“Then what provoked him?”
“I’d like to know that myself. I didn’t do anything. Didn’t even look him in the eye. He strutted up to me. Cool like. Arrogant. With attitude.”
“You would recognize those traits.”
He nodded. “Many a time, I’ve played that type.”
“You are that type.”
He cast her a sideways glance but didn’t argue with her, because she was right. “Anyway, next thing I know, he’s all over me. Kicking, punching, cursing, and calling me names. I believe he expected me as a down-and-outer to take the abuse. And I would have so as not to give myself away. But then he flipped that blade. I counterattacked. He didn’t expect that, and it startled him. That and the lady’s screaming. He was already on the run when he swiped me.”
“It was vicious enough to cut through all those layers of clothing.”
“Vicious and expert. If he hadn’t been in such a hurry to get away, I very well could have been gutted.”
Innate reflexes, plus military training, had prompted him to defend himself without pausing to consider the risk. But in retrospect, it sobered him to think that he’d been in mortal danger. The little thug could have fatally stabbed him, even accidentally. Andrew would have been left without either parent. The thought made him slightly nauseated.
During his contemplation, Dylan had sat silently by, nervously twisting the button on the cuff of her blouse, which was the color and texture of heavy cream. He’d have to be a blindeunuch not to have noticed that it delineated her breasts as though it had been poured over them.
Sounding hesitant, she quietly asked, “Why were you so frantic to get away from the scene?”
“I told you. If I’d hung around, been questioned by first responders, my cover would have been blown.” He waited, then added with what nonchalance he could muster, “Plus, just about the time I was attacked, I spotted you coming out of the restaurant.”
Ever since he’d taken her elbow and hustled her away, they’d been waltzing around that elephant. He felt it was time to address it, and he didn’t want to do it while driving.
By now, the city was miles behind them. To avoid being ensnared in a major freeway interchange, he whipped into the right lane, took the next exit ramp, and drove half a mile before finding a road with little commerce and negligible traffic. He pulled onto the shoulder of it, turned off the headlights, and cut the engine.
He turned in his seat to face her. She hadn’t asked about the sudden rerouting maneuver, but she was regarding him warily. She’d pressed herself against the passenger door as though trying to force it open.
She said, “Did you follow me there tonight, Mitch?”
“No. But I came back for you. I could have made a clean getaway and you never would have known I’d been one of the men fighting in that median. Instead, I circled back around.”
“For me.”
“That’s right.”
She assimilated that, then asked, “If you didn’t follow me, how did you know I would be there?”
“I didn’t. Shocked the hell out of me to see you there. I’dbeen in the median for a little over an hour when you came out. I hadn’t seen you arrive.” Watching closely for her reaction, he asked, “Did you enter through a private door?”
“Private door?” If her mystified look was faked, she faked it well. “I went in the same way I came out.”
“What time did you get there?”
She frowned. “A better question would be why that’s any of your business.”
“Because it is, Dylan. Literally speaking, itismy business.” Across the short distance separating them, he could feel her apprehension growing.
She said, “If you weren’t spying on me, it’s awfully coincidental that your ‘undercover work’ was in a large city where neither of us live, and that you were in direct line of sight of the restaurant where I was having dinner.”
“Do you go there often?” He asked that in a quasi-friendly way, as though they were at a cocktail party getting acquainted.
Under that creamy, dreamy blouse, her breasts were rising and falling with agitation. And agitated was exactly what he wanted her to be. He didn’t want her calm, cool, professional, detached, and discreet. So he pressed by asking the same question but phrased it differently. “Are you a regular there?”
“Tonight was my first time.”
“Huh.”
