The Dangerous Thief (Stolen Hearts #3)(6)

Willa shut the fridge and continued on her little tour. There was only one other direction to go from here and it was a closed door on the far end of the kitchen. Except this wasn’t a door to a bedroom or anything. At least she hoped not, because there was a high tech-looking electronic keypad next to the knob. What would be behind there that was so important to him? She figured that being all the way in the middle of nowhere was protection enough....

She walked up to the door and stared at it for a moment, considering what Weston would want to keep under lock and electronic key. Money? Drugs? Sex dungeon?

Maybe she’d read Fifty Shades of Grey a few too many times....

She figured she’d try her luck. She reached out to the knob and gave it a little turn to see whether anything would happen.

“What are you doing?”

She jumped back a good foot from the door as she turned around, trying to keep the guilty expression off her face. “Just exploring.”

Weston wore the same jeans and T-shirt he’d worn their entire trip, but now he had taken his shoes off. It was always strange to see someone barefoot for the first time. Such a small thing could change someone’s entire appearance. Except Weston. She didn’t think she knew anyone else who could look so intimidating in bare feet. “You can’t explore there.”

“I didn’t mean to snoop. I just....”

“If you didn’t mean to, why did you snoop? Not something that happens accidentally.”

“Wow. The most words you’ve said to me at once and it’s to scold me. I’m guessing you don’t get a lot of houseguests here, do you?”

He tilted his head. She had seen that look before. It was the look someone got the second they realized she wasn’t going to be railroaded. Every time she walked into a room, people assumed that because of her reputation for partying and not working—a well-earned reputation, to be fair—that she was an airhead who could be pushed around.

Even though she’d never met a man like James Weston before, she was sure she was strong-willed enough to take on even the toughest desert hermit.

“I’m not here to show you around and paint your nails. I’m here because you said you could help us take down Jadon Belli,” he said between clenched teeth.

“Great. Let’s talk about that then. Tell me what I need to do.”

“Give me the financial records to get your father to give me whatever I want.”

She pursed her lips. He knew she didn’t have those. She wouldn’t even know where to start. “Be reasonable.”

“I am being reasonable. I’m working on finding a way for you to help. Until then, you have to lay low and stay out of locked rooms.”

“If I’m going to stay here, I’m going to need some supplies then.”

“I have everything you need.”

“Really? You have some fresh underwear for me? An extra change of clothes? Because I am running out of things that don’t smell.” She’d run out of her apartment in such a rush that her haphazard packing job had been almost pointless.

“All right.”

She blinked at his quick agreement. “So we can go shopping?”

“Sure. We’ll need supplies eventually anyway.”

She thought back to how full the refrigerator had seemed. “And when will that be?”

He shrugged. “When we need to go into town.”

“Well, aren’t you a fount of information,” she muttered. “What am I supposed to do until then?”

“There’s a washing machine. We even have one of those high-tech dryer things out here. It’s amazing how much use you can get out of clothes when you wash them.”

She tilted her head and glared at him. “I liked you better when you were refusing to speak to me.”

“Hey, I’m here to keep you alive, not to be your personal servant. So you will make do with what we have.”

Her mouth fell open but nothing came out. It wasn’t as though she never dealt with rudeness. She’d pissed off her fair share of people in her time, but there was absolutely nothing she could think of that she’d done to get on his bad side. If anything, she’d been on her best behavior, which was strange for her.

She was about to defend herself before she thought better of it. If he wanted to hate her, fine. She didn’t need some desert redneck’s approval, and she’d be damned if she was going to bend over backward to make him happy.

Willa squared her shoulders and walked away from the mysterious locked door. Her shoulder bumped his arm as she walked by because he refused to fully move out of the way. Screw this. She didn’t have to put up with his attitude. She was going to do the same thing she did every time someone tried to remind her exactly how little she mattered.

She was going to run.





James should’ve known. She hadn’t seemed like the type to sit back and just wait for things to happen, but somehow he thought she would at least sleep before she tried to escape.

He was in his computer room, reading over the brief update about the Melody Murray and Adam Smith situation, when the perimeter motion sensor went off.

Thanks to the various wildlife that would visit from time to time, the motion sensors going off wasn’t all that rare. But he wasn’t the type to take chances. Every time the sensors went off, he would check the picture that would be automatically sent to his email and phone. And this time, the blurry shape on his computer screen wasn’t a coyote. It was unmistakably human. An unmistakably tiny human who had no business running into the desert in the middle of the night.