Under the Microscope

A few hundred feet ahead, cars were stopped all across four travel lanes. The accident took up part of the slow lane and part of the breakdown lane, leaving a narrow gap between a dented Ford and the guardrail. The occupants of the two cars had moved things to the far side of the guardrail, where a small knot of people had clustered and appeared to be arguing over paperwork.

“Hang on!” Making a snap decision, the only one she could make, Raine stood on the brakes, slowed the truck to a crawl and dropped it into four-wheel drive while the sedan’s driver closed the gap with merciless speed. Then she hit the gas, slalomed between two slowing buses and changed lanes with mere feet to spare.

She aimed for the gap between the accident and the guardrail, leaned on the horn and prayed.

Other horns blared. Tires squealed, then stopped squealing as the moving traffic passed into the snow squall and the surface beneath the tires went from black to white. From traction to none.

Raine felt the truck skid and steered into the motion, hoping it would be enough. She heard Max fire three times in rapid succession. They were going nearly forty when she threaded the gap between the disabled car and the guardrail, fifty by the time she’d steered back into the travel lanes, where the other cars were creepy-crawling in the snow.

“Hang on, baby, hang on!” she chanted to the truck, feeling the wheels spin and bite.

Max aimed. Fired. And made a low sound of satisfaction. “Gotcha.”

Raine glanced in the rearview mirror just in time to see the silver car swerve across the two higher speed lanes, listing on a flat tire. It bounced off the Jersey barriers that separated the south and northbound lanes of I-95, and ricocheted back into the middle lane, directly into the path of a lumbering casino bus.

The bus clipped the sedan’s rear corner, sending it caroming back across the slower lanes. The car skidded sideways and fetched up against the guardrail, then was lost to sight as the highway curved and Raine and Max fled down the nearly empty road.

A few miles later, he pulled out the disposable phone. “Here goes nothing.” He punched in a number and waited, tension vibrating through his frame. After a moment, his breath whooshed out. “Ike. Thank God. Listen good and listen fast. I think they’re tracking the phones-I don’t know how, but the signal is compromised. Dump yours and run. Take the weekend away like you planned, but do it somewhere else. No reservations, no trail. Use cash. Leave me a hint at the usual place. And be careful.”

He ended the call, rolled down the window and tossed the phone.

“Ike can look out for herself,” Raine said, wanting to ease the grim expression on his face.

Without looking at her, he reached across the bench seat, took her hand and squeezed. “That’s right. And we’ll look out for each other. The Nine aren’t going to know what hit them.”

THEY DROVE ANOTHER HOUR in silence before Raine pulled the truck off the highway and into a crowded motel parking lot. “Are we ditching the truck or keeping it?”

“We’ll have to keep it,” Max answered. “I’m getting low on cash, and I don’t think we want to add grand theft auto to our laundry list. At least not until we’re sure what we’re dealing with.”

“Sounds like a plan.” Raine parked in a far corner, away from the lights, backing into the spot so the shattered rear slider wasn’t so obvious. “We should plan to be up and out before dawn tomorrow.” She grabbed the duffel bag out of the truck, tossed Max his jacket, pocketed the keys and slammed the driver’s door. “Let’s go check in.”

When he didn’t follow, she stopped and turned back. “Did I forget something?”

Snow feathered down between them, glowing orange in the sodium lights of the parking lot. The contrast made Max seem even larger and darker than he was, but rather than fear, the sight sent a bolt of warmth through Raine’s midsection, where it buzzed alongside chase-pumped adrenaline.

A slight smile touched his lips. “You trying to rescue me, partner?”

Something clicked in her chest, right beneath her heart, and suddenly it was so simple to cross to him, stand on her tiptoes and kiss him.

There was no withdrawal this time, only joy, and a feeling that now, finally, he needed something from her. Reassurance. Comfort.

Love.

They kissed as the snow coated the world around them and their bodies went from cold to warm.

That first moment of contact, of acceptance spun into endless minutes as he spanned her waist and slid his hands to the small of her back, then upward, trailing his fingertips over her ribs beneath the ratty brown jacket liner she still wore. She kissed him deeper, stroking her tongue across his, then mimicking the rhythm in the caress of her fingers on the hard planes of his chest.

She murmured his name. “Max.”

When they drew apart, they both knew it was only a temporary thing. And when they stopped at the desk, it was to rent a room with nearly the last of their cash.

One room. No discussion.

Chapter Twelve

When the hotel room door closed behind them, Max dropped the bag of sodas and snacks they’d bought at the gift shop in the absence of room service. He held out a hand to Raine.

Heat suffused her body and she crossed to him, knowing it was time. Their time.

They kissed, meeting as equals. Needing each other equally.

He drew away to look down at her with eyes that were dark, and full of fire and promises. Then he released her and stepped away, keeping only her hand, which he raised to his lips. He pressed a kiss to her knuckles. “The first moment I saw you, I thought you were the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen.”

The words carried an unexpected punch that caught her beneath the heart and wouldn’t let go.

She’d been complimented before. She’d been romanced. But she’d never been thoroughly undone by either.

Not until now.

Until Max.

On another night, with another man, she might have returned the compliment, or slid into the slow tug of desire when he touched his lips to her knuckles a second time. But it was this night with this man.

The man she loved.

The realization was painless, comfortable, as though it had been at the edges of her brain for longer than just this week, waiting for her to figure it out, for them to figure it out and find a way to meet, not as rescued and rescuer, but as partners.

I love you, she thought. She didn’t say it aloud, not yet. But she stepped into him, basking in his warmth, in the warmth they created together as she lifted her hands to the buttons of his flannel shirt, which was worn and torn from the trials of the past few days, but still soft against her skin.

He froze, barely breathing as she eased the buttons free, until the shirt hung open, baring a narrow strip of taut male skin, lightly dusted with wiry hair.

Then she looked up at him. “When I knocked at your apartment Tuesday evening, I was thinking about Thriller, and about how I was going to convince you to help me. Then you opened the door, looking just like you do now, and I thought…” She trailed off, throat tightening with the huge emotion of it, clogging to the point that she almost couldn’t breathe.

She halfway expected him to go with a quip, with the easy, shared laughter that would defuse a situation that had suddenly grown far heavier than she’d expected, far more serious than she was prepared for. Instead, he took her hands and twined their fingers together. “What did you think?”

“That I’d been stupid.”

“To leave Boston?”

She shook her head. “No, to think that I’d forgotten you once I did.”

He looked at her for a long moment, perhaps wondering if that was enough when it felt like too much. Then, as though he’d seen an answer she hadn’t meant to give, he nodded once, released her hands and shrugged out of his