Annie on the Lam: A Christmas Caper (13 page)

“That's not silly, Annie. She was your mother. And if I know Frank Reno, there
was
more to it.”

“The thing is, no matter what we find in these files, I'll probably never know for sure about her.” She exhaled a long breath. “My father…his heart broke when he lost her. He clung to me and he's never stopped clinging.”

“That must be hard on you.”

“Sometimes.” She suddenly felt as cold as it looked outside. “What if I'm wrong? What if my mom knew exactly what she was doing? Sometimes, I feel like she's the one I should hate, not Reno. She hurt my dad so much.”
And me
, Annie thought.
She hurt me, too.
“She should've been at home with us, not here running around with a bunch of losers doing who knows what.” Her voice broke, and Annie continued to look out the window. “It's been a long time. I'm not a kid anymore. I don't know why I'm so upset over it.”

For a while, neither of them spoke, just watched the snow fall faster around them. Then Joe said quietly, “There's one more thing I didn't tell you about yourself.”

She turned, blinked at him.

“You're beautiful, Anne Macy.”

Annie's throat tightened and a myriad of emotions she couldn't begin to name swirled inside of her. Unable to speak, she drank in the sight of his tough, handsome face…

Minutes passed. Everything that had happened since last night caught up to her and Annie's eyelids grew heavy. She yawned.

“Why don't you crawl in back and catch some shuteye?” Joe said.

“I should stay awake and talk to you so you won't drift off at that wheel.”

“I'm used to running on a few hours' sleep.”

Annie lifted her head. “If the roads aren't too bad when I wake up, I'll drive while you sleep, okay?”

“Sounds like a deal.”

Minutes later, curled up in the back seat beneath Harry's coat, Annie said, “My mother…everyone has always said I'm like her. That used to make me so proud. But now…” She sighed. “Mom wasn't always unhappy. I always miss her most this time of year…at Christmas, you know? She always made it so special.”

“How so, Annie?”

“She always had us sing carols while we decorated the tree and the house. The fun carols, not the serious ones. And she changed the words, made them funnier, sillier. And the entire month of December, she'd hide little notes all over the house. She rolled them up into tiny scrolls and tied them with ribbons. They'd say things like, ‘Good for one afternoon of cookie decorating', or ‘Good for one midnight drive to see the Christmas lights'.”

“Sounds like fun.”

She thought back for a minute on all the Christmases they'd spent together. “My best memory, though, it happened when I was ten or eleven. Mom and I were dressed up to go to a holiday tea on a Saturday afternoon. It was snowing and I just wanted to stay home. I hated those things and I had complained all morning, but people were expecting us.” Annie paused for a breath. “As we were pulling out of the driveway, the sun came out and without saying a word, Mom stopped the car and got out. I rolled down my window to ask what was going on, and she threw a snowball at me.” Annie laughed. “We never made it to that tea. We spent the rest of the afternoon having snowball fights and sledding and making snowmen.” She opened her eyes. “I've never forgotten that day. I loved every minute of it. I can still hear her laughing. She had the greatest laugh.”

“So do you,” Joe said. “That's one way you're like her.”

Her throat ached. “Thank you for saying that.”

Snow swirled outside the car window. Annie's eyelids became heavier. She hoped her mother had always remembered that wonderful day, too. And that it had meant as much to her.

Joe
tugged open the car door and slid behind the wheel. He was glad he had thought to bring gloves before he left the apartment. If they had to dig out, he didn't relish the thought of doing it bare-handed. With a shudder, he dusted snow off his jacket, then pulled the gloves off and turned. Annie was awake now. Tangled blond hair brushed her shoulders. Her sleepy eyes watched him. The desire he'd been fighting all day slammed into him like a two-ton brick.

“Is something wrong?” she asked.

Oh, yeah
, he thought. Plenty was wrong, and the worst of it had nothing to do with the weather. “We're stuck.” He tossed the gloves onto the passenger seat.

She sat up. “What happened?”

“I think we were being followed. I was afraid Willis might have caught up to us when we stopped to grab a bite.” They'd pulled off at a diner for lunch earlier, and when he had not let Annie drive afterward, she'd fallen asleep again. “I tried to lose the vehicle by taking a detour and ended up here.”
Here
being nose-down in a ditch on a deserted farm road in the middle of nowhere.

“Oh.” Annie stared outside into the white chaos that swarmed in the gathering darkness beyond the windows. “Did you lose the car that was following us?”

“For now,” he answered. At least she didn't berate him for doing something so stupid as pulling off the main highway during a blizzard. If their positions were reversed, Joe wasn't sure he'd be so kind.

Shivering, Annie huddled deeper into Landau's coat. “It's so dark. How long have I slept?”

“About three hours. It's after seven.”

“The blizzard seems worse.”

