maybe she was just wasting both their time, keeping the argument going because she liked the look of him. Who said she couldn’t start her bus, head down the road a ways, wait for them to leave, then turn around and come right back to find some other nearby place to camp for the night? According to the bleary-eyed girl she’d talked to at the strip club down in Wesley, Perry had only worked at the club for a couple of days before heading up into these mountains to stay with her so-called boyfriend. There was obviously a hell of a lot more to the story, but considering this was her only lead, Chelsea had to go with it.
She’d tried asking some locals in Wesley for assistance, thinking they could point her in the right direction, but none had been able to help. They knew of some private settlements in the mountains, but couldn’t tell her where they were…or anything about the people who lived there. The whole situation was eerily unsettling, but she couldn’t turn back now. She had to keep searching every small town she stumbled across up here until she found Perry, whether these guys liked it or not.
But that didn’t mean she couldn’t start with another part of the mountain and work her way back here—hopefully avoiding the gorgeous jackass watching her with those unusual eyes.
“Fine,” she said, blowing out a rough breath of air. “Have it your way.”
Surprise lifted his dark brows. “You’ll leave?”
She allowed her own mouth to curl in a cocky smirk. “Yeah, I’ll leave. But not before telling you how ridiculous you look with that red lipstick smeared all over the corner of your mouth. I hope she was a brunette. A blonde could never have pulled off that color.”
He quickly lifted his hand, wiped at his mouth, then glared at the red smear on his fingertips. “Son of a bitch,” he growled, scrubbing harder at his face. “Hendricks should have told me.”
“It’s all gone now,” she murmured, taking pity on him. “You’re clear.”
He grunted something foul under his breath, then stepped closer and placed one hand over the window ledge, curving his long fingers over the door frame, as if he could keep her in place with that simple touch. “Where will you go?”
“That’s none of your business,” she said quietly, staring at those dark fingers, imagining them on her body…against her skin. Shaking herself, she set the gun on the passenger’s seat, then turned the key in the ignition…but nothing happened. Just a sad, pathetic wail of sound from the engine, followed by a rapid clicking noise. Gritting her teeth, she turned the key again…and again, but with the same results.
Shit.
Without looking at him, Chelsea lowered her head to the steering wheel and prayed for patience. Nothing, not a single goddamn thing, had gone her way from the moment she’d started this miserable search. Why? She was trying so hard to do what was right, damn it—trying to help her sister…to get her out of what could potentially be a dangerous situation, especially after the girl at the club had said that Perry wasn’t looking too good. So why this? Why was karma, fate or whatever the hell it was that controlled her destiny giving her a kick in the ass with every step she took?
It wasn’t like her to be whiney, but she’d lost her sense of optimism so long ago, Chelsea no longer even knew what it felt like. Now all she had was this grinding, sickening feeling in her gut, and a bad case of nerves. Not to mention the sudden addition of ill-founded lust for the gorgeous jerk trying to get rid of her.
Talk about crappy timing.
Forcing herself to lift her head, she gave the dark-haired stranger a closed, expressionless look. “I don’t suppose you could give me a jump start?”
He shook his head, looking as frustrated as she felt. “The problem isn’t your battery.”
“How do you know?”
“Because that clicking sound means it’s your starter.”
“Shit,” she said for the second time, only this time out loud.
He muttered something rough under his breath again, then jerked his chin toward his truck. “Come on. I’ll give you a ride down to Wesley.”
She wanted to say, “Are you crazy? What kind of idiot do you think I am, getting into a car with some guy I don’t even know?”
But the words stuck in her throat. Her options were more than a little limited here. The idea of staying in the woods had been scary enough when the opportunity for retreat had been available, but to be stuck out here in a broken-down car didn’t strike her as smart, even though she had a gun. Then again, neither did driving off with Mr. Tall, Dark and Deadly Gorgeous. But if he was going to hurt her, he could have already done it. Right? The other two men, who were still waiting over by his truck, clearly submitted to his authority, as if he were some kind of superior they deferred to. She had the feeling that if he’d attacked, they’d have done nothing to stop him.
Which meant…what? Was she actually trying to talk herself into taking him up on his offer? She didn’t have enough money for a motel room, but she’d figure something out. She always did, one way or another.
As if sensing her disquieting inner conflict, he wiped the scowl off his face and let go of her door, that warm, male scent pulsing off him the most interesting thing she’d ever smelled. “It’s okay,” he said in a low voice. “I won’t hurt you. Just a ride into town, to a motel, and then I’ll have your bus delivered to you in the morning.”
“How can I get it fixed if I leave it here?” Not that she had the money to get it fixed, but he didn’t need to know that. “Can’t we just tow it behind us?”
“I’m going to call some mechanics I know and have them work on it here,” he explained as if it was the simplest thing in the world to do. “They’ll have it in running order by morning.”
Wrapping her arms around her middle, she asked, “Why would you do that?”
“Consider it a fair exchange for the fact that I’m kicking you out of here,” he offered with a strained smile. He clearly wasn’t any happier about the situation than she was, and yet, he seemed determined to help her.
She didn’t agree or disagree. She simply said, “It isn’t smart.”
A deep, almost silent rumble of laughter vibrated in his chest, and he arched one of those damn black brows again. “Neither was camping out in your car in the woods all alone.”
“But at least I had a good reason for that.”
He could have argued that she had a good reason for taking him up on his offer, as well. But he didn’t. He just stared at her, the silver metallic of his eyes mesmerizing, like the liquid swirl of mercury in a vial—making her feel as if he could see right past her sarcastic bravado, down to the real woman huddling inside her skin. The one who was scared and tired and pushed to the edge of her limits. His cool air of command made Chelsea want to slap him, just as badly as she wanted to press her lips against that hard, utterly masculine mouth and find out if he tasted even half as good as he looked and smelled.
Pulling her lower lip through her teeth, she finally said, “If I accept, it doesn’t mean that I owe you anything.”
Instead of agreeing, he simply gave her a charmingly crooked grin that made her body react with ridiculous ease. “My
