Slow Dancing With a Texan

He put his foot on the gas and sped out of the left lane, making the next exit ramp on two wheels and with no room to spare. Without bothering to stop for the light at the bottom of the ramp, he made two quick left turns and headed up the on-ramp going in the opposite direction.

Positive they must’ve lost the van with that move, Lainie caught her breath. Looking into the setting sun, she realized for the first time that they’d been heading east toward Louisiana. And now they were headed…where? Back to the city?

“Where are we going?” she croaked past a dry mouth.

Ignoring her question, he reached inside his jacket and pulled out a mobile phone. He punched in one number, then threw her a narrowed look as he spoke.

She overheard him making some reference to her and the Houston police, and guessed that he was speaking to his boss, Captain Johnson. Lainie was desperate to speak to Chet, too.

“Right. Code twenty-seven. Got it,” he said into the phone. Then he flipped it shut and stashed it.

“Wait! I wanted to talk to him.” She swiveled in her seat and glared at the side of Sloan’s head.

“Sorry.” He didn’t turn but continued to pay attention to the road ahead. “The captain said the Houston police want to talk to us, but they’re going to have to wait until tomorrow. It’s too risky for you to show up at one of the substations right now. Too obvious.”

“But you didn’t ask about my sister. I have to know what happened to her…to everyone.” Lainie was unaccustomed to being out of control.

“The most important thing now is to get you out of sight and keep you alive. The shooting stopped back there when you were removed from the scene.”

She took a calming breath and steadied her voice. “So where are we going?”

“We’re going to ground,” he told her. “Find a nice quiet place. Somewhere no one would think to look for you.”

“Home?” That sounded like a great plan to her. No one would think to look for her at the one place where she should be.

His mouth cracked into a near smile. “Not likely, Ms. Gardner. I think you’ve been visible enough for one day.” He didn’t look at her but swung the wheel in another fast exit. “We’re going to find a sleazy little motel so we can regroup and get to know each other better.”

Sloan chuckled when he’d spotted the look of absolute terror on Lainie’s face as he mentioned the sleazy motel. Her wide green eyes were filled with shock. Either she was afraid of stepping down a rung on her social ladder by checking into a fleabag joint, or she was terrified at the thought of getting to know him any better.

But for him, as he’d said the words, a picture had formed in his mind of her looking up at him from a motel bed, glistening with sweat, panting and breathless from having been completely loved—by him. Oh, and he would do a very thorough job of loving her, too. That was a pure fact. But now was not the time for those thoughts.

He forced himself to push aside the lustful images and concentrated instead on trolling the surface streets, backtracking and sidetracking to make sure the tail was gone. Trying not to think about how close she’d come to being killed, Sloan instead considered why a stalker would’ve hired professional killers.

That mode of operation certainly didn’t fit the profile of an ordinary nutcase. Most stalkers who took the time to send a warning letter generally wanted to see the face of their intended victims when they finally made a move.

Nothing about this case added up.

He found what he’d been searching for in a rundown dump located a few blocks off Westheimer in an area that had seen better days. The End of the Trail Motel had a parking lot in back where he could pull in under overhanging trees and hopefully not be spotted.

Cutting the engine, he turned to Lainie and nearly lost his breath. The woman’s sleeves were covered in blood and her hair glittered with tiny shards of glass. He wondered if he should be taking her to the nearest hospital, not to some dirty joint with peeling stucco walls and half-graveled driveways.

“You never answered me before, Lainie.” His voice cracked as he tried to sound calm. “Where are you hurt? Did any of the bullets hit you?”

She shook her head. “I didn’t get a chance to answer you, or even get two words in for that matter. And I’ll be surprised if I’m not totally black and blue from that wild ride. But no…I don’t think I was shot. I just can’t imagine where all this blood came from.”

“Sit quietly until I get us checked in, then. We need to make sure you’re not cut and still bleeding. Try not to move too much.” His heart was beating double time at the thought of leaving her alone, even for a few minutes. But he had no choice.

“Check in here? We’re going to stay at this place?”

“Just long enough to figure out what to do,” he told her as he stepped from the truck. “Now, be still and wait for me. Any more sudden movements and some of that glass in your hair might get in your eyes.” He pushed the truck’s automatic-door-lock buttons and stalked toward the motel’s office.

It took her a long moment to drag in another breath. Glass in her eyes? All of a sudden she realized she was scared. Down-deep, panic-inducing scared.

She was afraid to cry, didn’t even want to tremble for fear of the glass. But it wasn’t the thought of being cut that had her so terrified. No. It was the idea that someone out there truly wanted to kill her.

Worse yet, she simply couldn’t let herself get out of control. Oh, how she wished she had her sister here to talk to. Suzy always had an amazing way of calming her down and seeing the right answers through the haze of conflicting information. But Suzy might be fighting for her life right now. That inconceivable thought was the real reason Lainie was feeling so at a loss.

And now she would have to stay in a broken-down motel with a lawman who seemed like the strong, silent he-man type—and was gorgeous to boot.

Lordy, she was too scared to think straight. What difference did it make what Sloan looked like?

She had to start thinking clearly. She was bright enough and tough enough to outsmart any old stalker. All she had to do was concentrate on the problem and stop being sidetracked.

The truck’s door locks clicked again and Sloan wrenched open the passenger side door. “Your castle awaits, ma’am.”

He wouldn’t let her walk the fifty feet to a room he’d already opened that faced the back lot. Swiftly and quietly he carried her toward the two-story cement building, the one painted a pea-green color.

All the while she worried about him putting his hands on her body. And wondered how in the world she was supposed to concentrate on anything else.

Gently setting her on her feet just inside the door, he shut and locked it behind them. Then he ordered her to close her eyes.

“Why?” Although the cheap motel bedspread and the spot-stained gold carpeting left a lot to be desired, she couldn’t imagine what he wanted to keep her from seeing.

“Just close your eyes and be quiet a minute,” he replied. “Before we do anything else, I’ve got to remove a few tiny bits of glass that have fallen onto your eyelashes.”

“Oh.” Closing her lids carefully, she decided to quit fighting and let him do what he needed to do.

Sloan opened the first-aid kit he’d taken from the back of his pickup. He ripped apart the packaging on the cotton sheeting and used it to gently pick a few slivers that had shattered onto her face and neck. As he did, he couldn’t help but notice her soft, milky complexion.

Working close, he was fascinated by a faint smattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose. In his mind those slight imperfections only made her more interesting.

Trying to concentrate on the glass, he gently swiped the cotton across her thick eyelashes. Without warning, the urge to kiss the tender skin on her closed lids made him nervous and hesitant to touch her again.

He wanted to watch while she opened her eyes, focusing on his face. Sure that he would find passion in that gaze, he could already taste his growing need.

Sloan barely remembered the last time a woman affected him this way. It had been months since he’d even bothered with a date. Women just weren’t a big priority in his life. Never had been. Until now.

He gritted his teeth and kept on working. When he ran the cotton over her hair, he noticed that the blood there and on her clothes had dried. If she’d been bleeding once, the flow had stopped.

Knowing she didn’t need an emergency room helped to calm him down. But then he suddenly found himself fighting off the desire to dig his fingers through luscious, intense-red strands of hair. He gritted his teeth and carefully brushed the glass away instead.

“That’s the best I can do,” he said at last. “Do you want help getting out of your clothes?”

“Excuse me?” Her hot-green eyes popped open.

Oh, man. He desperately tried to find something else to concentrate on until he could stop imagining her naked.

“You have to get out of those things so we can check you over for cuts,” he finally directed.