“Slip of the tongue,” I said, twisting around to look behind us rather than facing the stranger’s knowing gaze. “The cop car is getting closer.”
“I’ll worry about it when it’s ramming our tail.”
“Worrying about it before it sends us flying into the trees might be a better idea.”
“They won’t ram. They’re probably arranging a road-block up ahead as we speak.”
I studied him for a minute. “What do they really want you for?”
He raised an eyebrow. “What do they want you for? I doubt they’d be so intent on chasing someone over a pair of sweatpants.”
“Well, apparently you’re wrong.” I hesitated, but had to ask the question that came instantly to mind. “Have you killed anyone?”
“Have you?” he shot back.
“No,” I said, but somewhere in the back of my mind, screams mingled with the splatter of blood and white matter across stark white walls. No, I thought. No.
But the memories would not be denied.
It wasn’t Egan’s death. The responsibility for that might be mine—if only because he’d died trying to protect me—but he’d been shot through the heart, not the head. The death I remembered was another one entirely.
I had killed. I just didn’t know how or why. And that was a scary thought.
Maybe the stranger should be scared of me, and what I might do, not the other way around.
He didn’t say anything and I looked behind us again. The cop car was catching up. No matter how powerful the engine in this car sounded, we weren’t gaining any ground. I glanced back at the stranger and studied his profile. His lips were like Egan’s—same shape, same lush kissability. I pushed the annoying thought away, and said, “Do you have a name?”
“Trae Wilson.” He glanced at me. “And I find it hard to believe that Egan never talked about any of us.”
“The only thing he ever said was that the past no longer mattered.”
“So he never talked about his clique and what they did?”
Clique? What the hell did he mean by that? His family?
“No, he didn’t.” I hesitated, my fingers clenching around the cold metal ring as the decision I’d made to return the ring to its owner reverberated briefly through my thoughts. “What did they do?”
“What didn’t they do might be a better question.” His gaze went back to the rearview mirror.
I twisted around again. The cops were closing in fast. The big man who’d tracked me to the dam was talking into the radio, meaning that Trae was probably right in his earlier assessment that they were setting up a roadblock.
“If I was the betting kind,” I said, “I’d reckon they’re working up a trap.”
“Looks like it.”
He didn’t sound in the least concerned, and I studied his face for several seconds before letting my gaze slide downward. Was it his similarity to Egan that had the flick of attraction racing through my veins, or was something else going on?
“Have you actually got a plan to get us away from them, or are you just playing it by ear?”
“I always have a plan.” His gaze met mine, the sky-blue depths holding an intensity and an awareness that sent a warm shiver across my skin. “Always.”
I rubbed my arms and pulled my gaze from his. I didn’t understand what was going on, but for once my lack of memory had absolutely nothing to do with it. This man seemed to be working on a whole different level.
The car swept around another bend, revealing a long straight stretch of road. Two cars sat across the road at the far end, completely blocking it.
“Well, there’s our roadblock,” I said, pointing out the obvious. “What are you going to do?”
He didn’t answer, just wrenched the wheel side-ways. The car slewed around, the tires screaming in protest. The unexpected motion threw me against him, hard. And that odd awareness rose again, thick and strong, until all I could feel, all I wanted, was him.
And then the car was straightening again, and I was thrown back, this time against the door, hitting my head so hard against the glass it was amazing one or the other didn’t crack.
“Seat belt,” he snapped, voice little more than a heat-filled growl.
Or maybe it was my imagination, a leftover of the weird awareness our brief touch had caused.
I took a deep, shuddery breath and tried to concentrate on the matter at hand—escape.
We were currently gunning down a dirt track that barely looked wide enough to fit a motorcycle, let alone a car the size of this one. Tree branches and God knows what else slapped across the windshield and scraped the sides, but somehow we were getting through. But a look behind soon revealed the cop still followed.
“Have you any idea where we’re going?”
“Not really.”
I looked at him. “I thought you said you always had a plan?”
“Maybe I lied. Maybe I just like winging it.”
Amusement played about his lush lips, and I frowned. “Is that meant to be comforting?”
“Sweetheart, it’s not meant to be anything more than the truth.”
“I’m not your sweetheart.”
His amusement bubbled, stretching his lips into a devilish grin that had my pulse doing happy little cartwheels.
Why? That was the question that still echoed through me, even as another part of me bathed in the sexiness of that grin. What the hell was happening to me? Why on earth was I reacting like this to a stranger? A man who might yet prove more dangerous than the cops chasing us?
“You may not be my sweetheart,” he said, blue eyes twinkling as he glanced my way, “but you could be, if you play your cards right.”
“In your dreams, my friend.”
“You don’t want to know about my dreams. Trust me on that.”
I pulled my gaze away from his, unsure whether the sudden erratic beat of my heart was excitement or fear. A whole lot of me was praying for fear, because that was the sensible reaction in this situation.
Unfortunately, there didn’t seem to be a whole lot of sensible around at the moment.
The car hit a bump and jumped into the air. I did the same, yelping as my head hit the roof before the car and I crashed back down.
“You really might want to put on your seat belt,” he said. “This is going to get a lot rougher before it’s over.”
I looked out the windshield, saw that we were approaching a forest where the trees were all big and sturdy and impassable looking, and quickly pulled on the belt, as advised. “I really need to know that you have a plan right now.”
Especially seeing that the gap between those trunks didn’t seem to be getting a whole lot wider. I braced myself against the car and resisted the urge to squeeze my eyes shut.
“I do have a plan,” he said, voice calm and still touched by warm amusement. “Which is not to say you’re going to like it.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
He didn’t answer, and I couldn’t really be unhappy about that. The tiniest loss in concentration on his part could easily send us splattering across the trunks we were approaching way too fast.
One thing was becoming obvious, though. This man and sanity weren’t exactly chummy.
He was driving us full bore at a forest. My heart began beating so hard I swore it was going to leap out of my chest, and the sweat trickling down my spine almost became a torrent. Part of me wanted to grab the wheel, the hand brake, do something that might divert or stop the car. Truth was, though, we were going far too fast and were far too close now to prevent the inevitable. I gave in to the desire to squeeze my eyes shut and hoped like hell I lived long enough to beat the crap out of the crazy man behind the wheel.
Only the crash didn’t happen. Instead, the surrounding light grew dim, as if someone had suddenly swallowed the sun. I forced an eyelid open, saw the trunks and shadows and branches slashing past, impossibly close, and promptly shut it again.