor start in her fingers and move down to her ankles. She told herself not to think about the danger she'd been in; there were bigger concerns to worry about. “Where are Charlie, Lily and Zoe?”

“Not sure yet. But they'll be safe and in good hands, don't worry. You're just lucky Tommy Morrissey is such a poor shot,” Sam said cheerfully. “Apparently one of his nicknames is No-Hit Tommy.”

She didn't think that was humorous. “If he was such a
poor shot that he couldn't even hit a grape-velvet, hoop-skirted maid of honor, why was he Connor's right-arm man?”

“Loyalty. Speed up a little.”

“Oh, I can't,” she said. “I absolutely never drive over sixty miles an hour, and as you may have noticed, the roads are going to be getting slick from all this snow. I really don't want traffic tickets on my record.”

“Bend your rules and give me five or ten miles or more.”

His tone had changed from teasing to tightly wound. “Why?”

“Just for grins, okay?”

He was such an autocrat. She eased the accelerator three miles higher, then five, then a reluctant ten, until she realized he was back watching that damn mirror again. “Just what are you looking at behind us?”

“Just making sure we're not being followed.”

Cold chills snaked through her. “Sam, look. Maybe flying would be better. You're going to be a very tiresome companion if you're going to worry the entire way to New England.”

“Sorry to be the rain on Miss Christmas's parade.”

She was now up to seventy miles an hour and not happy about it. Relief washed over her when five minutes later, he said, “You can slow down now. And I'm not completely anti-holiday, by the way.”

She met his eyes briefly as she eased to a more comfortable speed. “Sure you are. And a day around my family would probably scare you off them for good. Are you satisfied that we're not being followed?”

“Pretty much.”

“What made you think we were?” The thought that he might have actually seen somebody made her feel cold all over.

“Instinct. Gut feeling.”

This was ridiculous. He wasn't going to ruin her Christ
mas. “This theory about me being the target is silly,” she said, marshalling herself for an argument that he richly deserved. “Perhaps if we don't talk anymore about the wedding and focus instead on being—”

“Romantic?”

That actually didn't sound half-bad. “Not unless you want Mom going into the stratosphere with plans. She'll call all her girlfriends and all the relatives if she even suspects I might have brought home someone special.”

“You've never done that before?”

Uh-oh. She was the same age as Molly, and Sam was older, so he obviously wasn't any more intent on the altar than Jean was, but still the answer to that question made her feel awkward. “Guess I've just been waiting for Mr. Right,” she said airily.

“I'm already out of my comfort zone,” Sam said, pushing his hat down over his eyes and leaning back comfortably, lazily untroubled, “but if you want me to play at being Mr. Right, I'm game.”

And Molly had always said her brother was so hard to get along with. Sam was being so accommodating, Jean wanted to scream.

S
AM WASN'T
really asleep. He was giving Jean time to stew over his offer. He'd never thought about settling down. Bachelorhood had only taken on a strange connotation when he realized his baby sister would beat him to the altar—and then he'd begun to wonder if maybe it was time to start reconsidering life as he knew it.

Life as he knew it was very good—but it was also solitary. He
was
moody, dark, introspective. Not like Molly, and not like Jean. Jean wanted to analyze and categorize everything; it was the librarian in her. He just couldn't see himself waking up every morning, getting the newspaper and sitting down at the breakfast table with a woman who wanted to discuss the most recent literary work.

Of course, if that woman happened to look like Jean, he could consider revising his life's plans. He certainly hadn't had a negative reaction to being the Christmas hunk her mother was hoping would drop into her daughter's stocking. “Hey, I'll drive for a while.”

“That was a fast nap.”

“I was thinking.” He pushed his hat back. “Problem solved.”

She glanced at him. “That fast? Must not have been world peace.”

“More like family peace. Pull over at the next stop, please.”

“Why did you make me drive in the first place? Just so you could look for nonexistent baddies?”

“A woman driving my car was one of my fantasies, all right?” he said. “And you looked great doing it, so now that I've lived the fantasy, I'm ready to drive.”

“Whew, what a crab.” She laughed and pulled off the road into the parking lot of an abandoned, long-closed gas station. “Maybe you need a little more time under your hat.”

She was probably right. But he was beginning to realize that fantasies and Jean sort of went together. Okay, so he'd lied about fantasizing about a woman driving his car, but she'd done it so capably—and in bad weather—that sexy had come to mind. And then she was so darn pleasant about everything, coddling him emotionally, badgering him in his crusty moods—why wasn't she annoyed? Why was she totally sunny…and why did he find that so appealing?

“Don't fall,” he said, as she came around to the passenger side. “It's as slick as hell—”

He reached out to catch her just as she slipped on ice neither of them saw.

