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The brunette screamed. Jerked stiff. Dropped the pistol.
“I’ll take that.” Brady took the pistol as well as the cop’s empty service weapon and shoved them in the waist of the girl’s oversized jeans. “You’re not the first chick to screw me over, and because I am, as you said, a bully…” He leered at the brunette, who gaped at him with tear-puddled eyes and an expression of horror. He wished he could put Angi, his backstabbing ex, in a trunk to freeze, but this girl could pay for Angi’s sins. “I think I’ll let you die slowly. Suffering.” He wrenched the ranch coat off the girl and shoved his own frozen arms in its warmth. “Thanks. I’ll take this, too. Call it payback for the bullet in my leg.”
He closed the trunk, retrieved the ignition key and locked them inside. Slapping the trunk lid, he shouted, “Have fun, girlie. You should freeze to death by morning, if you don’t suffocate first!”
With that he limped to the backseat of the Caddy, collected his prison jumpsuit, the girl’s purse and cell phone, then glanced about for any other evidence he’d been there. He couldn’t do anything about the broken rear windshield or bullet holes in the Caddy, but he could take the cowboy’s truck and get the hell out of there before a witness showed up.
Hobbling to the pickup, Brady tossed the armload in the back of the truck and sent a disgusted look toward the darkening sky. The wind had started gusting, and the first wet snowflakes swirled from the sky.
Time to find shelter.
Jake woke by degrees, fighting the black abyss that sucked at him. He cracked his eyes open slowly, taking in information from all of his senses. He lay on his side, a hard, cold, lumpy surface beneath him. His head throbbed. Darkness surrounded him. He could smell motor oil, mildew and…something sweeter. Flowers? Peaches?
All was quiet, except for the whoosh of gusting wind…until a quiet sniff and muffled sob reached him through the blackness. He wasn’t alone.
A soft body nestled against him, shivering, shifting. He tried to move, to sit up, but he immediately hit his head on an unyielding barrier above him. Lightning bolts streaked through his skull, and with a groan, he sank back to the cold surface below him.
A soft gasp filtered through the dark.
“You’re awake?” a female voice whispered.
Jake raised a hand to his pounding temple. “Yeah. I…Where are we?”
“He put us in the t-trunk.” The woman sniffled again, then added, “I’m sorry. I tried to stop him, to shoot him, but your gun was out of bullets.”
A flurry of memories scrolled through his brain. Gunfight with an escaped con. A nearly naked young woman in the trunk—a brunette with big green eyes and freckles on her pale cheeks. Pain screaming through his body. “Taser,” he groaned. “Hell.”
“A-are you all right?” she asked, and her teeth chattered.
“I’ll live. You?”
“J-just scared. And c-cold.”
He felt the tremor that rolled through her and reach blindly for her in the darkness. Her arms, torso and legs were bare except for her bra and panties. That matched his memory of her lack of clothes when he’d opened the trunk earlier, but…
“What happened to the coat I gave you?” But he knew the answer.
“The convict took it,” she confirmed. “H-he stole your t-truck.”
Jake gritted his teeth, fury and frustration coursing through him. Reaching behind him he felt for his pistol and the police sidearm he’d lifted from the convict. Both were gone. “Hell.”
Drawing a slow breath, he focused on the situation at hand and the more immediate need to get them out of the trunk and warmed up. Based on his companion’s shivering and state of undress, she was well on her way to hypothermia. “What’s your name, ma’am?”
“Ch-Chelsea Harris.” Her voice cracked with emotion and from the cold.
Compunction and compassion twisted inside him. He was cold, but she had to be miserable. And if he’d been more thorough ensuring the area around his prisoner was secure, they wouldn’t be in this mess. Hell and damnation.
“Hi, Chelsea,” he said in a calm, reassuring tone. “I’m Jake Connelly, and I’m going to get us out of here. I need you to trust me. Okay?”
She hesitated, her skepticism obvious in the silence, then she whispered, “Okay.”
“First things first. I’m going to chafe some warmth into your arms and legs. Your shivering means you’re dangerously low on body heat. I’m not groping you. Got it?”
“Y-yeah.”
Jake wrapped his hands around her arm, which was frighteningly cool to his touch, and vigorously rubbed her skin. “Did he hurt you?”
“Not as b-bad as he hurt you.”
“Meaning he did hurt you.” Jake pressed his mouth in a tight line of disgust and fury.
“He h-hit me once. Gave me a z-zap from the stun g-gun. Grabbed my hair. S-stuff like that.” She said it as if getting jolted by a stun gun was nothing, but he heard the telltale warble of fear in her voice.
He muttered an invective under his breath.
“Hey, w-we’re alive,” she said, putting steel in her voice. “That’s all I c-care about.”
