Authors: Julie Ann Walker
Right about now he was probably
really
regretting giving in to her demands to come along on this mission.
Oh, who was she fooling? She herself was regretting it with the burning intensity of a thousand suns.
“Y—” she spit—gross—and tried again. “Yes. I…I think so.”
Sucking in a deep breath, she licked her parched lips and straightened.
Okay. Okay, she could do this. She could deal with the fact that not only was the CIA after them, but now a hit man as well. She could deal with the fact that…
“Erp,” she ground her jaw when her stomach turned over again.
All right, maybe
deal
with
was too strong a phrase.
She wasn’t dealing with anything except trying to combat the urge to toss her cookies. Problem there being there weren’t any cookies to toss, which meant dry heave time. And she really,
really
hated dry heave time.
“Ali, do y’need me to pull over?”
“No,” she assured him. “I’m…I’m fine.” She sucked in another cleansing breath and willed herself to be so.
He snorted, the sound loud and particularly disbelieving through the Bluetooth headset.
“Okay, I’m not fine,” she admitted shakily. “But I’ll live.”
His only response was a grunt.
Yeah, she’d live, because Nate was back to his oh-so-verbose self, which meant things must be okay, or as okay as they could be…considering.
She breathed a silent sigh of relief. Her stomach settled…a little. Then something hot and wet slid over her fingers where they wrapped around Nate’s waist. Daring to loosen her grip, she held on with one arm as she brought her hand close to her face.
Something oily and black met her eyes.
What
in
the
world?
She couldn’t for the life of her figure out what it could be. Then they zoomed beneath a glowing yellow street light, and the black oil turned bright, horrible crimson.
“You’re bleeding!” she yelled, fresh panic making her voice break on a hard edge.
“Yep,” he grumbled, “that’s what happens when y’get shot.”
“Shot!” she howled. “He shot you?” So much for the
just
sent
to
scare
them
theory.
“Ali, stop screamin’. You’re gonna burst my eardrums.”
Was he crazy? He was worried about burst eardrums when he was
shot
?
“Where are you going?” She suddenly realized they were flying down the highway, heading away from Jacksonville at a speed that would’ve scared her to death had she taken the time to think about it. “We have to get you to a hospital!”
“No,” he ground out. “It’s nothing. Barely a scratch.”
“A scratch?” she screeched incredulously, once more glancing down at the sticky blood staining her trembling hand. “A bullet does not leave a scratch, you big dumb idiot. It leaves a
hole
. Where were you hit?”
He didn’t answer, just continued to drive Phantom like a bat out of hell.
The cool wind was a hurricane in her face, the dashed lines in the middle of the road whizzed by so fast they almost appeared unbroken. The cars they zoomed past looked like they were standing still.
“Nate,” she demanded, “where…were…you…hit?”
“Upper left shoulder. Right above my collarbone. Don’t worry, it went in and came out.”
Don’t worry. Someone was trying to kill them, had actually
shot
him, and he was telling her not to worry.
Was he
crazy
?
He must be since she’d asked herself that same exact question two times in as many minutes.
She looked at his left shoulder and sure enough. His thick, leather jacket was torn, and a frightening river of dark blood oozed down his broad back.
Taking a deep breath, she spoke softly, calmly, lest she start screaming her head off. “Nate, you’re losing blood. Now, either you turn this bike around and head to the nearest hospital, or you pull over somewhere where I can examine your wound. If you—”
“We don’t have—” he tried to interrupt her, but she just talked right over him.
“—
don’t
do one of those two things I swear to God I’m going to jump off this bike, because I refuse to docilely sit back here while you slowly bleed to death!”
The last three words were screeched even though she’d done her best to remain calm because, really, just how the h-e-double-hockey-sticks was she supposed to remain calm in a situation like this?
When he didn’t answer, she clenched her jaw until her teeth ached. “You know I’ll do it,” she threatened.
No, it wasn’t a threat. It was a promise.
“Goddamnit!” he cursed, but she knew she’d won when he took the next exit.