“Thanks for the catch,” she said breathlessly, but he didn't need thanks, because he had an armful of beautiful blond woman and somehow he'd gone quite warm despite the twenty-degree weather. She was close enough to kiss since he'd grabbed her tightly to him, and strangely, kissing her was very much on his mind, but he'd already done that once and she hadn't seemed too happy about it. They had many hours left to travel, and there was no point in having a mad companion.

“I'm good at catching things,” he said lightly. “Get in the car before you knock both of us down.”

“That would not be good,” she said, climbing into the cab. He shut the door and headed around to the driver's side.

And then it hit him: the strangest sensation that they were being watched. It was impossible, though. He'd kept a careful eye on every mile of the road behind them.

He was, as Jean liked to say, suspicious.

“What are you doing?” she asked when he got into the car. “You stood out there so long I wondered if you were getting cold feet about your decision to come home with me.”

“No, I'm still in for Christmas-hunk duty,” he said, unable to dispel the strange sensation prickling the back of his neck.

“Good,” she said, “my mom's really going to like you.”

He turned to look at her. “Is that a good thing?”

“Oh, yes. She despairs of my love life. Seeing you will let her know that I am totally capable of meeting sexy men with good manners.” She smiled at him.

“I would think there are tons of guys out there who would make a mother's heart melt.”

“Not mine.” Jean shook her head. “My mom and dad have only been married to each other. They don't argue, they don't even squabble. If they do, my sisters and I never hear it.”

“Oh, boy,” he said, “that's a pretty tough one to live up to.”

“You're just playing at being the hunk, you don't have to sacrifice yourself for Mom's sake. She'll just be happy to see that there's someone I know who's very…you know, eligible.”

He hadn't really thought about his eligibility. Molly had always teased him about girls and whom he was dating. She'd warned him he'd best be careful or he'd get caught by some sweet woman and the next thing he knew, he'd be hanging stockings for a large family—but he'd always known in his heart her teasing was nonsensical. Grouchy Rangers who lived alone in the country didn't get married. They dated occasionally, but they never gave up their personal freedom. “How does your father stand living in a
house with four women? Oh, five, counting Gigi, the golden retriever.”

“Dad says he's the happiest man on the planet,” Jean said, and Sam had the feeling he probably was.

A sudden shot rang through the air. The car lurched and Sam knew a tire had been hit. “Get down!” he barked, crushing Jean to the seat and covering her with his body.

She was warm, she was still and he could feel her panicked breathing underneath him. And that was the moment he realized that if anything happened to her, he was going to lose his only chance at a woman he was really starting to care about.

“Get off!” she exclaimed.

Nothing rattled her. He liked the fact that she wasn't a nervous ninny. “Someone just took a shot at the car. Stay down.”

“We're in the middle of Nowhere, Arkansas. I'd rather stand up and be shot than lie here and cower. Even though you're nice and warm, I want out from underneath you.”

Jeez, this woman was fearless. “You're not going to like taking a bullet. I advise you to stay down.”

“I wouldn't have liked it at the wedding, either, so I'm not going to be a crybaby about it. Besides, if they'd meant to hit either of us, they would have done it when we were out in the open. They only blew out a tire, so whoever it is is toying with us. I, for one, do not appreciate being toyed with.”

She made a good point. Why would someone have shot out the tire and not taken him out so they could have had Jean to themselves, to question and whatever else?

It didn't bear thinking about.

An eighteen-wheeler pulled up behind them, and a burly driver with a cheery face got out and walked to Sam's window. “You've got a flat,” he told Sam. “Need help changing it, or could you use a lift?”

Sam could change his own tire, but accepting a ride in the hauler would preempt any more shooting. Jean was right. Whoever was stalking them hadn't meant to hit them, just slow them down, make them feel hunted. “Stranger, I'd be obliged,” he said, “but I should warn you we're being followed.”

“Figured that by the bullet in your tire,” the stranger said laconically. He shrugged. “Harder to take out a big rig, though, and I don't mind company at all. We can sing Christmas carols together.” He grinned cheerfully, and Sam looked at Jean, thinking the plan was almost airtight.

“You'd be taking a lot on by giving us a ride.”

The trucker stuck out a hand, grinning broadly. “Name's Len Hughes. You ever see
Smokey and the Bandit
?”

Sam nodded, getting a mental vision of car chases and wild truck escapes.

“My rig and I have a bunch of road-warrior stories to tell,” Len said. “You'll be as safe as kittens with me.”

 

F
IVE MINUTES LATER
, Sam and Jean were ensconced in the cab with the amiable driver who'd agreed to haul them as far north as Kentucky. From there, they'd have to get to Satter-bury, Vermont, and the Norville family home, but this was definitely safer than being a sitting duck for a shooter who thought Jean knew enough to implicate Connor O'Bannion. Eventually, the guy was going to slip up.

“Hitching a ride wasn't in the plans,” Sam said.

