All-American Baby

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“Okay, forget Las Vegas. But there’s the Grand Canyon. And Texas. Do you suppose I could get a pair of hand-tooled boots? Now, if I had a pair of cowboy boots and a Stetson hat I would certainly be tall enough to—”

“Are you crazy? Look me straight in the eyes and tell me you’re not crazy.” If not, she was at the very least making him crazy. Because he was falling for it—for her, God forbid—all over again.

She paused, put her sweetly pointed chin in her palm and looked at him with dark-fringed eyes. She didn’t need makeup, stolen or otherwise.

“I’m not crazy,” she said. “I’m just making up for lost time.”

“Making up for lost time. You’ve had more advantages than ninety-nine point nine percent of the world and you want more. You are crazy ... and spoiled!”

She tossed her fork into her syrup-logged plate with a dull splat. She stood and snatched her sunglasses and hat off the table. “You don’t know the first thing about me.”

“That’s for sure! It’s hard to get to know a mirage, Mel.”

Her dark eyes snapped. “If I’m a mirage, what are you? Showing up in my life, disappearing, showing up again and snatching me right out from under the best security money can buy. Traipsing me down the California coast in stolen cars and pilfered—”

He slapped a twenty-dollar bill on the table, took her by the arm and directed her toward the door. “If you’re trying to attract the highway patrol, you’re doing a very good job,” he said between clenched teeth as they exited the restaurant.

She kept silent but snatched her arm out of his grasp. When they were almost out of the parking lot, her gait slowed, and then she came to a complete halt as she stared into the woods.

“Oh, my,” she said.

He followed her gaze. A black-and-silver Harley-Davidson was parked off the path, near a shed.

“Don’t even think about it,” he said.

“Oh, Ash.” She turned her best coaxing gaze on him.

“I know. You’ve never been on a motorcycle before.”

She smiled, all sign of her temper gone. Her emotions were as quick as summer lightning. “What fun.”

The way she said it held all kinds of promise. Not knowing what visions she had in her mind, Ash suddenly had plenty of his own. Her thighs pressed to his hips, her small, pointed breasts nudging his back, her excited breath in his ear.

He heaved an exasperated sigh.

“Just for a few miles,” she said.

“Mel, you don’t understand. People and their Harleys—this is asking for trouble.”

She pushed her sunglasses up and propped them on her head. “Ten miles. Five. Then we can trade it in for the most boring tan sedan you’ve ever seen. And we can make a plan. Whatever kind of plan you want.”

“Then you’ll call your father?”

“Not that plan. But any other plan.”

Ash knew when he was being had. But he simply couldn’t resist her.

He had to push the bike through the woods to another trail that led to the highway to avoid starting its engine close enough to attract the attention of the owner. And he was doing it, he reminded himself and her, on half a bagel and two cups of black coffee.

But when the Harley-Davidson roared to life and Melina curved her lithe body to his and linked her arms around his chest, Ash knew he would have done it a dozen times over, with an army of enraged Hells Angels behind him. They rode for twenty miles before his arousal subsided.

TOM SOMERSET STARED out the window of the room his daughter had vanished from sometime during the night. Mid-morning sun was burning the mist off the Golden Gate Bridge. The bay glistened a glorious blue. It was going to be a beautiful day in the city by the bay.

Tom fought dry heaves.

His daughter was gone. The only thing left in the world that mattered to him had vanished. He’d been through this before. He wasn’t sure he could survive it again. That’s why he’d insisted on bringing her to the United States with him. She hadn’t been out of his sight since his men picked her up in London three months ago. He’d been in hell the entire time they’d searched for her. Because each time she disappeared—and it had happened three times before this—Tom was convinced it was a replay of that day fourteen years ago.

No, he told himself. Not that. She’s run away. That’s all. You know that’s all.

He knew that was all because she’d warned him. The day before, in no uncertain terms, she’d told him he had to allow her to lead a normal life or she would find a way to escape.

This was his fault. The result of his excessive fear. He knew it. And he hated himself for what he’d done to her. But he didn’t know what else to do.

Yes, she’d run away again. That was all.

He turned and looked around the room. Tom didn’t know anything about decor, but he knew it was the kind of room that should have delighted any young woman. The high iron bed was covered with a fluffy rose-colored comforter and ruffled pillows. He could almost see his daughter at the dressing table, her long, dark hair shining in the sunlight that streamed through the bank of wall-to-wall windows. To him, the room looked like something from a fairy tale.

It’s just another prison! Another in a long line of prisons!

Tom closed his eyes against the memory of Melina’s angry accusation the afternoon before. She hadn’t wanted to be here. She’d wanted to go to some museum, had wanted to wander around Haight-Ashbury, for God’s sake. Her eyes had communicated her frustration.

And, as he had done for half her life, Tom Somerset had insisted that he knew what she needed far better than she knew herself.