Lucky in Love (8 page)

Chance's eyes slid away from mine.

"No," I said, "No lies. It makes no sense to drive to Las Vegas, much less in a car that is going to slow us down. Just tell me."

He sighed. "Dominick… is a vintage freak."

I couldn't help it. I bristled.

"Not like you," he said. "The guy is a legitimate whack job. He's a drug lord who thinks he's the reincarnation of a 1920's gangster. And since he's in his mid-forties—"

"He's currently obsessed with all things 1940's." For the first time since I'd come home to my apartment that evening, I felt a smile coming on. Now this was an issue I could deal with.

"Then we need to make a stop first," I said, my tone brooking no argument as I fired up the Roadmaster.  "I'm going to make this trip worth his while."

Chapter 13

"This car needs more rest stops than a 96 year old with a bladder infection," Chance groaned, waking up again as I signaled to get off the highway at Joliet, Ill., allegedly the beginning of the original Route 66. Traveling the Mother Road was high on my bucket list, but this wasn't the way I wanted to do it. I promised myself once I got Julian back, we'd do Route 66 in reverse. He'd get a kick out of it. In a few days, Julian and I would be eating ice cream under the Blues Brothers statues at the Rich & Creamy ice cream stand.

"Hey, the first stop didn't count because we hadn't left town yet and you slept through it after you took that stupid
Flexoral. That was a pre-trip pit stop. And I know you didn't expect me to drag poor Louie along with us."

My mom was not going to be excited to find Louie in her house when she got home. She was afraid of Louie.

"I also didn't expect you to bring an
I Love Lucy
travel trailer. Talk about gas mileage—you strapped a steel bucket to our asses."

"Hey, it makes sense," I said. "The Boles Aero has a solid frame and hitch, so it'll make the trip just fine. It's been just as painstakingly refurbished as the Roadmaster, plus with the chrome polished up and coordinating paint jobs,
Dominick'll go nuts. The camper's a 1948, same as the car, and anyway, it's only 10' long. Do you know how rare these trailers are? That's a priceless, one of a kind steel bucket strapped to our ass, buddy." I tried to put some snark in my tone, but it was hard, since I was so tired, and Chance didn't bother to reply. 

We'd only been on the road for two and a half hours, but the day was really starting to catch up with me and it felt like ten. Plus, it was nighttime and raining steadily, and we still 22 hours of driving ahead of us.

I put that harrowing thought out of my head and got out to fill the tank. One step at a time, I told myself as Chance unfolded himself from the front seat. "I'll go pay—do you need anything?"

"Besides a shower and a restart button to do this day over?
Just some chocolate and caffeine, please."

I finished filling up the ginormous gas tank in the Buick, and looked around while I waited for Chance to come back with the snacks. It was late and the gas station was mostly deserted. A chilly wind blew, and I rubbed my arms through the cardigan I'd quickly dug out of the stuff I'd had stored at my mom's place. As I stood there, a white van pulled in to the parking lot. The windows were tinted dark.

There's no logo on the side, I told myself. And no way could it be the same van. There had to be a jillion white vans in Illinois. I watched as it parked at the furthest spot from the convenience store and shut the lights off. I waited a moment, but no one got out. Suddenly, I was convinced the owner of that van was a member of Dominick's posse. Of course they were following us—why hadn't that thought occurred to me before?

Before I could talk myself out of it, I squared my shoulders and marched across the parking lot. Walking up to the dark window, I pounded on it as hard as I could with one closed fist.
"Open up, asshole!"

The window slowly lowered with a whine.

A young, crew cut police officer in uniform stared out at me.

Well, crap.

"I'm sorry," I managed. "I thought you were somebody else."

Before he could start reading me my Miranda rights, I spun around and hurried back to the Buick. Chance was just coming out of the gas station, arms laden with snacks, and when he saw me and the van behind me, he glared.

"What the hell, Lucky? I thought I told you to stay in the car."

I started grabbing chip packages and candy bars and shoved the car keys at him. "You drive," I ordered, hoping to distract him. Ignoring his glare, I sidled past Chance and awkwardly wrestled the car door open, disappearing inside with an ungraceful leap into the seat. When I checked my rear view, to my relief, saw that he was rounding the silver trailer, coming over to the driver's side.

I had just called a cop an asshole and all I wanted to do was leave before he decided to not be so accommodatingly dumbfounded.

Chance got in and kicked the seat back to make room for his long legs. He shoved the key into the ignition, but didn't start the car. "You do know, right, that we're dealing with professional criminals, and it isn't in your best interests to go around trying to pick fights with strangers?" He glared at me.

"I know that," I blustered. "Besides, that wasn't the same van. That was a cop."

"What?"

"Careful," I reminded him as he pulled out and came dangerously close to clipping a gas pump. "The trailer."

"This thing drives like a freaking Humvee," Chance growled. "And thanks, but not being able to see out of the back window is kind of a solid reminder that we're hauling that canned ham behind us."

"Boles Aero," I corrected for the seventy-fifth time.

"Whatever. Tell me about this cop."

"Nothing to tell, really." I felt my cheeks heat as my embarrassment came flooding back. "I was sitting there, waiting for you, when I saw a white van pull in and kind of jumped to conclusions."

"So you thought you'd just hop out and say hello," he said flatly. "Make friendly with some hired guns paid to follow us to their crime lord?"

"That's pretty much it," I replied miserably as he checked both mirrors and clicked on the turn signal.

"What kind of markings were on the van?" he asked, merging with the light late-night traffic on the interstate.