They drove for a little over five miles, although it felt like five hundred to Ali, before coming upon the Happy Acres Hunting Lodge.
Now, the Happy Acres was no more a
lodge
than a motor home was a
mansion
, but at least the vacancy sign was lit up and the place looked like it probably had running water.
Pulling Phantom around back and hiding the motorcycle behind a tall patch of wild hydrangeas, Nate dug his wallet from his back pocket and handed her a couple of crisp, fifty dollar bills.
“Get a room,” he instructed, removing his helmet.
Even in the dim glow given off by the flashing Happy Acres sign, she could see his usually swarthy skin was waxy and pale. He was sweating, his black hair damp and curling around his temples.
“Pay with cash and use an alias when signin’ the book,” he added. “I don’t want anyone to track us here.”
Yeah, considering someone, or a group of someones, was out to kill them, being tracked here would be bad.
She shook her head, refusing to think about that or she was going to hurl again. As she strode toward the office, she wiped her bloody hand on the butt of her jeans.
That’d
surely be the way to secure a room. Hand whoever was in charge of running the night shift at Happy Acres a fist full of bloody bills.
Gave a whole new meaning to the phrase, “blood money,” now didn’t it?
She laughed and then clamped her teeth together when she realized she was inching toward hysteria. She just didn’t have time for the total psychological meltdown she so richly deserved.
Dragging in a deep breath—sheesh, the septic was obviously backed up in one of the units and
that
certainly didn’t do her sensitive stomach any favors—she pulled open the door to the Happy Acres’ office.
Five minutes later, she walked out with the key to room eight, the Big Mouth Bass Room, or so the night-shift guy with the ridiculous comb-over told her while trying to ogle her breasts beneath her biker jacket. When she leaned down to sign the ledger, he tilted his head to get a better look and the thin chunk of hair parted just above his right ear lost its precarious perch and slipped down to dangle onto his scrawny shoulder.
He’d quickly swiped it back into place, but…wow…who was the guy trying to kid with that ’do?
Her night was just getting more and more bizarre. And it was only promising to continue on that path, because…the Big Mouth Bass Room? Really?
She hated to be a broken record, but
whose
life was she living?
***
Nate thumbed off his cell phone when Ali emerged from the Happy Acres office. He’d reported back to Black Knights Inc. on their situation—namely, he had the drive and was mildly wounded by a guy whom Ali claimed bore a suspicious resemblance to her mugger. Their location—namely, they were stopped at some podunk travel lodge in the middle of nowhere. And their agenda—namely, they were going to dress his wound, get some grub, and rest for a few hours until things cooled down.
He only hoped Ozzie could work his magic and keep the local police from coordinating an all out manhunt for the two of them, because there was a very dead guy on the side lawn of Paul and Carla Morgan’s house and witnesses had to have heard, if not seen, Phantom leave the scene only moments after the report of those three, unmistakable gunshots.
Ali waved a key with a big, plastic key ring attached. Was that?…Yep, it was shaped like a trout. Oh, the Happy Acres promised to be quite a treat.
“Follow me to our cozy little home away from home,” she instructed as she took the duffel he handed her. He shouldered the remaining saddlebags and…
Shit! That hurt!
Yep, he was shot. Best to remember that.
He gritted his teeth as he traipsed behind Ali to a door with chipped and peeling green paint. To add to the air of age and neglect, the poor edifice also sported a dangling plastic number eight. Ali pushed her way inside and…
He blinked.
“Is this a joke?” he asked, stepping over the threshold.
This had to be a joke, because they were greeted upon entering by a Big Mouth Billy Bass, one of those animatronic singing props. It turned its fishy head outward, wiggled on its trophy plaque, and started singing “Don’t Worry, Be Happy.”
“I wish,” Ali said with disgust, wrinkling her nose at the overpowering smell of Lysol and carpet deodorizer. At least someone had made an attempt to clean the space sometime in the near past. “Unfortunately, due to a septic issue, our choices were this room or the Trophy Buck room. We’re going to be treating a gunshot wound, so I didn’t fancy the idea of being watched by all those mounted deer heads with their sad, brown eyes. You know, considering they’d fallen prey to a similar fate.”