“True that.” In his head, he began working through the possibilities for getting them out of the trunk. “Does your bra have an underwire?”
“Wh-what?”
He chuckled under his breath. “That sounded skeevy, didn’t it? Sorry. I need something I can use it to pick the lock and get us out of here.”
“Oh. Uh…yeah. It d-does, but how—”
“Permission to manhandle your bra?”
Chapter 3
Brady pressed a hand to his throbbing leg. The duct tape bandage the cowboy had fashioned over his wound had worked for a while, but fresh blood was seeping from under the tape. As his adrenaline receded, his pain grew, along with his impatience.
Gusts of wind battered the pickup and made it difficult to control the truck. He swerved as if he were drunk and battled to stay in his lane. The last thing he needed was to let erratic driving draw the attention of a passing cop.
Squinting through the windshield, he spotted a farmhouse ahead and tried to remember how far the GPS voice had said they were from the brunette’s house. Damn it, he should’ve brought the GPS with him, but he’d gotten in a hurry.
Get a grip, man! You’ve come too far, risked too much to screw up now! Brady squeezed the steering wheel. He refused to go back to prison. Confinement was sucking the life from him. He’d eat a bullet before he let them cage him up again.
He pulled into the driveway of the farmhouse and surveyed the scene. An old pickup was parked out front, and a small stable sat a hundred yards or so behind the house. A black-and-white dog noticed his arrival and started barking from behind the fence of its pen. He glowered at the dog, knowing the ruckus was likely to attract unwanted attention.
Sure enough, he’d just cut the engine, intending to take a look around, when an old man stepped out of the stable and sent a curious look his way. Brady cursed under his breath and pulled the cowboy’s gun onto his lap. He rolled down the truck window and waited as the old man ambled closer.
“Can I help you?” the white-haired man asked.
Brady sent him a friendly smile and curled a finger around the trigger of the pistol. “I’m afraid I’m lost. I’m looking for a friend’s house.” Brady called an image to mind of the brunette’s key chain, dangling from the Caddy’s ignition. The miniature Texas license plate clipped to the ring read Chelsea. “Chelsea said her parents were on vacation, and she was house-sitting for them. I’m supposed to meet her for dinner, but I think I missed a turn.”
The man’s face brightened. “You must mean the Harrises. I heard they were taking a cruise or some such.” The old man walked a few steps closer. “Their place is the next driveway on the left. About four miles, I think.” He grinned. “Nice girl, that Chelsea. How did you meet her?”
Brady shoved down his rising impatience. “Mutual friend.” He jerked a nod. “Thanks for the directions.”
He moved his hand from the gun to the ignition key, then hesitated. The old man could identify him if the police did a house-by-house search. He glanced back at the old codger, who wore a bright orange hunter’s cap, and his brain started clicking.
Wrapping his hand around the cowboy’s pistol again, he called to the man, “You’re a hunter?”
The old man flashed a crooked grin. “Yep. Have been since I was six, and my daddy took me deer hunting near Tyler.”
Brady smiled. A hunter would have rifles, shotguns, maybe even a bow. Weapons he might need.
“Good to know.” He popped the driver’s door open and slid out, keeping the pistol hidden from the man’s view.
The old guy frowned. “Whatcha doing? Shouldn’t you be gettin’ to the Harrises’ before this storm hits?”
“I’ll be heading out soon enough. Anyone inside? A wife? Kids?”
“Who wants to know?” The man’s gaze dropped to the bloodstains on Brady’s leg, and he narrowed a suspicious look toward him. “Who are you? What happened to you?”
Brady swung the gun up. “I’ll ask the questions. Who’s inside?”
The man tensed when he saw the pistol, then gave Brady a defiant glare. “What do you want, boy? You think you can frighten me with that thing? I saw combat in World War II. Spent weeks under fire in a trench in France. I’ve already survived hell on earth.” The man straightened and squared his shoulders. “You’re nothing but a punk. I’m not scared of you.”
Brady sneered at him. “Maybe you should be, gramps.”
Permission to manhandle her bra? A strangled sound rose in Chelsea’s throat. Humiliation and modesty warred with her common sense and will to survive. The cowboy’s request made sense. His idea was inspired, logical.
But she couldn’t help the prickle of self-consciousness. Bad enough that her nearly naked size 14 body was pressed intimately against his male perfection. Awkward. Stripping in front of the convict and being discovered by Jake wearing only her skivvies had been mortifying enough, especially knowing the extra weight she’d gained in the past year gave her love handles and unsightly cellulite on her thighs.
Maybe if you hadn’t let your appearance go— Todd’s voice echoed in her head and lanced her heart.
