Page 46 of Dirty Gambit

“Keep going until you see the first bend in the road.”

Jaxon scanned the dry desert patched with tufts of shrubbery and the receding outline of a hill in the distance for signs of something, anything, and finding it lacking. He wanted to guess they were near the Rockies, but none of the peaks were high enough to be called mountains. It made him think, yet again, that they were headed towards Quebec. But why were they going straight? Shouldn’t they be turning around? The directions she’d given him was leading them the way she wanted to go.

“How do I know this isn’t an ambush?” he asked out loud.

Lena shot him a dry glower. “An ambush with whom?”

“How would I know? Maybe that guy who helped hold my parents hostage.”

She never batted an eye at his implication, not even so much as a flicker. She returned his stare unwavering and fierce.

“What guy?” she asked. “There was no one there but me. You must have been imagining things.”

Jaxon snorted a laugh. “You think anyone is going to believe you worked alone to subdue three, grown people?”

One shoulder lifted in a careful jerk hindered by the cuffs. “I subdued you, didn’t I?”

Memories of her hot, greedy mouth robbing him of all rational thought, except getting her out of her clothes and into his bed flooded his mind, reminding him just how talented she was at subduing a person.

“Okay, well, no one is going to believe you seduced my mom the same way.”

“Maybe I did,” she challenged.

Jaxon gagged at that image. “I get you don’t want to snitch on your friend, but do you really want to take this fall alone?”

“There was no friend,” she replied with a warning not to push the matter.

He lifted one hand, partially in surrender, partially to keep her from arguing. “Fine. It was you. You were alone.”

Satisfied, she turned back to her window.

Jaxon slanted his companion a sidelong glance, surveying her slumped frame with a mixture of annoyance, confusion, and admiration. There were so many different parts of her that he couldn’t tell which one was really her. The seductress who lured him into his father’s office? The heartless villain who put a gun to his mother’s head? The loyal soldier who refused to betray a friend? The gentle soul who cuddled and loved Jessie? Or the murderer who may have killed three cops? Which face was he supposed to believe? Which one was the real Lena? He knew there were sides of her he had yet to visit, parts of her that she kept closely guarded, but he knew he’d come close a few times.

He’d witnessed her passion, her loyalty, and dedication. He knew she loved deeply, but trusted little. She had a sense of humor and was smarter than most of the people running his grandfather’s company. She was beautiful. More than any other woman he’d ever met, and she had a light in her that fascinated him. It pulled him to her, made him want to be enveloped in it and warmed by it.

“Stop staring at me,” she mumbled, never taking her attention off the prairies. “You’re going to miss your turn.”

He almost told her he hadn’t been, but she had him. The only thing he could do was fix his full attention on the solitary sign telling him to turn east. The thing that bothered him most about the whole situation was probably the fact that they hadn’t passed a single other car, not even a house or another sign. And what exactly was in the east anyway? How did he know she wasn’t leading him to some skinner’s convention where they’d skin him alive and use his bones to make wind chimes? Or worse.

Jaxon passed the turn off without even slowing down.

“What are you doing?” Lena cried, twisting around the best she could with her hands at her back to glower at him.

“I don’t trust you,” he stated simply.

“What do you think I was going to do?”

“Well, nothing now, clearly.”

She sputtered several unfinished sentences before settling on, “You’re an idiot! Do you have any idea how far the next stop is?”

Refusing to regret his decision, Jaxon shrugged. “I can’t say I do, but if the tank is really as full as you claim, we should make it, right? Or we’ll just take our chances with the other cannibals.”

She blinked several times. “The other … what?”

“Do you honestly think I’m going to just follow your twisted little plan to wherever you were taking us, making your job easier? The first chance I get, I’m taking my sister home. Then I’m going to deal with you.”

“Deal with me?” she snarled something between a laugh and a growl. “Like how? Make me swim with the fishes? Chop me up and feed me to the pigs?”

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