“You’re not from around here, are you?”
I let out a self-deprecating laugh. “What gave me away?”
“The clothes. Jewellery. A woman like you should be careful around here; some scumbag might try to rob you,” he warns, eyeballing my outfit.
We stop just short of the ATM, and I turn, just enough to make him put his back to the van. “I don’t think I have to worry about anyone taking advantage of me.”
“Yeah? Are you a blackbelt or something?” He chuckles.
“Not at all,” I grin, the doors of the van open behind him. “I have an insanely protective fiancé, though.” My smile isthe last thing he sees before Aiden grabs him from behind and pulls him into the vehicle, slamming the doors shut. “He really hates it when my attention is diverted from him.”
A car skids up beside me, and the door pops open. The driver offers me a boyish smirk. His blonde hair and large brown eyes give him a charming, innocent look. “Katie?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m Jay. In you get,” he winks at me, patting the passenger seat beside him. I barely get the seatbelt on when he hauls arse out of there, leaving a trail of dust behind us.
I spend a few moments thinking about how I know his name. Finally, it hits me: “Craig’s Jay?”
“Yeah, that’s me,” he replies with a wolfish grin. I remember Craig mentioning Jay as his best friend, the one who always had a wild side.
I also recall Aiden telling me that, although Jay is sound, his wife despises my man. “I take it your wife doesn’t know you’re helping us?”
He chuckles lowly. “What she doesn’t know won’t hurt her, or me.” He makes a series of turns, eventually pulling onto the motorway. “We need to get you out of those clothes.”
“Brave man.” I give Jay the side eye; he merely smirks at me before turning his attention back to the road.
“As much as I can admit that you are easy on the eyes there, bug-a-boo,” he teases, changing lanes to overtake an articulate truck. “I quite like having my neck intact. I’ll pull over further down and give you privacy to ditch the heels.”
“Shouldn’t we ditch the car too?” I ask, raising an eyebrow.
Jay chuckles, glancing at me briefly before focusing back on the road. “Don’t worry, we’ll take care of that too.”
It’s about another fifteen minutes before he finally pullsoff the motorway and onto a dirt road surrounded by sheep and rolling hills. It’s bumpy as hell, I’m nearly sure I’ve given him a sunroof by the time he slows us to a stop.
Jay jumps from the car, walking away to give me some space to change out of this ridiculously extravagant outfit and into joggers and hoodie, which I find on the back seat.
Two cars roll to a stop behind us; Raven steps out of one, and Aiden steps out of the other.
Sliding into my runners, I hop out of the car and make my way over to them. Shoving the body padding and wig into Aiden’s arms, I growl, “That Barbie look is not for me.”
“Good.” The corners of his lips pull into a smirk as he tosses the items into the back of the car. “I prefer you like this.”
Jay makes a point of giving me the once over. Everything I’m wearing, my shoes being the exception, is Aiden’s. “All you’re short of doing is cocking your leg and marking your territory.”
Aiden glares at him, but I can see the amusement in his eyes. His gaze flits to Raven; a slight tilt of the head is all the soldier needs to understand the unspoken message.
“C’mon, bug,” Aiden’s large, calloused hand reaches out to me, pulling me closer to him. “Let’s get going before we attract any unwanted attention.” He opens the car door for me, and just before I slide inside, I catch Jay wiping away any prints while Raven grabs a petrol can from the trunk of his car.
My seat belt clicks into place at the same time Aiden starts the engine, the scent of petrol lingering in the air. “Will they be ok?” I look in the rear view window at Jay and Raven as we drive away from the scene.
Aiden’s lax grip on the steering wheel and confident smirkare all the assurance I need that they can handle themselves. “Not their first rodeo,” he chuckles, glancing at me with a twinkle in his eye. “Hungry?”
“Famished.”
“We’ll grab some food on the way,” he shifts gears smoothly, guiding us onto the motorway, heading back to Dublin. “By the way,” he reaches into his pocket, pulling out my engagement ring and holding it out to me, “I think this belongs to you.”
Sliding it back onto my finger, I watch the mini rainbows forming around the car as the sunlight catches the ring. “So,” I begin, a smile playing on my lips, “you didn’t like the plastic look then?”
