Sandra's Classics - The Bad Boys of Romance - Boxed Set (38 page)

He drew a deep breath, then let it out. "No," he said, and then his mouth narrowed. "No," he repeated, "I suppose I didn't." She winced as he forced her arm up behind her back. "Now, move, damn it! We're wasting time."

He started towards the car with Sara beside him. She flinched as she put her weight on her foot. The ankle hurt; she must have twisted it. Every step was painful. Her wrist and arm hurt, too. Peter Saxon's grip was like steel and he was holding her arm at an almost impossible angle behind her. But she made no outcry—not even when he pushed her through the knee-high drift to the ATM.

The snow was like an ice bath, soaking through her long skirt and thin shoes almost immediately. She was shaking with cold by the time he'd collected a stack of banknotes and shoved her into the car. She stared straight ahead while he got in beside her and shut his door.

"Did I hurt you?"

His voice was harsh. Sara looked down at her lap and found, to her surprise, that she was rubbing her wrist. The imprint of his fingers was vivid.

"Yes," she said stiffly.

He reached past her and locked her door. His hand brushed lightly over her breasts.

"I can do worse than that, if you make me," he said quietly. "Remember that, Sara." The engine coughed, then came to life, and he looked at her again. "Are you cold?"

There was no point in denying the truth, not when her teeth were chattering like castanets. She nodded her head. There was a second's silence, and then she heard the rustle of fabric and his overcoat fell in her lap.

"Put that over you."

"I don't want it," she said, but he wasn't paying any attention to her. She watched as he looked carefully into his rear-view mirror, then into the deserted road. Finally, he pressed the accelerator and the car slid into the night.

She sat in silence, the coat bunched on her lap, as they raced along the deserted road.

"Use the damned coat,” he said brusquely. ''You get frostbite, there’s no one to treat you for it where we're going."

"I won't get frostbite."

"It’s only a coat, Sara. Covering yourself with it doesn’t mean you’ve surrendered to the enemy.”

Was he laughing at her? It was impossible to tell. But it didn't matter. The simple fact was that she was cold—colder than she had ever been in her life. He'd turned the heat up and warm gusts of air blew over her face and feet, but she was still shivering, her teeth were still chattering, and what kind of way was this to stay strong?

She spread his coat open and tucked it around herself. It covered her from chin to toe. She felt warmer right away, and she sighed and settled more deeply into the soft wool. It brushed her nose, and she smelled the musky scent of wet wool along with the deeper tone of Peter's own scent. She remembered the smell of him as he'd held her in his arms. It was a clean smell, a heady one...

She sat up quickly, and pulled the coat down to her waist. He glanced over at her.

"Better?" She nodded, still not looking at him, and he flexed his hands on the wheel. "It's your own damned fault you got soaked. If you had stayed put—"

He broke off, and his eyes went to the rear-view mirror. Sara's glance followed his, and her breath caught. There were lights coming up behind them. Headlights. Please, she thought, please, oh please...

But the car sped by them, and vanished into the snowy darkness ahead.

"Damned fool," Peter Saxon growled. He glanced at the speedometer, then at the road. "He's doing seventy, at least."

Sara glared at the speedometer, then at him. "And you're doing fifty. Much, much safer on a road like this, I'm sure."

His lips drew back from his teeth. "I’m good with cars. Besides, the limit's sixty-five.  Even if some cop is foolish enough to be cruising this road tonight, he's not going to stop a car doing a respectable fifty miles per hour."

"You've thought of everything, haven't you?"

He shrugged his shoulders. "I hope so."

Sara shifted in her seat. "There's one thing you haven't thought of," she said quickly. Peter Saxon looked at her, and she drew in her breath. "You haven't thought of what will happen to you when they catch you."

His mouth narrowed, and he looked back to the road. "They won't."

"Listen to me, Mr. Saxon. All they want you for now is theft."

His eyes moved swiftly to the rear-view mirror, then to the road. "Keep quiet, Sara."

His voice was curt. She knew it was meant as a warning but she had gone too far to stop now.

"What's the sense in taking me with you?"

He laughed. "How would I have found that bank without you?"

"I'll only slow you down," she said desperately. "And what good can I do you? It's not as if I can tell anyone anything. I don't know what your plans are, or where you're going—"

"I'm going north," he said bluntly. "Towards the Adirondack Mountains."

