Page 42 of Midnight Escape

Her recently oxygen-deprived body didn’t want to cooperate. She worked to get up from where she’d fallen to the ground, shifting on unsteady legs but only made it to her knees.

Laura’s arm went around her. “Come on, I’ll help you.”

Instead of getting a moment to prepare her, the arm Laura had placed around her to help disappeared, and disorientation wrapped itself around her. Moira fought that frustrating panic that lived in her life for the moment. Her immediate thought was she’d suffered something permanent from her attack. When warm arms wrapped one under her knees and the other behind her back, she relaxed into Luke’s big arms.

After the steps into their home, Luke settled her on the couch. Then he strode into the kitchen and returned with a cup of hot tea. Either noticing her hands still shook or just out of choice, he placed the cup and saucer on the end table beside her.

Laura sat in the armchair while Luke took an oak chair from the kitchen table and swung it around and sat backward. Both friends looked at her expectantly. Weakness and burning lungs still plagued her, but moment by moment, everything eased.

“Thank you. I felt like I was dying.” She scrunched her eyebrows into a V. “Did I wake you two?” It couldn’t be more than eleven, but she wasn’t sure.

“Noooo,” Laura dragged out the word. She looked at Luke and grinned. Luke, on the other hand, looked like he’d just eaten a lemon. “Loverboy over there had a blind date but said no after seeing him.”

“Well, you would’ve too. My men don’t need to be as large as I am, but I don’t like them looking like a waif.”

“Tell all,” Moira said.

After knowing them only a couple of months, she felt comfortable with them. “This guy’s name was Danny.”

Moira stiffened. “Uh—” She stopped because she wasn’t sure she wanted to know the truth.

Luke waved a hand as if to ward off a fly. “Not your Danny, although yours is one tantalizing package.” He winked and laughed. She couldn’t agree more.

“He is hot. Since you’re not dating him, would you mind if I do?” Laura’s question took Moira by surprise.

Jealously flashed through Moira at the thought of Laura with Danny. Maybe it was because they’d recently kissed. “First, he’s not my Danny. He’s my brother’s friend, who is helping me get set up in America. Second, date who you want. I’m not dating him.” If Laura and Danny hooked up, she’d move to Boston with her brother, whether he wanted her there or not.

She caught the glance her friends made at each other. They were up to something or just knew something she didn’t. Either way, she wasn’t sure she liked it.

“My story is not important,” Luke said. “He won’t be in my life, and if he applies for me as his personal trainer, I’ll work him so hard, he’ll leave with his tail between his legs.”

They all laughed. She could imagine what that would look like. It might be fun to watch, although she would feel bad for this other Danny.

“So, Sweetheart,” Luke said, “what had you so winded? How many blocks did you walk?”

Embarrassed, she held up four fingers. “But,” she tried to justify, “I was running, not walking.”

Their eyes widened, and Laura took over. “Why were you running? Was someone following you? Do we need to call the—”

Moira held up her hand. “Stop, Laura. It’s okay. No police, no emergency.”

“Then why?” Luke asked.

How much to tell them? They didn’t know why she was in America, so she couldn’t bring that into the conversation. “I had two men following me.”

“Oh, girl, you have to be careful,” Luke advised.

“How’d you give them the slip?” Laura eyed her over her mug.

She hadn’t thought this through. Maybe she could skirt around it. “I ran intoSláinte, right into Danny’s chest, and two of the men he worked with. They hid me.”

Luke’s brows furrowed. “How?”

Taking a long drink of tea and trying not to show how it burned her throat going down, she looked at them both to gauge how the next words would go over. “Well, he kissed me.”

Laughter exploded from both her friends. “I knew it,” Laura said with glee.

“I told you first,” Luke said, in an attempt to claim the glory.

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