“My mother doesn't care how I get home, just so long as I do.” Jean decided being this close to Sam wasn't a bad thing at all. She was warm and she was with him—her holiday still felt very shiny. And the driver, she had to say, looked an awful lot like Santa Claus. She could just imagine him wearing a red cap with a white ball of fuzz on the end rather than the
red gimme cap he wore. His truck cab was even painted red, and he had a sprig of holly hanging from the rearview mirror and a wreath on the silver grill.

“I like working for myself,” Len Hughes said, in his friendly way. “Means I'm only responsible for me.”

“It's a good thing,” Sam said.

“Which means I won't mention to anyone that a bullet flattened your tire.” He glanced at them in the mirror. “But I do have to wonder just for the sake of curiosity why anybody would be shooting at such a nice couple. You folks on the run?”

“No,” Sam said, clearly deciding he could trust their driver, “we're not in trouble with the law. In fact, I'm in law enforcement, and Jean is a librarian. However, there's trouble in the family tree.”

Actually, no,
Jean thought,
it's your family tree, not mine that was marrying into trouble.
And then she realized he was including her in the Broadbent family, and it felt kind of good.

“Well, one little pop gun can't do any damage to my rig, so you two just relax,” Len told them. “I've got a place not far from Mom's where you two can spend the night if you want. We'll be there by nightfall.”

Not far from Mom's? This big man still lived close to “Mom”? Jean decided that any man who wanted to live that close to his mom deserved a medal in his Christmas stocking this year. “We'd like that,” she said.

“It'll doubtless be pretty cozy,” Sam said softly.

“I'm good with cozy.”

“You might just let Ma think you two are married,” Len said, “just for the sake of propriety, if you know what I mean, because it's a one-room place. But you'll be safe, I guarantee you that.”

“We can go for safe,” Sam said, and Jean told herself that the tingling in her fingertips was because she'd just been shot
at for a second time and not because Sam's warm fingers had briefly squeezed hers when she'd jumped at the word
married
.

 

“T
HIS LOOKS MORE
honeymoon than getaway,” Jean told Sam when they were shown into the “one-room place” of Len's. “I feel like we're in a four-star hotel instead of hiding away from someone who's trying to scare me into having a bad Christmas.”

“I texted Mom and told her I was bringing home a honeymooning couple who were down on their luck,” Len said, his broad face a trifle sheepish. “I hope you won't mind the small fib.”

“Thank you for all your kindness,” Jean said, and Sam shook Len's hand. “And please tell your mother, as well.” The room was lovely, not a place she would have imagined as Len's. Beside the bed a pitcher of ice water was placed; nearby was a crystal decanter of wine. A plate of cheese and crackers was set on the table, as well, with mounds of glistening grapes. Just looking at the fluffy bed made Jean want to crawl in and forget the past forty-eight hours.

“We're four miles from the road and hard to get to,” Len said. “So no worries that your friend'll catch up with you. On the property I've got a couple of dogs that roam. They're gentle but not with trespassers, so don't feel like you're unprotected. They'll let you know if anyone's out there.” Len grinned. “No one would want to meet up with Ma's shotgun, anyway, but be sure to telephone the house if you get worried.”

“We will. Thank you.” Sam looked around the room as Len left them in the cabin. “This is great. I want one of these places.”

“You already have one. You just haven't decorated it as nicely. Besides,” Jean said, industriously digging into her suitcase and trying not to think about sharing the inviting bed with Sam, “Len said he doesn't really live here. He uses this
place as a bed-and-breakfast hideaway for travelers. You can always come back.”

“Wouldn't be the same without you,” Sam said. “You keep things lively.”

“Because someone keeps shooting at me?” She shook her head. “I'll be delighted when all the criminals are in jail. Right now, I'm going to bed, and I'm dreaming of nothing but sugarplums. I'll leave the cop stuff to you.”

He smiled. “You realize this is the second time we'll have slept together? We're two for two.”

“Yes, but you're on your own tomorrow night. Mom will have your room a decent distance away from mine.” It was a pity, Jean thought.
I should have kissed him thoroughly when I had the chance—I'll never be able to work up the nerve at Mom's with my sisters spying around every corner.

Strange how kissing him today seemed much more tempting than it had yesterday. But today she felt she knew this man better than she had yesterday. In some ways it seemed like she'd known him for years.

“I didn't tell you how much I appreciate you putting up the ornaments that Molly gave me,” Sam said suddenly. “It made me sorry I've been so stubborn all those years about decorating.”

She closed her suitcase, glancing at him. “Guys don't decorate as enthusiastically as women do.”

“I just didn't want to. I didn't want to clean up the mess after the holidays. I didn't want to feel sad when I packed everything away. Molly has her own life. Why would I decorate just for me?”

“If you missed your sister so much, how come you just never told her? You've always been Molly's shining star, you know.”

His heart leapt at those words. “Once you've closed the
door on the past, it's hard to reopen it. I'm much better at leaving things closed.”