She shrugged, a distant look in her eyes.
Peter released a long, silent sigh and approached the open driver’s side door, studying the confined area within.Blood splattered the cracked side window, dry and dark.Whoever’s head had smacked into the window would have a bloody big headache right about now.A grim smile stretched his lips, cold and mirthless.Good.
He studied the thick patterns of red on the broken glass.By his estimate, at least eighty-odd minutes had passed since the Jag left the freeway and hit the tree, maybe more.Long enough for whoever had been driving to now be nowhere about.Squinting into the blazing sun sitting low in the western sky, he scanned the area around the crash site, taking in the rolling hills, stretching fences, un-fleeced sheep and the occasional barn dotting the shadow-covered landscape.Hobby farming territory.The perfect place to lay low while recovering from a car accident.If Reggie’s abductor hadn’t decided to highjack another car, that was.
If he was still alive.
If he wasn’t, wouldn’t Reggie still be here?Or maybe trying to hitch back to Sydney?
Not if more than one person was involved in her disappearance.
Peter scowled at the dark thought and two names floated into his mind: O’Connell.McCoy.Two men.Who had her now?
“There is nothing here.”Yolanda spoke at his elbow, agitation making her normal husky voice somehow sharp.“We are wasting time.”
Irritation shot through him like a hot charge.“You told me on what piece of furniture the bastard possibly raped my sister but you can’t tell me what direction they headed from here?Who’s wasting whose time, Vischka?”
She shrugged again, blue gaze skimming over the horizon.
Peter scowled.“Remember that trust thing we’ve had so many conversations about?”He waved his hand at the driver’s seat.“This is a perfect opportunity to improve on the situation.”
“What do you want me to do?Sniff them out?”She curled her lip, chin tilted forward.“I am not a dog.”
Anger rolled through Peter and he clenched his fist.The closer they’d drawn to the Jag’s location, the lower in the sky the sun fell, the snippier Yolanda became.She’d even stopped those teasing little flutters of her fingers on his thighs that sent his pulse racing and his cock twitching.He’d told himself repeatedly over the forty-five minutes it’d taken to get here the lack of unprofessional, distracting—no, disturbing—contact made him happy, but deep in a dark, tainted place in his soul, he knew he was lying.He wasn’t happy about it at all.
Jesus, you’re pathetic.
He stared into the empty driver’s seat, looking for anything in the shadows that might tell him something about Reggie’s abductor, trying like hell to shut the traitorous realization hewantedYolanda to seduce him—wantedher, period—from his mind.
“Where are you, Reggie?”he murmured, crouching down and studying the seat and steering wheel.The memory of her destroyed sofa and the tuft of grey animal fur he’d found on it crossed his mind and he frowned.Rising to his feet, he leaned into the wreck, peering at the gloomy area behind the front seats.Looking for…what?More animal fur?Signs an animal had been in the car?A leash?
His gut sank.Shit.“Nothing.”
“Did you expect to find her there?”Yolanda asked, sarcasm rolling through her accent.“Maybe trussed up, waiting for you to save her, yes?”
He snapped upright, letting her see the cold contempt on his face.“Go.”
She recoiled at the blunt force of the word.“Go where?”
“Away.From me.”
Glossed lips pursed and she shifted her weight, jutting her hip forward—a spark of her old femme flaring like blue fire in her eyes.“Make me.”
Anger exploded in Peter again.“Don’t you get it, Yolanda?”He ground out.“This is mysisterI’m trying to find.Trying to save.”He shook his head, letting her see his rage and frustration and, yes, even his fear.“For fuck sake, I don’t know who has her or what he’s doing to her!All I’ve got to go on is an ambiguous scrawl on a mirror which may or may not be a lie and two names so common I’d be questioning half of the state!”He dragged his fingers through his hair, wanting to drive his fist through something—anything—in an attempt to destroy the complete and utter sense of helplessness eating at him.
Yolanda gazed back at him, motionless.
“You want me to trust you?”he spat out, knowing breaking point was close but incapable of caring.“You want a relationship with me?Then stop making smart-ass comments andhelp me find her.”
She stared at him.Staredintohim.“You love her, don’t you,” she finally said, her voice free of artifice for the first time since they’d met.
“Of course, I love her,” he snapped.“She’s my sister.”
She tilted her head to the side, unreadable eyes hidden in shadows.“Blood?Is that the only reason?A sense of obligation because she is your kin?”
Peter clenched his jaw, throat tight, gut tighter.The late afternoon sun bore down on him, sucking the sweat from his body before it could bead on his skin.Yet he still felt cold.Cold, helpless and angry.“No,” he said, holding Yolanda’s stare.“I love her because she’s got a heart the size of an elephant, a sense of humor sharper than a knife and a sense of loyalty that would make a Labrador envious.I love her because she’d give her life to defend those incapable of defending themselves and would do so willingly.I love her because she never thinks of herself first and has a stronger moral center than every High Court judge, social worker and religious leader I know.”He paused, dropping his stare from Yolanda’s eyes to the mangled Jag once more, picturing Reggie there in the passenger’s seat, terrified, hurtling toward possible death along a road miles from her home.“And if—no,when, I find the bastard responsible for this, I will make him wishI’dnever been born.”He turned back to Yolanda, jaw clenched.“Because trust me when I say, partner, you don’t mess with someone I love and expect to walk away from it.”
Yolanda looked at him, silent, still, her eyes enigmatic pools of shimmering blue.A sad expression flickered over her features and she let out a soft breath.“I wish I’d met you about three hundred years ago,” she said, the words a barely audible whisper.
