Hot On His Trail

“What are we waiting for?” Shea asked.

Taggert’s eyes drifted open. “Dark,” he whispered. “We’re waiting for dark.”

Nick wanted, more than anything, to sleep. He fought the urge to close his eyes again, knowing that if he did he’d likely never wake up. The girl would take off, and this time he didn’t have the energy—or the will—to chase after her. He’d either wake up surrounded by cops, or he’d never wake up at all.

“It’s supposed to rain tonight,” she said in an absurdly conversational tone of voice. “Visibility should be poor, and the cops will be busy with fender benders all over town. Maybe that will help you some, keep some of them busy elsewhere. And maybe the rain will cool some of this heat,” she added, her voice low, as if she were talking to herself.

Nick turned his head but didn’t lift it. The girl watched him, her eyes wide, her lips slightly parted. For the first time he really looked at her. She was pretty. Not gorgeous, maybe, but striking and yes…very, very pretty. Her warm brown hair looked soft and thick. It fell straight and smooth, like a dark waterfall, but the ends curled under just a little. Her eyes tilted up slightly at the corners, but not enough to give her an exotic look. She had too much of the girl-next-door in her to ever be exotic. And if a woman could have a perfect mouth…

Rain. “I know who you are,” he muttered. “You’re the weathergirl.”

The sunlight was slowly dying, and an oddly grayish light washed across her face. Yes, the light was fading, but it was enough to show Nick her displeasure at his recognition. Her lips came together and thinned, and her eyes narrowed.

“I am not a weathergirl,” she insisted frostily.

He began to feel a dullness within, as if the light inside him was fading as surely as the light of day. He lifted his head in an effort to clear it. “Yes you are,” he said. “I recognize you. You’re a real favorite in the TV room at the Madison County Jail, almost as popular as that big blonde.”

“Astrid,” the weathergirl muttered.

“Yeah.”

“Astrid should be here, you know,” she said angrily. “You’re her story and I was just filling in.” When she got really angry she did things with her mouth. Her lips pursed; something twitched. “If she hadn’t come down with the stomach flu she’d be sitting here right now, not me.”

Nick shook his head gently, unable to make a more vigorous move. “No, she wouldn’t.”

“And why not?”

He leaned slightly toward her and whispered. “I never would’ve grabbed the big blonde. She scares me.”

The statement obviously took the weathergirl by surprise. Her eyes widened, and finely shaped dark brows lifted. “She scares you?”

“A little. I think it’s that big silly grin on an Amazon that does it. It’s not natural.” He was losing it, could actually feel himself losing control. His heartbeat was thready, his vision less than clear and his head swam uneasily. “You don’t have a silly grin,” he added. “You have a nice, real smile. ‘This is Shea Sinclair with the weekend weather.”’ He smiled himself, for some reason. “Shea Sinclair,” he said again, “weathergirl.”

She looked like she wanted to hit him. Senseless girl. He had the pistol, he’d kidnapped her, everyone in the world believed he was a cold-blooded killer, and she looked like she wanted nothing more than to reach out and smack him a good one.

“I am not a weathergirl. I do the weekend weather, at the moment, but I also file stories. I’m a reporter, Mr. Taggert.”

For some reason he fixated on the memory of her smile. It really was a nice smile, relaxed and genuine, as if the cold or the heat or the rain that was coming didn’t bother her at all. She’d smiled, he remembered, as he’d run from the courthouse.

“Why were you smiling as I came out of the courthouse this afternoon?” he asked.

Her anger dulled; she even looked a little embarrassed. “I didn’t mean to, but I got excited about the possibility that we might actually catch a word or get a really great picture no one else would have.”

Ah, Shea Sinclair really was a reporter. He’d become familiar with the breed in the past few months. They were wolves after a piece of meat, and he was the sirloin. No, that was too kind, much too generous. Wolves were majestic, if deadly. Reporters were little yapping dogs, eagerly fighting over a scrap of meat, and he was hamburger.

Nick had been angry at the world for months, and right now he experienced a flash of blinding fury at his hostage for turning out to be another annoying, ambitious reporter who’d found reason to smile at his desperate escape. “Well, come tomorrow you’re going to have a real exclusive, aren’t you, weathergirl?”

She didn’t correct him this time, but pursed her lips together in apparent disapproval and turned away to stare out the passenger-side window. Her shoulders were squared, her spine too straight. Evidently the silent treatment was punishment for his last offense. Good.

