Hell on Wheels (Black Knights Inc. #1)(56)
“Whoa! Hey, what’s wro—”
She gave Patti, who’d been coming down the hall with a set of fresh towels, a frantic not now wave and darted into the quiet solace of her bedroom. Slamming the door behind her, she slid down the metal surface and covered her face with shaking hands. Hard sobs wracked her.
“Goddamn him!” she yelled into the silence. The heavy brick walls absorbed the sound, denying her even that small bit of victory. “Goddamn him,” her voice broke as waves of defeat washed over her.
She wasn’t crying for him, she assured herself as she let the hot tears fall into her palms and drip down her wrists.
Hell no.
She was crying for the loss of her idealism…the loss of her dreams.
***
“We’re not going to visit your parents,” Nate said as he cut Phantom’s growling engine about a block from the Morgan household.
No use waking up the entire neighborhood.
“That’s fine.” Ali’s voice was strangely intimate through the Bluetooth receiver inside his helmet.
The last six hundred miles had been a test of endurance and willpower, because she’d finally allowed herself to totally relax against him, all soft female curves encased in warm leather along his back and outer thighs. He’d had to listen to her soft breathing in his ear the entire journey…and goddamn!
Bright, neon blue.
He was sure that’d be the color of his poor balls if he took the opportunity to give them a peek.
“They’re asleep by now anyway. Besides,” she sighed and it caused a delicious little chill to snake up his spine despite the warmth of the night, “I don’t want to explain to them what’s been going on. It’ll only cause them to worry.”
“Mmm,” he murmured, trying to beat down the boner that’d plagued him since…well, since forever, it seemed. Was it unhealthy to have an erection that lasted longer than four hours if it was caused by the nearness of a woman as opposed to tossing back a handful Viagra? Something to ask his doc next time he went in for his yearly physical.
“So,” he cleared his throat when it came out all strangled. Not enough blood reaching his vocal cords, no doubt. “Are ya gonna tell me where the drive is now that we’re here?”
“No,” she replied, not even trying to hide the smugness of her tone. The zip drive was hidden somewhere in her and Grigg’s childhood tree house, that much she’d deigned to reveal. The exact location she was keeping to herself. The confounded woman remained crazily convinced he’d dump her in a safe place quicker than she could say, “double-crossing bastard,” if she gave up that last little bit of info.
She was right, of course.
The little run-in with Mystery Man in Kentucky continued to bug the hell out of him, and despite Becky’s assurance, with the help of Eyes in the Sky, that Mr. Mystery had taken off down the road, he couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was eyeballing them. Right at that very moment.
Unsnapping his chinstrap and hooking his helmet on Phantom’s chrome handlebar, he scanned the area.
The neighborhood was filled with Cape Cod style bungalows. Their tiny front lawns all carefully tended, their hedgerows precisely trimmed. Flowers burst forth in colorful profusion from all available spaces, in window boxes, overflowing clay pots, and cheerfully lining flowerbeds.
In short, it was a picture-perfect postcard of the Great American Dream.
And here he was, armed with enough firepower to start a coup and a hard case of paranoia quickly growing to the relative size of Texas.
In his head, he started humming that old song from Sesame Street that said something about one of these things being not like the others.
Geez. Definitely too much time spent with Ozzie.
A wind chime caught the balmy evening air and tinkled its delight. The tart smell of freshly mowed grass perfumed the quiet night, mixing with the slightly more pungent aroma of newly laid mulch.
A dog barked somewhere down the block. A sound of inquiry. Nothing answered, and silence once more settled over the pristine little neighborhood.
Further inspection revealed no telltale security signs placed strategically in flowerbeds. No ADT or Brinks Security stickers graced the corners of front windows. Hell, he would bet his left nut—his very blue left nut—that most of these homes sported either unlocked windows or doors or both. The whole scene screamed safety and security. The kind of place parents still let their kids run around unsupervised.
So why the hell were the hairs on the back of his neck doing that annoying little tango?
“Hey,” Ali poked him to get his attention. “What are we waiting on?”
He shook his head by way of answer and reached around to snag his night scope from one of the heavy leather saddlebags. Holding it to his right eye, the world dissolved into a series of greens as he quartered the area, searching for movement, a darker shadow that just didn’t belong.
But…nothing. Not one blade of perfectly mowed grass out of place.
Christ, the place could’ve been the set for The Stepford Wives.
Well, wasn’t that a disconcerting thought?
He scanned the area one more time and was finally forced to shrug away his tension and release his pent-up breath.
Maybe having Ali along had pushed his usual tendency toward paranoia into the realm of straight-up lunacy. And that was never good, especially for an operator whose reflexes were honed to a razor-sharp edge.