Sara shook her head. "I don't want to hear it," she said quickly. "I can't tell the police anything if I don't know anything.''

"And will you have selective amnesia about the jewels?"

She stared at him. "I don't understand."

"No," he said through his teeth, "no, you certainly don't. Which is why, sweet Sara, you're coming with me."

"If you take me with you, they'll charge you with kidnapping. You'll spend the rest of your life in prison."

He looked at her, then at the road. Ice gleamed ahead, and he slowed the car.

"The Maharanee of Gadjapur's jewels are worth five million dollars, Sara." His voice was soft. "That's grand larceny. I'm a convicted felon. If they catch me, I'll spend at least ten years in prison before I can even hope to get out."

"Yes, but what's ten years compared to life? A kidnapping charge is—"

"Ten years or life is all the same to me," he said sharply. "I'm not going back behind those walls."

"Why won't you listen to me? I'm trying to help you."

He turned towards her, and the look he gave her made her shrink back in her seat.

"I'm not a fool, Sara. The only person you're interested in helping is yourself, and the best way you can do that is to shut your mouth. Do you understand?"

Sara nodded. There was a sanded stretch of road ahead; as soon as the tires crunched over it, Peter Saxon stepped on the accelerator and the car picked up speed.

Sara glanced at the speedometer, watching as the needle passed fifty, touched sixty, and moved beyond it. She thought of what he'd said about staying below the speed limit but somehow she knew in her heart that no police car would be waiting in the snowbound darkness.

They would travel, unhindered, into the night, and leave Brookville and the only life she had ever known far behind them.

The thought was terrifying. Then why, Sara thought, as she stole a quick glance at the man beside her, why was her heart racing with a kind of wild excitement?

"Sara? Are you asleep?"

"
Mmm?"

A hand touched her cheek. "It's time to rise and shine, Sara. Do you hear me?"

Sara's eyes flew open. "Of course I hear you," she said, pulling away from his touch. "I wasn't sleeping."

He laughed softly. "My error. I thought you might be—and I hated to wake you. You looked very peaceful, snuggled down inside my coat that way."

Sara's cheeks reddened. No way was he going to draw her into a debate she couldn’t win.

"Where are we?"

"We're coming into a town called Central Falls. It's our last stop."

Our last stop.
She sat up straight and stared out of the window. He'd said they were going to the Adirondacks but this place didn't look very mountainous. They were on a two-lane road, slick with snow and ice. Darkened houses and shop-fronts lined the way.

The dashboard clock read one fifty-five. The last time she'd looked, it had been midnight, which meant she had slept for more than an hour. But that was impossible. The few times she'd been away from home, she'd lain awake half the night, unable to sleep in a strange bed.

Sara ran her fingers through her loose hair, trying to tame the tangled strands. For a woman who couldn't sleep in a strange bed, she'd certainly had no difficulty sleeping in a strange car, with a strange man beside her.

Exhaustion. That was the reason. Her body and mind were worn out by all that had happened to her in the past hours. And she ached all over. Her back, her shoulder, her ankle—the fall on the ice in the bank parking lot, she thought, remembering. Gingerly, she flexed her foot. There was a dull, throbbing pain, but nothing she couldn't handle. The ankle joint moved easily. Would it hold up if she got the chance to make a break for freedom? All she could do was pray it would.

The car was impossibly warm. The heater was still turned way up, and on top of that, she had been bundled in Peter Saxon's coat, its heat surrounding her almost as if she were in his arms...

She shifted uneasily.

''What did you say this town was called?"

"Central Falls. We're in the Adirondack foothills."

Sara peered out the window. It was still snowing, but the flakes were larger and fell like lazy feathers from the dark sky, blanketing everything in a pristine hush.

Peter Saxon was driving fairly slowly; she wondered if it was the slick road or the police he was worried about. The road, she thought. There was no sign of life in the arctic world outside the car.

"Does this road lead into the mountains?"

He nodded. "Yes. It's like a roller-coaster from here on."

No wonder he'd said this was their last stop. He’d coaxed his rental car along the icy surfaces and blowing snow of the highway, but there was no way he would ever get it up a snow-covered mountain road.

