Third Grave Dead Ahead (13 page)

Clamping my jaw together to keep from cursing aloud, I tried her cell again, to no avail. Then I checked the texts again to make sure I had the right place. I did. Maybe she was lost, had told me the wrong convenience store. Before I could make a decision on what to do, my passenger’s-side door opened. Thank goodness. I figured her car was stuck somewhere out in this tempest and she’d had to hoof it to the store on foot. But instead of my sister’s blond hair and slight frame climbing in, a large wet man crawled inside and closed the door behind him. After an initial period of astonishment, a jolt of adrenaline rushed through me in a delayed reaction I would later shake my head at in befuddlement.

Cookie was right. I almost get killed in the most unlikely places.

I jumped to open my door, but long fingers that could easily be mistaken for a Vise-Grip locked around my arm. The fact that I knew the survival rate of abducted women spurred me into action. I fought him with a few well-placed punches while groping for the door handle. When he jerked me toward him, I raised my feet over the center console and kicked. But he bound my legs within a steel-like arm and pulled me underneath him.

A large hand muffled the screams I’d let rip as he pushed himself onto me. His weight caused the console to grind into my back painfully, but I still kicked and squirmed and used everything I’d learned in the two weeks I’d lasted in jujitsu. No way was I going to make this easy for him.

“Stop fighting me and I’ll let you up,” he said with a growl.

Oh,
now
he wants to negotiate. I began my struggles anew, clawing at him and kicking. A primal instinct had taken hold, and I no longer controlled my actions. He forced my head back, leaned into me, and the sickening feel of a cold sharp object against my throat stilled me instantly. My senses came rushing back at a dizzying speed, along with the chilling reality of my predicament.

“Don’t stop fighting me,” he added in a husky voice, “and I’ll slice your throat right here and now.”

For an endless minute the only thing I heard was my own labored breathing. The flood of adrenaline coursing through my veins shook me from head to toe. The man was soaking wet. Cold rain beaded off him and dripped onto my face.

Then something familiar registered in the back of my mind. The heat. Though his clothes and hair were soaking wet and bitterly cold, a heat radiated toward me and I blinked in utter astonishment.

He rested his forehead against mine as if catching his breath. Then he moved his hand from my mouth to the back of my neck and lifted me to a sitting position. My legs were still draped over the console when he straddled my hips—an amazing feat in the cramped space—and placed the weapon against my throat again.

Looming over me, he seemed larger than life. I recognized the prison uniform underneath a pair of work coveralls, filthy and torn.

“I won’t hurt you, Dutch.”

The sound of my name, the name he’d given me, sent an electric charge rushing through every molecule in my body.

I stared at him as a flash of lightning illuminated the confining space, and looked into the deep brown eyes of Reyes Farrow. The realization stunned me. He had escaped from a maximum-security prison. Things didn’t get much more surreal than that.

He was shaking with the cold, answering a question I’d asked myself of him earlier. Though his gaze was laced with desperation, his actions screamed otherwise. He seemed very much in control, and something other than desperation was driving him. A fierce determination fueled his every move. I didn’t doubt for a moment his willingness to kill me if need be. He was super pissed at me for binding him anyway.

“Take the Jeep,” I said, unable to believe I was actually scared of him. Of course, he’d always been the only thing I was afraid of growing up. I just didn’t know it was him until recently.

His eyes narrowed. He hovered over me, allowed his gaze to roam over my face. I wanted to turn away but found it impossible. The things we had done over the past few weeks. The things he was capable of. And now I was sitting here with a knife at my throat, placed there by the very man who could make me scream out his name in my sleep. “It’s yours,” I said. “Take it. I won’t call the police.”

“I have every intention of doing just that.”

Somehow, this was so different from any other encounter I’d had with him. Different because it was him, Reyes Alexander Farrow, Rey’aziel, the son of Satan in the flesh. Aside from that morning, I didn’t have experience with this part of him, with a beast capable of ripping a man to shreds between commercial breaks, if the stories Neil Gossett told me were any indication.

When a burst of lightning illuminated our surroundings again, he glanced at his watch. Only then did I realize his muscles were tense as if in pain. “We’re late,” he said tightly, the barest hint of a grin lifting one corner of his mouth. “What took you so long?”