“I thought about walking to the last little town we passed through. It's not far, but I'm not sure I could see two feet in front of me.”

“That's a terrible idea. It's too dangerous. You could get lost out there and freeze to death. Someone will drive by and help us.”

“I wouldn't count on that. Not on this road with the weather like it is.”

Her frown deepened. “Do you have any idea where we are?”

“According to the map, we were getting close to your aunt's place.”

She sighed. “What now?”

“You take the wheel, and I'll try to push us out.”

Ten minutes later, Joe gave up. Their efforts had only dug the tires deeper into the snowbank. He instructed Annie to turn off the engine and give him the key. Then he trudged around back and opened the trunk where he kept a blanket. He'd never been a Boy Scout but when it came to safety, his police training had taught him to always be prepared.

Panting from exertion and the cold, he slid in and closed the door. Annie had climbed up front into the passenger-side bucket seat. He lifted the blanket between them for her to see. “I'm afraid we have a long, cold night ahead of us.”

Her gaze strayed to the frosted window where the wind whistled and howled. Then she gave him a sleepy-eyed smile. “I'm not worried. We Georgia girls know how to generate heat.” With a nod of her head, she motioned toward the back seat. “We should get out of these bucket seats and in back so we can share body warmth.” She shifted to crawl between the seats.

Joe knew she was right; sharing body warmth would be the smart thing to do. He also knew she was trying to make the best of a bad situation with all that lighthearted talk about “Georgia girls.” But he wasn't fooled. Annie was as conflicted as he was about crawling into that back seat together.

He'd meant it earlier when he said she didn't seem the type to have flings. But Joe had also noticed the way she studied him sometimes. When they looked at each other, he wasn't the only one who liked what he saw. Still, he was pretty sure Annie was giving priority to rationality rather than sexuality by inviting him into the back seat with her. But he wasn't certain he could do the same with her beside him all night long.

After a tormenting back-and-forth with himself, Joe finally joined her.

Annie ran a hand across Harry Landau's coat. “This is big enough for both of us to cover up with.”

“Right now, I'm pretty thankful to the poor creature who gave up its life so Landau could look pretentious,” Joe said. He reached over into the front and retrieved the blanket, his pulse kicking up as they unfolded it together. Shifting, they spread it across the seat. He willed himself to behave like a responsible adult as Annie shrugged out of Landau's coat then pulled off her boots.

“Nice argyles,” he said, teasing her about her wool socks.

“My feet are like ice blocks all winter. I have a feeling my proper southern ancestors have turned over in their graves a time or two because of me.”

“Argyles are a crime?”

She fluttered her eyelashes dramatically. “A proper southern lady always looks her best, doesn't blow her nose in public and absolutely never, ever sweats.”

Laughing, Joe eyed the narrow seat, wondering how he would ever get any sleep with Annie stretched out so close to him. “How do you want to do this?” he asked her.

“Why don't you lay with your back to the seat, and I'll lay with my back to you?”

He didn't have to look down at his lap to know that having her backside pressed against his frontside was not a good idea. “I'm kind of claustrophobic. You mind if we switch that up?”

“No, that's fine.”

Annie stretched out, and Joe lay down on the seat beside her, teetering on the edge, facing the front of the car. He pulled the coat over them both.

She draped an arm across his waist.

He felt her breasts press against his back.

“This isn't going to work,” she said with a sigh. “Our heads are downhill.”

The position of their heads was the least of Joe's concerns. Still he said, “Let's turn around then.” He sat up, scooted to the opposite end of the seat, perched at the edge.

Annie lifted her feet, swung them to the floorboard, held onto the coat and scooted down beside him. “Sorry to be such a pain. You must think I'm high-maintenance.”

Joe stared straight ahead, afraid if she saw his face, she'd read what was on his mind. “Not high-maintenance, just uncomfortable.”

“I'm not.” She cleared her throat. Cleared it again. “Uncomfortable, I mean. I'm not, Joe.”

He felt her breath on his cheek and turned, met her wide gaze.

“
Joe
,” she whispered.

In that instant, every argument about why this was a bad idea dislodged from Joe's brain and began to fly out his ears along with his good sense. He kissed her, leaned his head forward slightly and gently touched his mouth to hers. Her lips weren't cold at all. They were warmer and softer than he had even imagined. He deepened the kiss, tasted her, and her quiet moan wrapped around him and squeezed. Coming up for air, he murmured, “Annie.”

Anne. Annabelle Macy. Macy, as in, Milford P.

Jesus, what was he doing?

Joe tensed and leaned away suddenly, caught hold of the last thread-thin remnants of his self-restraint before they exited his brain, too. He reached for the coat on the seat beside them. Time to put an end to this before it went too far.

“Here. Cover up,” he croaked.

Annie caught his gaze, held it. “I think what we were doing was a much better way to stay warm,” she said in a throaty voice that turned him upside down and inside out.