She dropped the duffel bag onto the single queen bed. The damned thing looked ridiculous. The bed, that is. The comforter fabric was a mosaic of fly-fishing lures, and there were four huge, fish-shaped pillows propped against the headboard. Above the bed, two rowboat oars were mounted beside two wicker fishing baskets. He tilted his head to get a better look at the rod-and-reel-shaped bases of the lamps on the nightstands. Even the damned knobs on the drawers of the plywood dresser were little salmons.
Sweet lovin’ Lord. The place was like a Cabela’s catalog on crack.
Ali quickly toed off her boots, stepping out of her leather chaps and swinging out of her jacket. The Kevlar vest hit the floor with a loud
thump
, and the movement caused the Big Mouth Billy Bass to let loose with the second verse.
“Is there any way to turn that thing off?” she yelled above the racket, warily eyeing the kitschy eyesore as it sang and wiggled mechanically on its mount beside the front door.
Yep, Nate knew of a way to turn it off. He could stomp it to pieces with the steel toe of his size twelve boot. His patience with tasteless, aquatic décor wasn’t copious on a good day. Throw in blood loss, the rather shocking personal epiphany that he was in love with Ali, not to mention the fact that he was going crazy with the thought of some silenced-gun-toting goon having been millimeters away from blowing her pretty head off, and his capacity to endure one more “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” refrain was quickly falling into the red.
But instead of giving in to his desire to silence the animatronic fish for the good of mankind and all eternity, he reached up with his left arm—
Shit!
Gunshot, he reminded himself.
And though the wound really was superficial—he’d suffered much worse—that didn’t mean it didn’t hurt like friggin’ hell on fire.
He reached for the bass with his right hand—bingo—pulled down the disaster of decorations and, turning it over, popped out the battery. He shook his head and set the newly silent contraption on the small round table placed under the room’s front window. The center of the table was a mosaic of fish species. The seats of the two chairs pushed under the table were covered in the same fly-fishing fabric as the bedspread.
Whoever decorated this place should either be shot or placed in the
Guinness
Book
of
World
Records
under the title, “Worst Taste Ever.”
“Okay,” Ali said into the refreshing silence. “Come with me.”
He had no choice but to follow her as she sashayed toward the bathroom. Letting his hungry gaze drift down to her pert bottom, he squeezed his eyes shut when his mind automatically pictured the thong she must be wearing beneath those snug-fitting jeans. He’d noticed when he was elbow deep in the pile of her unmentionables, the woman didn’t own a pair of underwear with an ass in them.
Sweet Lord, have mercy!
He’d been shot, was losing blood at a fairly steady rate, and the only thing he could think about was the color of Ali’s underwear.
Purple. Or more a lavender, really.
When he helped her into the Kevlar vest that morning, the neck of her T-shirt had slipped due to the heavy weight of the vest, revealing her lavender bra strap, and you better believe he took note.
He cracked his peepers when she cleared her throat.
“You’re not about to faint on me are you?” she asked, her wide eyes filled with concern.
Only
if
you
decide
to
shuck
out
of
those
jeans
and
that
T-shirt
. “Nah,” he told her, “just catchin’ my breath.”
“Well come catch it on the toilet seat. I want to get a look at that wound before I lose my nerve.”
“You got nerves of steel, lady. You did me proud back there.” And she had. She’d done exactly as he’d told her, no hesitation, no questions.
“I don’t know how running for my life could accomplish that.”
“You did what you were told. And you held it together.”
She shot him a seriously skeptical look and held up one hand, palm down. He could see her thin fingers doing the shimmy-shake even from six feet away. “Is this what you’d call holding it together?”
Geez, he was such an ass. She was scared shitless, and all he could do was stand there flapping his lips. He hastened to remove his own boots, chaps, and ruined, bloodstained jacket, letting them drop carelessly to the floor. Striding toward her, he lifted a palm to the coolness of her cheek and smiled down at her upturned face.