was partially concealed on the side of the road, he eased off the accelerator. It wouldn’t do for him to get caught by the Texas Highway Patrol. Too many questions would have to be answered and too many outside sources would learn of his whereabouts. He had to lie low. At least until he knew for sure whether those bullets had been for him or someone else on the Maitland grounds.
“I’m neither.”
His brief answer infuriated her. She was a woman of words and she wanted to hear several from him. Mainly who he was and what he was doing carrying a gun.
“Are you…some sort of security officer?”
He didn’t look at her. He didn’t want anything on his face to give her any more suspicions than she already had. “What gave you that idea?”
She made an impatient noise somewhere between a snort and a groan. “It’s no secret the Maitlands have been having problems. I wouldn’t put it past them to have undercover security guards posted around the clinic.”
“To keep nosy reporters out of their hair?”
She took a deep breath then let it out slowly. “Reporters are the least of the Maitlands’ problems. But somehow I figure you already know that.”
He’d not known anything about the Maitlands until he’d hit town a little more than two weeks ago. What he’d discovered had been very unexpected, to say the least.
“Yeah,” he replied. “Maitland Maternity seems to be experiencing a rash of mishaps. But—I don’t know anything about them. I just mow the lawn and water the shrubs.”
For the first time since he’d sped away from the clinic grounds, he settled his shoulders back against the seat and told his body to relax.
“I don’t believe you.”
Her retort didn’t surprise him. Part of the woman’s job was being skeptical, and he could already see that she was someone who viewed all angles of a situation. Not just the obvious. For that alone he had to admire her.
With a lazy shrug of one shoulder, he said, “Well, that’s your prerogative. I’m just telling you that I didn’t hire on with the Maitlands as a security officer. And you can do what you like with that information.”
There were two things Blossom would like to do with his information. Prove it wrong, then throw it back at him. But that would have to wait. The first and most important thing she had to do was get away from the man.
“You still haven’t told me your name,” she reminded him.
“Does my name really matter? You don’t know me. It couldn’t mean anything to you.”
“I have to call you something,” she reasoned.
One corner of his perfectly chiseled lips lifted ever so slightly. “I’m sure you can think of plenty of things. Women have a knack for giving me labels.”
Her nostrils flared as she drew in another long breath. “No doubt. But I think I’d rather stick to a birth name.”
He didn’t say anything for long moments, and although her eyes remained on him, she was acutely aware of the fact that they were getting farther and farther away from the city of Austin.
“You can call me Larkin,” he said finally.
In spite of herself and the precarious situation she was in, Blossom couldn’t stop her gaze from traveling up and down the long length of him.
He was wearing a dark gray khaki uniform shirt with a pair of blue jeans and dark brown work boots. The Maitland Maternity logo, a simple oval with the initials MM, was sewn to a spot over his left breast. There was no name tag below it, and no name or job title was embroidered into the heavy material.
Yet none of those things were the real focus of Blossom’s attention. It was the massive width of his shoulders, the corded muscles of his neck and arms, the leanness of his waist and the big brown hands on the steering wheel that all combined to mesmerize her. No one had to tell her he was a strong man. She’d felt his strength firsthand when he’d manhandled her into the truck.
“Is that all?” she prodded.
“That’s all I’m telling you.”
Her back teeth ground together at the idea that he thought he had the upper hand with her. Raking back a wave of hair that had slipped toward her right eye, she looked out the window and tried to catch sight of a highway sign.
“I get it,” she muttered. “You imagine yourself as one of those stars who like to believe they’re so grand they only need a single name.”
If she’d been anyone else and the circumstances had been different he might have actually enjoyed sparring with her. But, as it was, he had too much on his mind, mainly what he was going to do with her now that they’d managed to escape the spray of bullets back at the clinic.
From the corner of his eye, he watched her cross her legs, then fold her arms against her breasts. He had to admit it was nice to see a woman in a skirt with silky stockings on her legs and high heels on her feet. He’d always been a sucker for high heels, and the pair on Blossom Woodward’s dainty feet were the exact color as her classically tailored skirt and blouse.
She was petite and slender, but far from fragile. Her body was taut and curved in all the right places, and he wondered if she found time in her busy TV schedule to work out at a gym or if she was just naturally fit.
“Believe me, Ms. Woodward, there’s nothing grand or starlike about me.”
Maybe he wasn’t a star. But he was far from ordinary. And how she’d ended up here with him like this was incredible. One minute she’d been on the sidewalk outside the clinic and the next moment loud pops were exploding all around her. Before she’d known what was happening he’d suddenly appeared beside her and whipped a pistol from a holster inside his shirt.
She wasn’t sure how many rounds of bullets he’d fired at the vehicle skidding wildly through the parking lot. Thinking back on it, he’d probably emptied the whole magazine before he’d shoved her into the truck and yelled at her to stay down.
“In case you haven’t noticed, we’re out of the city,” she told him. “No one is behind us. You can stop at the next gas station and let me out.”
“I’ll stop when we get to where we’re going.”
Panic sliced through Blossom, but she did her best not to let it take control. She had to keep her wits about her. She had to find out what this man was going to do with her and why. If his intention had simply been to take her out of harm’s way at the clinic, his job should have been over thirty minutes ago.
“If you’re thinking the television station will pay a ransom for me, forget it.”
Before he could stop himself, he threw back his head and laughed.
“Now, who’s thinking they’re grand?” he asked between chuckles. “If I’d planned to kidnap someone for money, I would have picked a much bigger fish than you, Ms. Woodward. Any one of the Maitlands would be worth millions. What do you think you’re worth?”
Blossom