I drew my brows together. “Late?”

His smile faltered and he ground his teeth, leaned forward, and placed his forehead against mine again. I realized he was hurt. He went limp against me for half a second, as though he’d lost consciousness. With a jerk, he forced himself to attention. He grabbed the steering wheel for balance, then refocused on me.

In my mind, history was repeating itself. That night so long ago, a teenage boy went limp from a violent blow. He raised his arms in a futile effort to fend off the attack. The image brought back feelings of empathy, of a blinding need to help him.

I fought it. This was no teenage boy. This was a man, a supernatural being, holding a knife to my throat. A man who had sat in prison for more than a decade, being molded, tempered, and hardened by the hatred and anger that procreated in such places. As if growing up in hell hadn’t fueled such malevolence enough. If he wasn’t incorrigible before going in, he was sure to be now. I couldn’t allow compassion to intervene, no matter our history. Nice boys didn’t use knives to get girls. Maybe he really was his father’s son.

I glanced to the side. The hand with the makeshift knife gripped the steering wheel as if his life depended on it. The fact that he was hurt reminded me of a line he’d told me a while back: Beware the wounded animal.

“Why are you doing this?” I asked.

He opened his eyes to me and said, matter-of-fact, “Because you’ll run if I don’t.”

“No, I mean, why did you escape?”

He frowned. “They wouldn’t let me out otherwise.” Another pained expression flashed across his face.

I glanced down. The dark coveralls were drenched in blood, and a gasp escaped before I could stop it. “Reyes—”

An aggressive knock on my door made us both jump. The knife was at my throat instantly. The wounded animal indeed.

“If you try anything—”

I ground my teeth. “Seriously?”

“Dutch,” he said, a warning in his voice.

“I won’t.” Even if I’d been brave enough to fight him, the knife was simply too close, too menacing for me to do anything foolhardy. Not that foolhardy wasn’t my middle name.

“I don’t want to hurt you, Dutch.”

“I don’t want you to.”

“Then don’t make me.”

The persistent knock sounded again.

I reached over to unzip the plastic window, and he pressed the knife deeper into my skin.

Leveling a steady gaze on him, I explained, “He’s not just going to go away. I have to talk to him.”

When he didn’t respond, I reached over and unzipped the window, but just a little. It was still pouring out. That’s when I felt Reyes’s thumb across my lips and looked back, startled. He lowered his intent look to my mouth, let it linger for half a second, then bent his head and kissed me. I knew instantly what he was doing. Who would question two lovers taking advantage of the weather?

The kiss was amazingly gentle. Liquid and warm. His tongue slid across my lips and I opened them, giving him access, permission to deepen the kiss. And he did. He tilted his head and dived inside, his mouth scalding against mine. Irony at its finest. This was the first kiss we’d actually shared in the flesh, the real deal.

Without thought, I raised my hands to his chest, solid and blisteringly hot. A steely arm snaked around my neck and pulled me into him. Despite the unhurried tenderness of his actions, his muscles were rigid, poised to strike should the need arise.

I could not mistake this for more than what it was. As heavenly as it felt to be wrapped in the arms of Reyes Farrow, to feel his mouth on mine, the courts had declared him a murderer. More than that, he was desperate. And desperate men did desperate things.

“Guess you two have things under control.”

Startled, I broke the kiss off and glanced over to see an elderly man in a bright yellow slicker chuckling at us.

“Personally, I’d have gone for the backseat, but that’s just me.”

I turned to the face framed within the window opening, and felt the pressure of a blade at my throat, angled so the man couldn’t see it. As I flashed my best smile to the man practically drowning outside my window, I felt another wave of pain wash over Reyes and the knife tip pierced my skin. I flinched when it drew blood. He immediately eased up.

“I’m sorry,” I said to raincoat man, my voice unsteady. “We were just taking advantage of the storm.”

“I understand,” he said with a huge grin. “You might want to pull over a little farther. Never can tell in a storm like this what other drivers’ll do.”

“Thank you. We will.”

He looked at Reyes, studied him a moment, then turned back to me. “But everything’s okay?”