Sara's imagination had conjured up an isolated mountain cabin, high in the wilderness near the Canadian border. She sighed with relief. All the time, he'd been heading for a town—a town that would, by daylight, be alive with people and cars and...

He swung the wheel to the right. The car crossed the deserted road and the tires crunched on to the snowy shoulder, spun uselessly for a few seconds, then gripped the surface and they moved slowly ahead, past row after row of snow-covered vehicles.

They’d driven into some kind of parking lot.

"What are you—?"

"Keep quiet!"

Peter Saxon's voice, so soft when he had awakened her moments before, was hard and commanding. Suddenly, a sign loomed ahead. "
Carroll's Clean Cars
," it read. "
No Money Down.
"

Peter reached out and turned off the headlights.

"And a damned good thing that is," he said softly. "No money down is just about as much as we can afford."

Sara looked at him. It was hard to see his face clearly in the faint glow of the dashboard and the pale illumination of the snow, but she glimpsed dark smudges of fatigue beneath his eyes and faint lines beside his mouth. Still, there was a ring of something in his voice that might have been anticipation.

"What are we doing here?" she asked softly.

He gave her a quick smile. "We're shopping."

"Shopping?"

He nodded. "We need wheels, Sara. This baby's been good enough until now, but she'll never make it into the mountains."

"I thought—you said we'd reached the end of the line—"

"We have, with this car. We need something with four-wheel drive if we're going to get any further. Something tough and—" He drew in his breath. "Something like that Bronco," he said, swinging the wheel to the left. "There we are, sweetheart. The chariot of my dreams."

He switched off the ignition. They glided forward silently for a few yards, and then stopped.

"A four-by-four," Sara said, her voice as low-pitched as his had been.

He laughed. "You're full of surprises. What would you know about four-by-fours?"

"The department owns one. Chief Garrett uses it when the roads are bad."

"Clever man, Chief Garrett." Peter released his seat-belt, then looked at her. "OK," he whispered, "let's go."

Sara stared at him. "You're going to steal that Bronco?"

He grinned. "Semantics, baby. If it makes you feel any better, think of it as a trade. I'll leave my car in its place."

He reached for the door-handle, and she put her hand on his arm. "It's not your car. It's rented."

He shrugged. "Semantics again. I'll settle my bill with "
Carroll's Clean Cars
" another time. But for now—"

"You can't do this," Sara insisted.

His eyebrows rose. "Really?"

"This is—it's wrong, Mr. Saxon. It's—"

He laughed unpleasantly. "Have you forgotten what's in the trunk of this car, Sara?"

"Mr. Saxon, for heaven's sake, you keep making things worse! Car theft will add even more years on to your sentence. When they catch you—"

"If
they catch me. Only
if
they catch me. Now, please, get out of the car."

"Of course they will. It's just a matter of time." He said nothing, and she took a deep breath. "What you should do is give yourself up. The court might be more lenient if you did. Let me call my boss. He's an understanding man."

"Yes, I saw just how understanding he was this morning when we met."

"It was yesterday morning," Sara said, wondering how that could be true when it felt as if days had gone by instead of hours. "And you took him by surprise. Let me call him."

"Get out of the car, Sara."

"Why won't you listen to reason? Just let me call Chief Garrett."

Peter Saxon looked at her. "I'm really touched." That quick, cynical smile she knew so well spread across his face. "Such concern for my welfare!"

"Mr. Saxon—"

"What ever happened to 'Peter'?"

She stared at him. "What does that have to do with anything?"

He shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know," he said, and he smiled at her. "It just occurred to me that you'd finally started calling me by my first name, and then you stopped again."

"This is ridiculous. I'm trying to discuss something important, Mr. Saxon, and—"

"Peter."

"Mr. Saxon, if you would just listen, I—"

"Peter." He touched his finger to the tip of her nose. "I can be as stubborn as you can, Sara. I promise you that."

She shook free of his hand. "I don't understand you at all," she snapped. "How you can sit here and joke when half the police in New York State are looking for you?"

"Was it the sight of the jewels boot that shocked you into formality?"

Dammit, he was teasing her again!

