“Where to?” the cabbie asked.
Craig gave the street where he’d left his car.
As the vehicle took off, he scanned for the van and the men who had taken them prisoner, but neither was in sight.
When Stephanie started to speak, Craig squeezed her hand.
Not here.
She clamped her lips together and knitted her fingers with his.
They were both breathing hard from the chase and the narrow escape. Now that the crisis was over, he could feel the sexual pull starting to surge between them.
Touching her made him want her, but the physical connection also seemed to strengthen the silent communication they’d first discovered in the dress shop. If they had been in a hotel instead of a cab, he would have taken her directly to the check-in desk and booked a room.
She caught the thought and glanced at him, then away.
“Sorry,” he muttered. “It’s a guy thing.”
Not just a guy thing, apparently.
We have to find a safe place where we can figure out what’s going on.
You think we can do it?
I hope so.
The cab pulled onto the street near her father’s house where he’d left his car, but he asked the driver to stop halfway down the block.
The guy pulled to the curb, and they got out.
After paying the man, Craig motioned Stephanie into the shadows of an overhanging pepper tree. “Wait here.”
“Why?”
“They could have staked out my car.”
“If they know where it is.”
“We can’t assume we’re in the clear.”
She waited while he walked swiftly down the block, all his senses on alert, but nobody approached the vehicle. It could be that the men didn’t even know this was his rental. When he gestured for Stephanie to follow, she hurried down the block and climbed into the passenger seat.
He’d kept their physical contact to a minimum. But now they were off the street, and when she turned to him, he reached for her, feeling emotions flowing between them. Relief that theyhad made their escape, coupled with the sexual need surging between them. And under that, the uncertainty about their situation—on so many levels.
He lowered his mouth to hers for a kiss that left them both gasping. He knew they should drive away because the men who had captured them could come back. But he couldn’t turn her loose, not yet. Everything inside him had gone cold when he’d seen that gun pressed to her head. He’d been scared spitless—for her. And he’d realized in that moment that he couldn’t lose her.
He knew she took in his thoughts. Wrenching her mouth from his, she stared at him.
Yes,she whispered in his mind, telling him the same thing. She couldn’t lose him.
How could I have gotten engaged to John Reynard?
You didn’t know what he was.
It’s more than that. If I’d married him, I would have tried to make the best of it. But that was before I knew you.
He tightened his arms around her. A while ago, he had been unable to comprehend a relationship closer than the one he’d had with Sam. Now he was starting to understand the depths of what he had found with Stephanie. The link between them had gotten them out of that van—maybe saved their lives.
