Lori Foster - Under Pressure

Overall, despite his massive size and capability, Justice was easygoing and considerate—especially to pretty girls.

“Let’s lose the wet coat, okay? You’ll be more comfortable.”

She bit her lip, then quickly stripped her coat off. Leese took it from her as she climbed in.

She was so skittish that he didn’t trust her to stay put and he definitely didn’t want her trying to hop out of a moving car. Still holding the door open, he said, “Scoot.”

“What?” Catalina pushed back her hair and blinked at him in question.

Rather than explain again, Leese took the expedient measure of getting in next to her, forcing her to make room for him. He watched her rump as she quickly crawled across the seat, moving as far from him as she could get.

As he draped the coat over her lap, he told Justice, “Go,” and to Catalina, said, “Buckle up.”

“Where to?” Justice asked.

“Head for the highway.” Because she hadn’t done it yet, Leese reached around Catalina and buckled her seat belt, then tucked the coat around her again. “We’ll go south.”

She pressed back in her seat. “Where’s my suitcase?”

“In back,” Justice told her, taking several peeks at her in the rearview mirror.

She confirmed that by twisting around to look in the cargo area. When she saw the battered suitcase, she dropped back into her seat and closed her eyes. “Thank you.”

“Welcome.” Then to Leese, he asked, “We expecting more trouble?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“Yes,” Catalina said. “Expect it, because it’s definitely coming.”

Leese shared a look with Justice, but both chose to stay silent. As they drove out of the small town, the streetlights faded away and only the headlights of the SUV and the few other cars on the road lit the area.

After about twenty minutes, Catalina slumped in her seat and yawned. “I don’t suppose you have anything to eat?”

The guys shared another look.

Justice said, “Sorry, no. I take it you’re hungry?”

“Mmm. I haven’t eaten since lunch yesterday.”

If true, that sucked, but Leese shook his head at Justice. “Don’t stop yet.”

“If I can’t eat,” Catalina said, “then do you mind if I nap? I’ve been even longer without sleep and now that I’m warm, I’m having a pretty hard time keeping my eyes open.”

Every minute with her got more confusing. “Why haven’t you slept?”

“I was planning my escape from Wayne’s little cult. He considers himself this benevolent guide, but he’s actually just creepy. I had to sneak out a window. Should have known he’d find out.”

Tension knotted the muscles of Leese’s neck. “You were in a cult?”

“Well, not an official cult or anything. Those are off in the woods or something, right? But Wayne has this weird setup where he takes in people in need.”

“You?” he asked with clear disbelief, because her family connections alone would forever keep her out of the category of “in need.”

She rolled one shoulder. “I had to lay low for a bit.” Rather than expound on that, she went back to explaining the setup. “So Wayne has these two big Victorians and a bunch of people stay there on a temporary basis. Homeless guys, alcoholics, a few addicts. Mostly men, but there was this older prostitute too. She helped me get away because, according to her, she didn’t like the competition of having another female around. Guess she had a thing for Wayne. He’s the only one who paid much attention to me.”

“He bought you clothes?”

“The coat and boots, yeah. See, we all had to take turns keeping up the property. Clearing the front walk and driveway and stuff like that. I was the youngest and healthiest one there, so I volunteered to help the others. Only I didn’t have the proper shoes and my coat was cloth and often got damp, so Wayne took it upon himself to replace them.” She worried her fingers over the zipper of her coat. “He took a lot for granted, trying to give me gifts and getting enraged when I refused them. I’m not sure what he expected...well, I assume he eventually expected sex. I mean, that’s obvious, right?”

Leese resisted the urge to look her over. “Probably a safe bet.”

“But why he’d expect me to be into it...I couldn’t figure that out. I never flirted, never led him on, not until I decided I couldn’t stay there anymore. Then I acted interested only so I could put him off until after dinner.”

“That’s when you left?”

“Out a window, yeah. See, tonight he was planning for me to join him in his room for a late dinner instead of in the dining hall with everyone else. So I figured I had to go.” She wrinkled her nose, which wasn’t quite so pink anymore. “I was mean, telling him how I was looking forward to it and that I’d see him at seven. I told him I wanted to primp and make myself pretty for him.”

She was already pretty, but as far as he could tell, she hadn’t primped in a while.

“He liked that idea, so he wasn’t hovering around me so much. It gave me an opportunity to sneak away. I dodged around for a while, figuring that was safer than making a beeline for the bus station, since Wayne would go there first to look for me, right?” Without waiting for Leese to reply, she continued, “But I guess he hadn’t given up because he was watching the station all the same, knowing I’d show up there sooner or later.”

Was the bus her only option? Her family was old money. Leese doubted any of them had ever stepped foot on a bus, much less made it their preferred mode of transportation.

That made about as much sense as her rooming in a shelter with a letch supervising.

“On principle alone, I’d have left the coat and boots, but when he gave them to me, he also swiped my old stuff. I didn’t have anything else and I didn’t want to freeze, so...” She slumped farther in the seat. “It was a gift, after all. And turns out, they are pretty warm.”

Leese rubbed his jaw. When the headlights behind them drove closer, he looked over the seat to check it out. The car cut away and went down a side street to the right.

Gone, and yet his instincts sharpened with the probable threat. “Turn left here,” he told Justice. If the other car had been following, hoping to circle ahead of them, he’d have to disappoint them.

The road was short and led back into a business district. New lights appeared behind them. There shouldn’t be anything alarming in that, and yet, warning bells went off in his head.

Checking a map on his phone, he said, “Go through this parking lot, then left again. About five miles down you’ll find an on-ramp for 75 north. We’ll try that for a bit.”

Catalina chewed her bottom lip, her arms folded around her.

She looked exhausted, apparently with good reason. He needed to make up his mind about what to do with her now, but there were too many unanswered questions.

Questions that would have to be answered later.

Hoping she’d have a suggestion, he asked, “Where would you like to go?”

Thinking about it, she inhaled and said, “If you want to find another bus station—”

“Not an option.” Leese reached over, took her chin, and turned her face toward him. “Like it or not, I was hired to keep you safe. I can’t do that if I can’t see you.”

“You also can’t keep me safe indefinitely.”

She sounded so sure about that. Did she really believe someone planned to do her harm? All he’d been told was that her father wanted her protected while she was out of reach, but he didn’t know anything about a specific threat to her.

Was there a chance Mr. Nicholson had hired a bodyguard because his daughter was confused, maybe a little irrational...even delusional? She wouldn’t be the first person to imagine a bizarre conspiracy theory.