Before he could think of a rational response, she reached up and grasped his shoulders, slid sideways onto his lap and kissed him softly again, just once, before easing back to look at him.

His last thread of sanity snapped apart. Joe pulled her closer, tangled his fingers through her hair, tilted her face up. This time, he didn't dip gently toward her mouth, he
dove
. And before he knew how it happened or who initiated the move, she was straddling his lap and they sat face-to-face with her knees pressed gently at either side of his hips. They stopped kissing and blinked at each other.

“Annie…are you sure about this?” He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. His heart bounced around in his chest like a pinball. Smiling, Joe asked quietly, “Doesn't it break some kind of proper southern belle rule?”

She smiled back. “I've never been a very good southern belle, anyway.” She unzipped his jacket and reached for the hem of his T-shirt.

“Annie…I'm no different than those losers from your past. Only with a lot less to offer.”

“Don't say that. It's not true.” She shook her head. “Please don't ask me to think twice about this. I don't care if it's crazy. I've imagined being with you since you dropped my purse last night and I opened the bathroom door. Maybe before then. The way you look at me…” She averted her eyes briefly, met his gaze again. “I don't think I've ever been with a man who wanted to make love with me just because…” Her brows tugged together and she looked down.

“Because you're beautiful? Exasperating and sexy and vital and—?” Joe frowned. “A man would have to be crazy not to see those things.”

She met his gaze again and the desire in her eyes sucked the breath from Joe's lungs. Suddenly, he couldn't move, couldn't breathe.
He
wanted her. For all those reasons and more. The rational, professional side of him screamed
no. Big mistake
. But the part of him that was simply a man—not an ex-cop, not a private investigator—screamed louder. And it screamed
yes
. He wanted her more than his own self-respect. More than the money her father owed him. More than he wanted Frank Reno's head on a plate. He wanted to show her just how special she was, prove to her that all men were not like the idiots from her past, make her feel the way she deserved to feel. He swallowed again. “I don't have any protection with me.”

She sent him a hesitant smile. “Can you reach my purse?”

He leaned over, felt along the floorboard until he found it. “I forgot about your stash. You want to explain that, by the way?”

“It was a gag gift from Lacy at the Christmas party last night.” Annie took the purse from him, opened it. “Private joke. She thinks I'm a nun in disguise. Lacy's forever trying to ‘get me some action,' as she puts it.”

Joe kept his eyes on her as she placed a condom packet on the dash behind them. God, she was something else. Not even close to what he'd expected when he took this case. His nerves hummed and his heart drummed a wild beat when she slid her hands under his shirt and up to his bare chest.

He had convinced himself he could resist her, told himself he didn't have any other choice. From the moment she climbed in his cab for the first time last night, he had known that being with her like this would mess with his mind, make him so crazy he couldn't think straight, place them both in more danger than they already faced.

He was a grown man with a lot of years behind him, not some testosterone-crazed kid. But with her sweet round bottom settled atop his lap, her soft breasts pressing against the smooth fabric of her satin blouse, and her vulnerable expression twisting him up inside, Joe felt all those initial good intentions peeling away like old paint.

He swept hair from her face, cradled her cheek in his hand. “Be sure, Annie. Once we start this—”

“Shhh.” Smiling, she touched a finger to his lips. “Too late. We've already started.”

He let her help him out of his coat and shirt then tossed them to the floor of the car. “I love the way you smell,” he whispered, taking hold of her shoulders and drawing her against him. “So sweet…” He nipped gently at her lips, teasing, tasting, then deepened the kiss, skimming his palms up satin from her waist to the swell of her breasts.

When she moaned quietly into his mouth, he inched farther down in the seat, reached for the hem of her skirt, tugged it up around her waist and grasped hold of her hips. With his fingers pressed against the silky panties covering her bottom, he forgot the cold and the blustering storm outside, forgot their precarious situation and everything else except Annie and his own driving need.

“Joe…I…” She fumbled with his belt buckle.

He helped her unclasp it, slid his zipper down, brushed his knuckles against her inner thighs. She arched her back in a way that thrust her breasts closer to his face. “God,” Joe breathed, “look at you. Lift your arms for me, Annie.”

She did, and he pulled the shirt over her head, then fumbled with the bra clasp between her breasts. She reached up to help him and their gazes collided, held. Their fingers bumped. Annie's breathless laughter scattered goose bumps up his spine.

Finally, the bra came free and Joe whisked it off and looked at her. “You're more than I ever dreamed, Annie. So much more. So beautiful,” Joe said, his voice a low smooth rumble that rolled through her like thunder, shaking her. He leaned forward and kissed her, cupping her breasts in his hands, caressing and teasing, sending a rush of pleasure through her so intense she almost stopped breathing.