When darkness fell he started the engine and backed slowly down the path. The trail was bumpy, the branches and leaves that brushed against the car invisible but noisy. He made the turn almost blind, leaving the route and lurching through a low spot before getting the tires on the trail again. The weathergirl continued to silently stare out of her window, even though there was nothing to see. Just darkness and shadows and the gray-green bushes and trees that had shielded them.

At the two-lane road, he switched on the headlights and continued the journey he’d started in the daylight, heading for the other side of the mountain. He didn’t think there would be a roadblock on this little country road, but every time the car rounded a blind corner Nick held his breath until he saw a length of clear road stretching ahead.

She’d been right about the rain. It started, a light sprinkle, as he steered the Saturn across a level stretch of road at the top of the mountain. When they passed one car on the winding downward slope his heart beat a little bit faster, but the vehicle didn’t so much as slow down. They were just another pair of headlights on a rarely used road.

When the mountain road was behind them and the terrain was level again, Nick pulled off the pavement and onto a rutted dirt path, rounded a bend and stopped the car with a lurch. For the first time since he’d made the mistake of calling her “weathergirl” once too often, Shea Sinclair turned her head to look at him. The headlights lit the dirt path before them, their reflection illuminating her stoic face in shades of gray. The light-headedness that wouldn’t go away made her face look like ivory—ivory with soft, black velvet shadows.

He waited for her to throw open her door and take off, but she just stared at him.

“You really didn’t do it?” she whispered.

Nick shook his head.

“Then who did?”

“I don’t know, but I’m going to find out.”

She didn’t make a move, so Nick reached over and unfastened her seat belt. “Go.”

Shea turned her head away again, to glance out at the deserted field. “Here?” Her head snapped around, and she stared at him wide-eyed. “You’re just going to dump me in the middle of nowhere, in the dark, in the rain?”

“That’s the plan,” he mumbled.

Instead of jumping from the car and making her escape, Shea Sinclair stared him down. “No,” she whispered.

Surely he misunderstood. “What did you say?”

“I said no.”

Nick cursed beneath his breath as he reached out and snagged Shea’s wrist and dragged her toward him, easing himself from the car and hauling the uncooperative weathergirl with him, over the console, across the driver’s seat. A soft, cool drizzle struck his face, and droplets soaked through the white dress shirt he wore. The cool water cleared his head slightly, as he pulled on Shea Sinclair’s arm. He was making progress until she grabbed the steering wheel and refused to let go. It hit him, as surely as the gentle rain, that right now he didn’t have the strength to forcibly remove her from the car.

“Are you nuts?” he yelled, poking his head into the car and placing his face close to hers. They were practically nose-to-nose, and in the semidarkness he locked his eyes to hers. She didn’t flinch, didn’t show any sign of backing down. “I’m trying to let you go!” Yelling was not such a good idea. His head swam and his knees went weak. Damn.

“You can’t let me go,” she argued. “You need me, Taggert.”

“I’m not a…” He swayed slightly. “I’m not a kidnapper.”

Shea smiled, and Nick’s knees wobbled uncertainly. The smile was all wrong; wrong time, wrong place. There had been a time when a smile like this one would’ve given him hope, would’ve made him list easily forward to kiss her…but not now. She should be running scared right now, and he should be well down the road, running to God knows where.

“Actually,” she said softly, “you are. And since I don’t think there’s a different charge for long-term versus shortterm kidnappings, you might as well make the best of what you’ve got.”

He clamped his hand more snugly around her warm, slender wrist. If she knew how long it had been since a pretty girl had smiled at him, she wouldn’t do this. The smile made his insides tighten and his mind spin. The gentle upturn at the corners of her mouth, the sparkle in her eyes promised so many things. Shea Sinclair had no idea what she was doing to him.

Then again, maybe she did. She let go of the steering wheel and slowly reached out for him, that delicate hand uncertain and enticing, those long, pale fingers as promising as her smile and her eyes. She was going to touch him. For a second Nick was frozen at the very idea. More than anything he wanted this woman to lay her hands on him. He craved the warmth of a woman’s delicate fingers, a tender caress.

It had been a very long time since anyone had touched him; a fat deputy clapping on handcuffs didn’t count.

Without warning, her motion changed from slow to lightning fast, and she grabbed the pistol from his waistband and pointed it at his midsection.