Edge of Midnight (McClouds & Friends #4)(75)

He pictured it. Cooking with her, rattling around together in their homey, cluttered kitchen. Cuddling next to her underneath one of those quilts. Munching homemade bread and jam with her on her couch.

Gardening? Hmm. Maybe he could sprawl in a lawn chair and nurse a cold beer while he watched Liv garden. Bent sexily over her tomatoes at a ninety degree angle, in snug blue jeans. Yeah. Mmm.

“Sounds real nice,” he said wistfully. “Can I come?”

She made a sound, like she was blowing air out of her lungs. “Stop it, Sean. I don’t know what to think when you say stuff like that.”

“I’m a simple creature,” he said. “Take me at my word.”

“Simple?” Her voice began to shake. “Oh, yeah, Sean. Sure. Look what your simplicity has done to my life. I was in therapy for years.”

That perplexed him. She seemed so well-adjusted. “You? Why?”

“I wanted to stop thinking about you,” she said, forcefully.

They both stared out straight ahead, watching the yellow line that divided the small highway curving to the right, the left, the right again.

“Did it ever work?” he asked quietly.

She shook her head. “No,” she whispered.

“Not for me, either,” he admitted.

“I don’t want to think about it.” Her voice sounded bleak. “Let’s figure out what’s going on here and now. You’re not kidnapping me, last time I checked, so what’s our status? Am I running away with you?”

He felt suddenly more cheerful. “I like the sound of that.”

“And what do you plan to do with me?” she demanded.

“I can think of some real fun things right off the top of my head.”

“Oh, stop it,” she snapped. “Be serious, for once.”

“I’ll keep you safe.” The words came out clear and decisive.

“Well, that’s nice, Sean, but in exchange for what? A professional bodyguard comes at about two hundred bucks an hour. I have exactly nothing. And I do mean zip. Just a burned-up bookstore and a gargantuan mortgage. I’ll get some insurance money eventually, but until then—”

“I don’t care,” he said.

“And don’t think my parents being filthy rich will help.” Her voice quivered. “They’ve cut me off. I’m out of the will.”

“Good,” he said, with quiet vehemence. “That’s great news, babe.”

“Is it? Really? So how am I supposed to recompense you?”

“Sexual favors,” he said promptly. “Let’s see, two hundred bucks an hour for twenty-four hours, that’s forty-eight hundred bucks a day, princess. That’s a lot of favors.”

She snickered into her hands. “Oh, would you shut up.”

“I’d be at you all the time,” he said. “When I’m not defending you with life and limb, we’ll be writhing around in bed. It’ll be strenuous.”

“It already is,” she snapped. “I can barely walk.”

“Sorry,” he said meekly. “Bullshit aside, though. I don’t need two hundred bucks an hour. I’ll just do it because you’re the princess. You deserve to be protected. You don’t have to put out. And you don’t have to pay me. All you have to do is exist. That’s more than enough for me.”

Her eyes gleamed at him, luminous with tears. She wiped her eyes, looked away. The silence got very thick for a moment.

“That’s a very sweet thing to say,” she said demurely. “But it’s not very economically practical. We need a nuts and bolts plan.”

“I’m working on it, babe. Now if you’ll excuse me, this is where I have to start concentrating if I’m going to find Tam’s place.”

He had memorized the exact point on the fourth curve after the old stonework bridge where he had to stop, and slew to the left, bumping down into a narrow ditch and up again, straight into what seemed like a blank thicket of scrubby bushes. They scraped and brushed against the body of the car. He pushed on through the wall.

Once through it, they found themselves in a blind clearing blocked by the wall of a barn. The tumbledown roof was green with moss and full of gaping holes. The fogeymobile bumped over something metallic. Sean saw a flash of movement ahead and jerked to a halt right before the low, jagged metal spikes rising up at an angle out of the ground could puncture the front tires.

“Oh, God,” Liv squeaked.

“Damn you, Tam,” he snapped. “Snotty bitch. She did that to rattle me. I don’t want to have to replace the tires on this heap of junk.”

The row of spikes slowly, majestically retracted back into the ground. Sean grunted. “Gee, thanks. So generous of you.”

A narrow beam of red light flipped on, swiveling until it focused first on him, then on Liv’s face. It flicked back to him, lingered. Sean thumbed his nose, waggled his fingers, stuck out his tongue. “Yes, it’s me, Tam,” he said. “What do you want, a f*cking DNA sample?”

There was a muted hum, and the wall of the barn divided into four parts and retracted, showing a road that led into the forest beyond.

“Good heavens,” Liv said. “I’ve never seen anything like this.”

Sean grunted. “Yeah, it’s like Disneyland. But she’s got money to burn.” He acccelerated through the barn. The road wove through the thick woods, climbing and switching back, until it topped a crest.