"It was a sight that would have shocked anybody, Mr. Saxon. It was—"

"No, come to think of it, you'd gone back to calling me "Mr. Saxon" even before we ran off the road. You—"

Sara slammed her hand against the dashboard. "You were damned lucky that was
all
I called you," she said furiously. "After the way you played with me in the greenhouse—" Her eyes widened as she realized what she'd said. Peter's teasing smile faded, and he caught her hands in his.

"So," he said softly, "the truth at long last. Is that what you thought I was doing?"

"It doesn't matter. What counts is—"

"It matters to me." His fingers wove through hers. "Was that why you ran away? Because you thought I was playing games?"

"No," she said. "I mean, I didn't think anything. And I didn't run away. I told you, I wanted to go home."

His gaze moved over her face like a caress. "Did you, now?"

"Yes," Sara said desperately. "Mr. Saxon—"

"Peter."

"This is insane! Here I am, trying to make you listen to reason..."

He lifted one hand to her face, and
laid it against her cheek. "You're so serious about everything, Sara. So determined."

"Of course I am," she said, trying to ignore the feel of his fingers against her skin. "If you give yourself up, if you let me go..."

His eyes darkened. He moved his hand into her hair, letting the silken strands tangle in his fingers.

"Is that what you really want?" His voice was a whisper in the darkness. "Do you want me to let you go, Sara?"

"Yes," she said quickly. Too quickly. What was wrong with her? Why did she sound so breathless? "Of course I want that. Why wouldn't I?"

"Shall I show you the reason, sweet Sara?"

She tried to draw back as he bent towards her, but his hand held her fast. His breath warmed her lips and then his mouth touched hers. His kiss was gentle, as light as the touch of a snowflake, but it sent waves of sweet warmth shimmering through her body.

"Don't," she whispered when he lifted his head, but her eyes closed when he moved towards her and kissed her again.

His lips moved gently on hers, as if asking something of her in return. Her hands came up between them and spread on his chest. She wanted to push him from her but when she felt the heavy beat of his heart beneath her palms, her own heart began to race.

"Sara," he murmured, and his hands clasped her shoulders. "Sara."

She could feel herself melting against him. And she couldn’t let that happen. She knew what he thought, that she was a naïve fool, that it would be easier to keep her as his prisoner if he played on that naiveté.

"Let go o
f me," she whispered. ''Let go!'' she said, her voice gaining in strength as she wrenched free of his grasp. "I know what you're trying to do."

He gave a soft laugh. "I'm glad one of us does."

"Please," she said desperately, ''please let me go.''

He shook his head. "I'm sorry, Sara."

"You don't need me," she said in a rushed whisper. "You can probably move faster without me. And I don’t know anything, not where you’re headed or—

"To Indian Lake Lodge."

Sara put her hands over her ears. "I don't want to hear it," she said. "I don't want to know anything!"

Peter caught her wrists and
pulled her
hands down. "You know all that matters," he said with sudden ferocity. "You know that I have the jewels."

She looked at him blankly. "Everyone knows that."

His mouth twisted. "Everyone assumes it. But only you can prove it." His hands tightened on hers. "I'll never let you go, Sara. Do you understand?"

Her heart began to race like a metronome out of control. "You don't mean that."

"Maybe you didn't pay attention to what I said before. I told you I was never going to be locked up again."

"You should have thought of that before you stole those jewels."

A tight smile curved across his mouth. "This is a charming little chat, but we're going to have to cut it short. We're wasting time." He let go of her and opened his door. Cold air swept into the car. "Just remember what I told you earlier. Behave yourself and you'll come through this all right."

Her heart thudded. "Why should I believe that?" she asked. Her eyes met his. "Because you're a man of honor?"

A sudden tension narrowed his mouth. "Would you believe me if I said I were?"

Her eyes flashed with defiance. "Would you expect me to?"

"Get out of the car. I want you where I can keep my eyes on you. And keep down—we're pretty well hidden from the road but I'm not taking any chances."

The night was silent and cold as death. Sara stepped from the car and held his coat out to him, but he shook his head.

"It'll only hamper my movements," he said. "Put it on—you're shaking already."

She opened her mouth to tell him she was fine, that she didn't need anything of his, but what was the point in freezing? She would never be able to escape if she turned into a lump of ice. Peter Saxon had watched her like a hawk so far, but he couldn't keep that up indefinitely.