I slid behind the wheel. “I’ll take the first stretch. You get some sleep.”
Louise climbed up into the passenger seat and started to get herself comfortable. Just before she settled down for the night, she leaned across and slipped her arms around my neck to kiss me. Immediately, the touch of her bare skin on mine made every little hair stand on end. Every muscle grew hard and tense, ready to grab her and pull her into my lap.
So I did. Just in case it was the last chance we had. I hauled her across the cab, making her yelp in surprise, until she was sitting on top of me, my cock instantly hard and straining at the feel of her.Then I kissed her hard, parting her lips with my tongue, closing my eyes, and drowning in her sweet, feminine softness. I imagined we were in some place with no more risks, no more danger, where no one could touch us ever again. And she responded, relaxing into me, leaning back on my arm so I could tilt her head back and kiss her even deeper. Her full breasts thrust out towards me and I ran a hand up under her top, gently squeezing one, feeling the warm skin and the hardening bud of her nipple stroke my palm.
She broke the kiss—just. Our lips stayed so close that each syllable stroked them together. “Did you really mean it?” she asked. “About going straight?”
I drew back just enough that I could look into her eyes. “I’ll find a church and become a bloody preacher, if you want me to.”
She pressed herself hard against me, then slid off my lap and onto her own seat. “Then let’s do this.”
I put the van into gear and we drove off into the night.
63
LOUISE
You may thinkyou know what tension feels like. You’re wrong.
Tensionis driving down a highway with half a million dollars worth of drugs in the back, waiting for a cop to pull you over.Tensionis driving knowing that one little mistake—a single dangerous overtake, drifting a mile over the speed limit—could result in the red and blue lights and then the death of someone you love.Tensionis doing all this in a truck with scratchy, lumpy seats, a gear shift that feels like stirring a lead rod in a barrel of broken parts and the steering from an ocean liner.
For six hours straight.
Sean had driven for the first six hours. He would have kept going for longer but, when he roused me at a gas station to see if I wanted to use the bathroom, I looked at his drooping eyelids and insisted I take a shift. As morning broke, the cops came out in force. They were looking for easy tickets to make their quotas, but the traffic was light, so pickings were thin. That made us a prime target.
I’d never realized how much I zoned out on a long drive until I couldn’t do it anymore. Even when I was just sitting in my lane, cruising along, I was constantly checking the mirrors for approaching cops, checking my speed, checking I wasn’t doing anything elsewrong. When a cop overtook us, I’d sit there bolt upright, arms so stiff on the wheel that my muscles screamed, eyes straight ahead. They’d get closer and closer and closer, right up alongside us...then they’d pass by and I’d breathe again. I was soaked with sweat by the end of the first hour.
Now it was nearly noon and I was a wreck. My hands throbbed from gripping the wheel so tightly; my thighs burned from the awkward pedal position, made for someone with longer legs than me; my arms, shoulders and back were on fire from the constant stress.
And it wasn’t just the drive itself. My mind kept going back to what we were attempting here. A deal with the cartel, people who made Malone, with all his heavies and his jazz club, look like a spoiled child. I’d seen the news stories. If they weren’t happy with the deal I offered them, they’d simply shoot us. And my plan pretty much guaranteed that theywouldn’tbe happy. And evenifwe could somehow cut a deal with them, we still had Malone to deal with. Wherever we ran, he’d hunt us down—
An ear-splittingwhoop!from behind me.Whoop! Wh-wh-wh-whoop!
I checked the rear view mirror and saw the cop car, six feet behind me, lights flashing. The officer behind the wheel jerked his thumb for me to pull over.
Fuck.
64
LOUISE
Sean came awake fast,but there was nothing we could do except glance helplessly at one another. I slowed and pulled over at the side of the highway. The cop car’s siren cut out and it was suddenly very quiet: just the soft roar of passing cars and the desert wind whipping across the hood.
Itstankof weed. The cop was going to smell it as soon as he got close.
“Open the windows,” Sean said quickly. “Open all the windows!”
I wound mine down—the truck was too old to have electric windows—and he did the same on his side. The wind blew through the car and lifted away some of the smell but, every time the wind died, it came back.
I heard a door slam. In my side mirror, I saw the cop climb out of his car and amble towards us. I looked across at Sean and he was grinding his teeth, hands twitching as if looking for something to hit, something to smash. But for once, violence wasn’t going to help us. Fighting the cops was out, as was running—we’d just wind up with every cop in the state on our tails.
All we could do was sit there and accept it. It was over.
The cop strolled up to my window.God, he’s going to get apromotion for this,I thought, imagining his face when he found the crop.Cop of the year, probably.
I tensed as the cop leaned against the door and took off his sunglasses. “You know why I pulled you over, ma’am?” His voice had a deep Texas twang, homely and warm. At any other time, it would have been comforting.
“No,” I said gingerly.
