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“I’m taking you the scenic way. You always preferred it.”
No, I did not. The road ran along the cliffs overlooking the sea, approaching the house from behind, and it curved and swooped like a roller coaster ride. All three of my cousins had liked nothing better than to drive like hell, and all I could do was hold on and plaster a grim smile to my face. Things hadn’t changed.
We’d reached the peak of the hill behind Mariposa, where I half expected Ian to do his patented bat-turn with the help of the emergency brake, but nothing happened. We kept going, higher and higher, and sooner or later we were going to run out of road and I was going to scream.
With a screech of tires, he managed to pull a one-eighty, and I glared at him. My hair was whipping into my eyes, despite the expensive scarf, and enough was enough.
“Could you slow the fuck down,” I said tightly as he careened up the narrow road, away from the cliffs.
“No,” he said, an odd note in his voice, and I realized his hands were white-knuckled on the steering wheel. “The accelerator is stuck and the brakes aren’t working.”
I didn’t scream, I just stared at the deep trees on either side of the narrow road and knew I was going to die. I ought to tell Ian who I was, I thought in an almost dazed state of mind. It would be very awkward for Bella to come home to find herself dead and buried.
I clutched the seat tighter and shut my eyes. Maybe if I couldn’t see it, it wouldn’t happen.
“We’re not going to die.” Ian’s rough voice was ruthless, “so don’t start looking all tragic.”
“Don’t look at me!” I screeched. “Watch the road!”
“That’s the last place we’re going!” he snapped back. “Put your head down between your knees.”
“Why?”
“Because we’re going to crash, you idiot, and I’m trying to save your life.” He put one hand on my neck and shoved me down, then yanked the steering wheel with tremendous force.
I’d never liked thrill rides, and roller coasters terrified me. The only thing that made them bearable was watching, and with my head crammed down beneath the dashboard, I couldn’t see a damn thing as we seemed to take flight. I did the only thing I could think of—I prayed, as I felt Ian’s hand at the back of my neck, holding me down.
We slammed into something, my head bashed against the dashboard, but we still hadn’t stopped moving, though we’d slowed down. I tried to look up, but Ian kept me down as we plowed through what I could only guess was forest, the whip of the branches against the car, the jerkiness beneath the tires as we finally, finally ground to a thunderous stop.
Chapter Nine
I didn’t move. There was something warm and wet on my face, but I didn’t care, I just wanted to crawl beneath the dashboard and hide.
Ian was swearing. My God, he was swearing with such obscene invention that I was awed, even as his fingers massaged the back of my neck.
“Are you all right?” he asked finally, as I struggled to sit up.
I was right—he’d driven straight into the woods, and the crumpled hood of the Alfa was pressed around a decent-sized tree. The windscreen was gone, the engine was hissing, but we were alive.
“Oh, God!” I cried and would have flung my arms around Ian the Wretch if he hadn’t jerked out of the way.
“You’re bleeding,” he said tersely. “Lie back.”
“I bet you say that to all the girls,” I mumbled, realizing what the warm, wet stuff was. He didn’t wait for me to move, simply pushed me back against the seat, and I would have protested if I’d had the energy.
“Shut up,” he snapped.
I opened one eye to look at him. He was unbuttoning the crisp white shirt he’d worn into town, and if my face hadn’t been bashed, I would have raised an eyebrow. “You’re stripping?” I managed to say, struggling to sit up.
He shrugged out of the shirt and pushed me back again. A moment later the soft cotton was held against the side of my face, and I felt some of the tension leave me. “Am I going to die?”
“No such luck, Bella-Beast.” He sounded shaken, something I wouldn’t have imagined. “You’ve got a cut on your forehead that’s going to bleed like a son of a bitch, but it’s not going to mar your gorgeousness. Maybe it’ll even give you character.”
I sank back, reaching for the makeshift bandage, only to encounter his hand. He pushed me away. “Just stay still. Someone will be here to get us before long, and in the meantime, I don’t want you jarring anything, at least not until we can get you checked out.
“Checked out where? The nearest hospital is forty-five miles away.”
“Still talking about miles and not kilometers?”