I thought back. It had been dark, but on the side of the van facing me, I hadn't noticed any. "None. It was just your stereotypical white van. Gouge down one side like he'd been sideswiped maybe, but that was it. I figured it was prisoner transport or something."

"And the cop?
What'd he look like?"

I closed my eyes tiredly. My eyelids weighed as much as manhole covers. "Blond brush cut.
Blue uniform. Early thirties, maybe, with light eyes. Probably blue. That's all I remember—I saw the uniform, realized my mistake, and was hightailing it back to the car when you came out."

With herculean effort, I opened my eyes again when I felt the car swerve sharply to the right. "What are you doing?"

Chance still had his gaze trained on the side mirror as he got off the highway and turned left, smoothly ignoring the red light blinking at the deserted intersection. He crossed the bridge over the highway, and immediately turned left again, heading down the on-ramp in the direction we'd just come from.

"Keep
watch the other side of the highway for your police van."

It was dark, but sure enough, a pair of headlights
coming the other direction belonged to a light-colored van that could maybe be the same one.

"What's that prove? That he was going in the same direction as us?"

"Watch," Chance replied grimly.

Sure enough, just after the van passed us, brake lights flashed on, causing the car behind it to swerve wildly to the right, horn blaring.

"Not a cop, huh," I said wonderingly, craning my head to watch the drama unfold in the passenger mirror, but Chance was driving too fast and it was out of sight. The engine growled as he punched the gas.

"Nope.
That was our babysitter."

I shook my head. "Sure looked like a real cop to me. I'm glad I called him an asshole now."

Chance grunted. "I'm just glad he didn't decide to get offended."

The opening bars of
Sweet Home Alabama
suddenly blared out and I jumped.

"Good evening, Dominick," Chance said calmly into his cell phone.

I strained to hear the other end of the conversation.

"Sorry about that," Chance was saying. "The lady left her purse at the gas station. I hope I didn't inconvenience your guy any." 

He kept the phone clamped between ear and shoulder as he mashed down on the brakes, making the trailer behind us fishtail a little, and pulled a quick U-turn in a service lane in the center of the highway.

"No change in plans," he said, flooring it again and cutting it a little closer that I'd have liked to a semi in front of us as he shot over into the right lane, keeping the semi between us and the traffic on the other side of the highway.  My fingernails dug into the pinstriped upholstery next to
my thighs, but my insides fluttered a little. Apparently absolutely unpredictable, reckless and nearly insane driving was kind of a serious turn-on.

"You know how women are—who knows what she has in there. No worries, though, it's just a little detour. We'll be back on the road again in no time. How's her friend?" His tone was conversational, almost bored.

"Good. Glad to hear it." He shot right again, this time at the exit before the one we'd previously gotten off on.

"We're pulling in at the gas station now—there's the purse.
Must've fallen out of the car when we stopped." He turned left on to the same deserted country road and in moments we were barreling down the pitch-black road, no sign of anything in either direction except for the occasional farm, lit briefly in the headlights.

"No escort necessary, by the way. I think I can find your place in Vegas again." This time, when he pulled the phone away, I clearly heard the bellowing on the other end. He powered the phone off and tossed it in the back seat.

"What the hell, Chance?" I demanded angrily. "Don't you think it's a bad idea to piss off the bad guy that's got my friend?"

"Trust me. Dominick has to learn he can't call all the shots. If he keeps it up, the three of us don't have a chance in hell of leaving Vegas once we get there."

Chapter
14

I didn't realize I had dozed off until the car stopped, and when it did, my head snapped up. "What's going on?" I croaked, fumbling in the glove box for an Altoid. My mouth tasted like used kitty litter and I was almost positive I'd been drooling. I popped one in my mouth and leaned back in the seat before abruptly being crippled with a searing pain in my neck muscles, where they'd been overstretched from my uncomfortable sleeping position.

"Settle down," Chance chuckled tiredly. "We're just pulling over for a bit to get some rest. You've only been out for about an hour and I'm still so groggy from that pill I can't see straight."

Hearing an agonized whimper that escaped me, he reached over and put his hand over the back of my neck, massaging with his thumb. I almost groaned as the seized muscles released. I bit it back, though, because I didn't want to sound like a sex kitten, which I'm sure I would have because I felt like one, and his big, callused hand felt so good and warm I wanted to purr.

Ducking away quickly, I opened the car door expecting to see a parking lot. I was thrown off to see that we were on the side of a dirt road. It was darker than the inside of a can of Spam. No Motel 6 lights, or anything else for that matter, were to be seen. Cornfield for as far as the headlights illuminated crawled almost all the way up to the dirt road at my feet. I shuddered.

I'm an outdoorsy girl. Despite my feminine demeanor, I love to hike and camp and fish. However, I hate cornfields.

Creepy things like murderous scarecrows and white-haired horror movie children hide in cornfields. Granted, it was only April, so this was still corn stubble and not nearly as creepy as it would be in mid-July, but it was still a cornfield. Punctuating my nervousness, yellow eyes gleamed low to the ground nearby in the glow of the taillights. I jumped back in the car and slammed the door.

"This doesn't look like a motel. Or a rest stop. You've brought me out here to die, haven't you?"

"Relax," Chance said, opening his own door. The dome light glinted off his dark hair and his face looked nearly as tired as his voice sounded. "Flat land like this, I can see anybody that might be out here, because for sure, no one is going to just happen to be driving by."

"Aside from a homicidal clown or a serial killer looking for somewhere to bury bodies," I interjected sourly.

He rolled his eyes. "In a hotel, we could get snuck up on. Provided you don't snore too loud, out here, gravel crunching under tires will wake me up. Plus, you should be happy. We're going to make good use of that trailer."