“Oh, sure,” I said as Reyes sank down into the passenger’s seat. He probably realized he was hovering over me like an escaped convict might hover over a hostage. But that could just be me projecting. Lowering the knife to my rib cage, he pressed it into my jacket to let me know it was still there. He was so thoughtful.

“Everything’s fine,” I continued. “Thank you so much for checking. Not many people would brave such a storm.” I glanced up at the rumbling sky.

“Well,” he said, smiling sheepishly, “I’m at the store over there. Saw you pull over and thought maybe something was wrong.”

“Not a thing,” I said as if I were not being held against my will by a convicted murderer who also happened to be the son of the most evil being in the universe.

“Glad to hear it. If you need anything, come on in.”

“We will, thank you so much.”

I zipped the window closed as raincoat man trudged back to the convenience store with a wave. I smiled and waved back. What a nice guy.

As soon as he was inside, I turned to Reyes. Aware of his pain now, I could feel it assault him in hot waves, and again I fought the empathy that threatened to overcome my generally annoyed mood. I pointed to the blood. “What happened?”

“You.”

“Me?” I asked, surprised.

Lowering the weapon, he settled farther down into the passenger’s seat. “You fell asleep.”

Oh, damn, I did. “But what does that have to do with—?”

“It seems every time you fall asleep, you draw me to you.”

“So, it’s my fault? I do it?”

He focused pain-filled eyes on me. “I’m bound. I can’t go to you now without you summoning me.”

“But I’m not doing it on purpose.” I was suddenly very embarrassed. “Wait, what does that have to do with your being wounded?”

“When you summon me, it’s like before. I go into a seizurelike state.”

“Oh.”

“A word of advice. Never have a seizure when you’re trying to escape the crushing jaws of a garbage truck.”

“Oh. Oh! Oh, my god. I’m so … wait, why am I apologizing? You escaped. From a maximum-security prison. In a garbage truck?”

“I told you. They wouldn’t let me out otherwise.” He laid his head back against the headrest and closed his eyes. The pain coursing through his body was wearing on him. “Let’s get out of here.”

After a long moment, I asked, “Why don’t you just take my Jeep?”

A mischievous smile slid across his face. “I am.”

“Without me in it.”

“So you can run to the clerk? I think not.”

“I won’t tell anyone, Reyes. I promise. Not a soul.”

With a sigh, he opened his eyes to me. He was so beautiful. So vulnerable. “Do you know what I would have done had that man figured out the truth?”

I lowered my head and didn’t answer. Maybe not so vulnerable.

“I don’t want to hurt anyone.”

“But you will if you have to.”

“Exactly.”

I turned the ignition and swerved onto the highway. “Where are we going?”

“Albuquerque.”

That surprised me. Not Mexico? Not Iceland? “What’s in Albuquerque?”

He closed his eyes again. “Salvation.”

8

When everything is coming your way, you’re in the wrong lane.

—T-SHIRT

A light drizzle misted the atmosphere, making the headlights of oncoming vehicles blossom into a spectrum of colors like dozens of mini-rainbows. The rain had let up, but the stars were hidden by dense clouds. As we drove, Reyes seemed to be sleeping. Still, I wasn’t about to risk my life by trying an escape, no matter how much I’d always wanted to execute one of those dive rolls out of a speeding vehicle like in the movies. With my luck, I’d just be plowed under by the next car on the interstate. Wait a minute. That gave me an idea: Cookie and I could be stuntwomen.

I practiced a little evasive maneuver, mostly because movie directors loved that stuff, and Reyes jolted in the seat. He grabbed his side with a sharp intake of breath, clearly hurting. And from the amount of blood that had saturated the coveralls, the wound was significant. We healed faster, much faster, than everyone else. Hopefully that would be enough to keep him alive until I could get him help.

I let the air escape from my lungs slowly, wondering how I could be so utterly scared of someone and yet so consumed with his well-being at the same time. Reality took hold again. I had actually been abducted by an escaped convict. On a scale of one to surreal, this one rocketed into the double digits. The optimistic part of me that saw the cup half full was—disturbingly—a little elated. After all, this wasn’t just any escaped convict. This was Reyes Farrow, the man who haunted my dreams with far more sensuality than should’ve been legal to carry in public.