Page 31 of His Virgin Vessel

Chapter Twelve

Asa

"What in the hell did you do that for?!" I was furious. Corinne had let her father see her. More than that, she had made damn sure that he would see her. Was she trying to get me into still deeper shit than I was already in? Or, did she just hate her father so much that she was determined to give him a coronary? I didn't know, but I was not going to let her get away with it.

Then I looked in the rearview mirror. "He's not following us."

"Of course he's not." Corinne sounded strangely numb, certainly not happy. "He'd happily engage you in a high-speed pursuit, and, if you accidentally killed yourself, so much the better. But there's no way he's going to risk me getting hurt."

"How does he know I won't hurt you?" I asked, still annoyed, but somewhat mollified.

"He may not like us being together, but he knows I can take care of myself. Besides, I think he knows that you're not out to hurt me."

That was probably true. All of it. She had saved my neck by forcing herself into the car and then letting her dad know that she was there. Still, I sat there quietly fuming. I was partly angry because she was right, and there are few things more annoying to a man used to being in charge than having some girl prove him wrong. We know it's petty, and we're not proud of it, but there it is. The other reason I was still angry was that this was not what I had wanted. I would rather have been caught and taken the full force of whatever Brian Dugas had to offer, than be in this situation. The one thing that I had set out to avoid had happened: Corinne was now part of my world, a fugitive on the run from the law. How the hell had I let this happen? Why the hell had she insisted that this happen?

"Are you angry with me?" Corinne asked.

"Of course I am!"

"I saved your life!"

"I'd have been fine," I scoffed, with more confidence than I deserved. "I've been in more police chases than I can remember, and I'm still walking. I could have lost him without you sticking your nose in."

"I don't care how many chases you've been in. None of them were with my dad."

Considering how much she had apparently despised her dad and her upbringing, Corinne was amazingly protective of her old man. She was a complex little package where family was concerned. There was a lot going on beneath the surface. She hadn't wanted to hurt him, but had felt torn and had sided with me, leaving her no choice but to hurt him. Maybe she was regretting that now, or, at the very least, feeling guilty about it.

I should have been sensitive to that, but I was too angry right now. "You should have gone home when you had the chance. You've ruined your life and upset your dad, so now he's more pissed at me than ever."

"I just thought ..."

"That's the one thing you didn't do. How many times do I have to tell you that we can’t work? There's no future. There's nothing. And you still do something stupid like this."

Corinne made no reply.

I was too angry to think about what I was saying and so, finally, had the good sense to shut up. I needed to get off the road. I needed to stop running for long enough to be able to think clearly. If nothing else, Corinne's actions had made that a viable possibility. For the moment, at least, there were no police on my trail, and I had the option of finding an out-of-the-way motel and getting my plans straight.

"I know a place where we can spend the night," I said, trying to be a little conciliatory after shouting at her and blaming her.

"Okay." I wasn't sure if she was mad at me, or upset, or if it had just been a long night.

It had been a good night, too, at the start. There was no getting around that. If only I had taken her straight home. If only ...

I cut off the train of thought before it could go any further. A man can waste his life leafing through a list of regrets.

We reached an out-of-the-way motel as the sun was beginning to rise, and I booked us into a room. The place was in the middle of nowhere and on a direct route between nowhere and nowhere else. I often thought it was only used by criminals on the run, looking for a place to hide, and the only reason the police didn't raid it on a weekly basis was because they never knew who or what they might find when they got there. Contrary to what some might say, there is loyalty amongst thieves where cops are concerned.

As soon as we were in our room, and I had closed the door, I spoke.

"You have to go home."

Corinne rounded on me. "What? Are you crazy? I mean, it was a dumb idea back in town. Now it's practically suicide."

"Your father won't hurt you."

"Not for me, you idiot, for you! I'm the only thing keeping you safe. As long as I'm with you, you're not going to die mysteriously during a police shoot-out."

"That doesn't matter." I wasn't going to tell her she was wrong, because she was smarter than that. We both knew she was right, but as far as I was concerned, the time had passed for taking such things into account. It was nice that she wanted to save me. It meant a lot to me that I mattered to her (not that I would tell her that). But matters had gone in a bad direction fast. The only thing that mattered to me now was getting Corinne back to the safety of her family and trying to undo as much as possible of the bad I had done. It wouldn't be easy, but I was determined to try, and I wasn't going to let her whining stop me. I tried to master my temper. Truthfully I didn't have a lot of reason to be angry at her and, besides, shouting didn't seem to have much effect.

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