Leverage

Or have to stay with a man who had made up his mind to dislike her for no apparent reason.

Shelby left the shelter of the overhang near the diner’s front entrance to cross to where her car was parked. “Okay, fine.” She gave him her phone number. “Just text me or whatever when you’re ready.”

The rain was really starting to come down now. “I’ll follow you in my truck. Just to make sure everything’s okay.”

That was the exact opposite of what Shelby expected. She said nothing, just pulled up the collar of her jacket for protection from the rain. She thought she heard Dylan say something else to her, but she just wanted to make it across the street to her car. She understood why they had built the restaurant on one side of the road and the parking lot on the other—the diner had amazing views of the Blue Ridge Mountains. They wouldn’t want to use any of that prime real estate on parking.

But having to cross the street in the rain made Shelby wish they had put the parking closer.

She heard someone yell, but figured it was someone from the restaurant saying goodbye to Dylan. If he was trying to get her attention, he could just wait until they got to the motel. She wasn’t having a conversation out in the cold rain.

Shelby heard the squealing of tires as she reached the other side of the road. She looked up to see a car barreling toward her so fast she couldn’t even figure out what to do.

Her world tilted as a weight hit her from her right and she went flying sideways through the air. A split second later, the car sped through where Shelby had just been standing, not even slowing down. It sprayed water from puddles, soaking Shelby from head to foot.

From where she lay on the ground, Shelby sucked in deep breaths, trying to get her bearings. She’d been hit, right? But not by the car. She turned her head to the side and saw Dylan lying on the ground with her.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“Yes. Are you? What in the world just happened?” Her limbs were tangled with Dylan’s.

“That car almost hit you. I saw it speeding down the road and yelled, but you didn’t hear me.”

That wasn’t totally true. Shelby had heard him, she just hadn’t wanted to stop in the rain.

“Well, your reflexes are better than mine. Thank you.”

“I had forward momentum going for me, otherwise I wouldn’t have made it.”

What he really meant was Shelby wouldn’t have made it. Dylan could’ve stayed safely on the side of the road and would’ve been just fine.

They both began to sit up. Ouch. Shelby could already feel a rip in her coat at the elbow where she’d hit the hardest, although Dylan had taken the brunt of the fall.

“Are you okay?” she asked him. “You took your weight and some of mine.”

“Yeah, I’ll be fine.” Dylan got to his feet then offered his hand to help Shelby up. She gratefully took it, grabbing her purse and working her way to a standing position. Now everything was starting to hurt. And this was what not getting hit by a car felt like.

“Did the person driving just not see me?” They walked the rest of the way to her car.

“It’s possible.”

“But?” Shelby could hear the but in his tone. She was trying to get her keys out of her purse, but found her hands were shaking pretty badly. Dylan reached over and held the purse for her so she could manage to fish them out.

“But it actually sped up. Definitely wasn’t typical rainy-night-driving behavior.”

“Drunk, I’ll bet you. That’s the second time I’ve been almost run off the road. People around here need to pay better attention.” Shelby got her keys out and clicked open her car. She just wanted to get out of the rain.

Dylan was looking toward where the car had sped off. “Yeah. For sure.”

They walked together around to her driver’s side. He held the door open as she got into the car then shut it. Shelby cracked the window so she could hear what he had to say.

“The motel is just a couple blocks down on the right. Don’t go anywhere else, okay? Just check in and rest until I let you know we can take off.”

Shelby nodded. She wasn’t planning on doing anything but taking a hot shower and changing into dry clothes.

“I won’t. I don’t think I’m up for much dancing.”

A hint of a smile formed at Dylan’s mouth. “You’d be hard pressed to find dancing around here anyway. Unless they’ve got the karaoke set up at the Blue Moon, Falls Run’s bar.”

The rain was pouring over Dylan. Shelby kind of felt bad for all the mean things she had thought about him since he’d saved her life and all. “Are you sure you’re okay?” she asked him.

“Fine. Bye.”

Evidently, gruff Dylan was back.

“Okay, let me know when it’s time to go.” Shelby rolled up her window and started driving slowly down the road, not even looking back at Dylan in the rearview mirror. She was irritated at him and her whole body ached.

This was why she tried to stay alone in her house as much as possible.

Chapter Five (#ulink_aee9dee7-2c30-5a10-b037-a4d65b36b50d)

Somebody was trying to kill Shelby Keelan.

Dylan hadn’t wanted to say that to her in the parking lot of Sally’s diner while they were both soaking wet and banged up by a hard fall to the asphalt. Although, there probably wasn’t ever a good time to tell someone their life was in jeopardy.

And Shelby’s was. By someone who was trying to make it look like an accident. The car that nearly ran Shelby down hadn’t been a drunk driver. As a matter of fact, it had probably been the same vehicle that had nearly driven her off the road earlier today. Both attempts had failed, but just barely.

Dylan walked to his truck, opened it and hopped in, whistling through his teeth as he made it into the cab. Had he cracked a rib again? Damn it, he hoped not. Those hurt like hell. At the very least, his ribs were bruised. His shoulder, too. It had taken the brunt of the fall. But he was in one piece and so was Shelby.

He’d almost been too late. If he’d reacted two seconds later, or if he hadn’t trusted his gut that told him that car was trouble, Shelby would be dead. No one could’ve survived being hit at that speed.

Dylan hadn’t gotten any info about the car that would help them. Four-door, dark sedan wouldn’t narrow down anything; it wasn’t even worth calling in. And the car had been speeding by too fast for Dylan to catch helpful details.

Dylan watched as Shelby pulled out of the parking lot and began driving slowly down the street. He started his truck so he could follow her. He’d make sure she got safely inside, then would try to go get some sleep himself for a couple hours. Surely she would be safe at the motel.

But there had already been two attempts on her life. What would stop whoever was behind this from coming back to finish her in her motel room? That might actually be easier.

Dylan knew he needed to get her to come stay at his house. Dylan wasn’t connected to her in any known way, so whoever was following her wouldn’t be looking for her at his house. She could leave her car parked at the motel and Dylan could sneak her out the back door in case someone was watching.

Of course, he’d have to stop acting like a total jerk if he wanted to convince her to do that. How had Shelby phrased it? Treating her as if she had the plague.

Dylan ran a weary hand over his face as he parked his truck across the street from the motel and watched Shelby walk into the front office. Yeah, he definitely could’ve handled that whole situation at the restaurant better. But he’d thought Shelby would just give him the codes and they’d go their separate ways. She might think he was a little abrupt, but no real harm done.

How the heck was Dylan supposed to have known the codes were in her head and that she needed to be at Omega for all of this to work? How was that even possible? If the number sequence was too lengthy to be written up or easily transferred by an electronic medium, then how the hell could Shelby Keelan have them all inside her brain?

When his ex-boss had called, Burgamy should’ve made it abundantly clear that Shelby would be coming with Dylan to Omega HQ. Dylan had mentioned that fact to Burgamy, who had just quipped back: What difference does it make? Your plane seats more than one, right? You can fit some codes and one woman.

Yeah, his Cessna sat more than one—up to eight, in fact—but that wasn’t really the point. Dylan would’ve kept much more of a distance from Shelby if he had known they would be together for a few days.