“Chelsea?” Jake said, still waiting for her answer.
She swallowed hard, and mustering her practicality like a shield, she shoved down the twinges of embarrassment. “All right. Should I take it off?”
“Let me see what I can do with it on. I’d hate for you to lose even the tiny scrap of protection from the cold it’s giving you. Hold still, okay?”
She tried not to move, but when his warm fingers slid under her bra and nudged the side of her breast, a current of sensation, a hyperawareness of the übersexy cowboy’s touch charged through her. And she flinched. She bit the inside of her cheek to stifle a moan of pleasure.
Oh, Chelsea…so inappropriate under the circumstances.
Their lives had been threatened, they were trapped in a car trunk, and she was literally freezing to death. But, oh, heavens, the brush of his fingers on her bare skin, the press of his hard chest spooned next to her back, the juxtaposition of his groin against her tush…
How could she not react to him?
He tugged on the fabric at the end of the underwire, flexing and twisting the material until the wire poked through. He pulled the wire, but it held fast.
Chelsea’s breath hitched in her chest as he slid his hand around to the other side of her demi-cup and repeated the process.
“I usually don’t p-put out like this on a first date,” she said with a nervous chuckle. “You owe me d-dinner and a movie when we g-get out of here, pal.”
He gave a short laugh, his breath fanning the back of her neck and sending a thrill to her core. “You got it, darlin’,” he said with a lazy Texas drawl.
She heard the pop of a seam, then felt the tug, as the underwire slid free, and the vibration at her back as he gave a low growl of satisfaction. Maybe it was wrong for such simple things to turn her on, given the gravity of their situation, but tell that to her crackling nerve endings. The cowboy had her every skin cell charged and her heart racing.
“Got it,” he said. “I don’t suppose there’s a flashlight in here, is there?”
“N-not that I could find. Wh-what about a cell ph-phone?”
He jerked. “You have a cell phone?”
“I—No. I w-was hoping you did.”
His muscles relaxed again, radiating his disappointment. “No. I left mine in my truck, charging. If Brady stole my truck, then he has my phone, too.”
Chelsea’s pulse tripped. “Brady? You knew that guy?”
“Naw. I heard the news reports about his escape. I only realized who he was after I saw the orange jumpsuit stuffed under the seat. By then Brady had pulled his gun and…well, you heard the shootout.”
“Yeah.” She shivered again, remembering the echoing shots, imagining the carnage that could have happened just feet from her, fearing a bullet would pierce the trunk and hit her.
“Okay, I’ll go by feel. Hang on, now. I’ve got to work around you.” His body canted closer to hers, his arms shifting and reaching past her for the trunk lock.
She tried to give him room to work, but her legs had grown stiff and cramped, and her arms were almost numb from the cold. While before she’d been certain she would die, either by the convict’s hand or from exposure, Jake’s presence, his level-headed thinking, gave her a morsel of hope, which she clung to with both hands.
“H-have you ever picked a lock before?”
He grunted. “More than once.”
“Oh? Is b-breaking and entering a hobby of y-yours?”
He didn’t answer right away. “Let’s just say picking locks comes in handy at times in my line of work.”
She frowned. “A-and what line of w-work would that be?”
The rattle of metal answered her, but Jake said nothing.
A draft blew through the confines of the trunk as the wind outside gusted harder, and Chelsea couldn’t stop the shudder that rolled through her. Thanks to the darkness that surrounded them, she couldn’t tell if Jake was making any progress on jimmying the lock or not. But for the first time since the escaped con had grabbed her and shoved the gun in her ribs, Chelsea believed she might actually survive this ordeal. Thanks to Jake. What he did for a living didn’t matter in the scheme of things if he could get them out of the car.
While Jake worked on the lock, Chelsea tried to steer her thoughts away from the biting cold long enough to strategize. Before now, she’d been so focused on not getting shot, then on staying warm and getting out of the trunk, that she hadn’t thought beyond those threats. With the real possibility of escaping the trunk at hand, she needed to make a plan. She was determined to stay positive, think clearly and not give up. She could get out of this pickle if she didn’t panic.
Step one: How would she get home if Ethyl was out of gas? While waiting for Jake to wake up, she’d heard a few cars pass by, but increasingly fewer people were out on the road as the storm closed in. She was in her bra and panties. Her parents’ house was still at least six miles away.
The weight of despondency sat on her chest, and she doggedly shook off the negativity.
“Come on,” Jake grumbled under his breath as he worked.
“C-can I help?” she asked, her teeth chattering.
“No.” He moved his hands back to her arms and rubbed her skin briskly again. “The lock is sticking, probably because of rust, maybe ice, but I’ll get it open.”
Seconds later she heard a click, and Jake released a sigh.
