he turned left, across the two-lane highway, into the motel’s parking lot, and eased the battered van to a stop beside the sports car.
He stared at the motel room door. Door number seventeen. And as he studied that door, he knew that the woman with the gold bracelet was probably having as bad a time as he was. Worse, because she didn’t look like the type to have been around guns for most of her life. Or lunatics.
Again he thought of the image she projected and the fact that she was traveling alone on the road. It just didn’t fit. Women like her were cosseted and protected by their families, by their money. Not let loose on the road.
He thought of that red car and all the belongings piled in the backseat. Was she running away from someone? Did she need help? Whatever her life circumstances, having been caught in the middle of a robbery couldn’t have helped things.
He sat in his van, staring at the motel door, knowing he was only postponing the inevitable. Something had pulled him toward this woman from the instant he’d seen her. Then they’d been thrown together and shared a pretty horrific experience. Now something was telling him to knock on that door and make sure she was all right.
He’d see how she was doing. Make sure she called family, or at least had someone in her life who knew what had happened and could help her. Then he’d leave. But he had to see her, make sure she was all right. He had a feeling she was hurting and needed help.
He glanced away from the closed motel door, toward the red Mustang. Something about the woman made him want to protect her. Make life easier for her. He wanted to know who she was and where she was going. He wanted to talk to her. He couldn’t let it alone.
Hell, he wanted to know her name.
Knowing he would do nothing to hurt her, acting on deep instinct, Cody opened the van door and got out. He slammed the door shut and locked it. Then he walked over to the motel room door and rapped on it sharply three times.
3
JEN WAS COMBING HER WET HAIR back from her face, clad only in a short, ivory silk robe, when she heard the three sharp knocks. The sounds made her jump. She came up off the bed with her heart beating, her hands once again shaking so much, she dropped the blue wide-toothed comb.
She moved to the door, peered through the peephole. And saw the man who had saved her life. Not even hesitating, she moved the chair back, then opened the door a crack, the chain still in place.
“Hello,” he said.
“Hi.” She didn’t know why, but she was ridiculously glad to see him.
“You okay?” He got straight to the point, and she had a feeling that this was his way.
She started to say yes—that automatic yes, that Everything’s fine so often said to the question How are things going? But her lips couldn’t form the words. She felt incapable of lying, of presenting that facade. Instead she felt her mouth tremble. She trembled. Her body felt as if it didn’t belong to her.
She couldn’t lie to this man. Though she hadn’t even known he existed a few hours ago, they had been through too much together.
Life and death had a way of bonding people.
“No.” The single word felt raw in her tight throat. She didn’t offer any protest as he stepped closer.
“Take the chain off the door.” That voice. So low and gentle, so soothing.
She did as he said, then seemed to watch from outside her own body as he opened the motel door further, stepped inside, closed it. He draped his jean jacket over one of the chairs, then he put his arm around her shoulders and steered her toward the bed. He sat her down on it and took her into his arms.
“Go ahead and cry,” he said. “I may just join you.”
His deep voice was all the persuasion she needed. The sobs came up now that she felt safe in the circle of his arms. Something about the way he held her made her feel so protected. No one could get her here, now. She wasn’t alone; she was touching another human being—the only person who could truly understand what she’d been through during those terrible moments looking down the barrel of that shotgun.
She cried harder, remembering how he’d stumbled through the door, drawing the madman’s gun, making sure it wasn’t pointed at her. She cried because her first thought on seeing him had been that he was a useless drunk, another complication. Another problem. Instead he’d saved her life with no regard for his own.
Somehow she had to make him understand.
“I thought—I thought—” her words hiccupped on a sob “—you were drunk.”
He continued to smooth her hair. He simply held her, offering no judgement concerning her crying, simply being there for her. It had been so long since anyone had truly been there for her, and Jen clung tighter. She couldn’t let him go. Not yet. Not now.
“But when—when you came in—” She choked on another sob, and he patted her back as if she were an infant needing to be burped. Then he rubbed her back, his hands soothing, knowing exactly how to release the tightness. His touch both soothed and comforted. This man’s touch was like none she’d ever felt before.
“I thought—I thought we were all going to die,” she gasped out, fresh tears filling her eyes, running down her face.
“I know,” he said. “Me, too.”
Still those strong arms held her as she buried her face against his chest, her cheek smashed flat against his blue denim shirt. He smelled of coffee and sugar—the powdered sugar that had spilled on the front of his shirt. She held on tighter as she cried.
“Honey, honey,” he said softly, his low voice almost crooning. “Tell me where your family is and I’ll get you safely home. You shouldn’t be alone—”
“No!” She clutched at his shirt harder, then, almost as if seeing herself and what she was doing for the first time, Jen felt embarrassment. Shame. She was out of control, in an anonymous motel room with a virtual stranger, dressed in nothing but a thin silk robe.
She pulled away slightly, gazed up at the man’s face.
He doesn’t feel like a stranger.
She couldn’t stop staring at him. Couldn’t tear her gaze away. A dog barked somewhere in the distance. She heard the sound of a car drive by on the highway, then another. A door slammed.
She couldn’t look away from him. The strong line of his jaw. His mouth. Those incredibly blue eyes.
Why had he been put in her path? No, not merely put there. Flung there. She remembered the way he’d stumbled into the convenience store and suddenly realized—
“You knew,” she whispered. “Before you came in that door, you knew there was a robbery going down.”
He tried to look away, as if embarrassed by what he’d done, but she slid her hand up, cupped the side of his face, held his gaze. Her fingers seemed to burn where she touched him, almost vibrate with energy, it felt so intense between them.
“You did.”
