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She jumped, tried to run, but she was too damned scared to take her eyes off him.
Just before his fist launched, it stopped.
She didn’t know who was more surprised, her or Eldon, when he found his fist suddenly captured in the hard, huge hand of Broecun.
“Get out of here, girl. ” Hard, emotionless, the order was voiced without heat or any sense of warning.
Still, Piper turned and ran for the front door.
She couldn’t believe this. She couldn’t believe the chance she had dreamed of had come to this.
To lose it all because of some asshole with a sock for a dick.
FIVE
Pulling into the back lot of the rental car agency, Piper was still fuming hours later.
It was too late to be in an area that appeared deserted in New York City, and far too late to do anything but turn the car back in.
At least the cab she’d called was waiting for her.
She’d stopped to let the driver know she just had to park the car; then she’d be ready to leave.
What she hadn’t anticipated was that when she’d thrown her portfolio and her purse to the back of the car earlier, she’d also managed to knock the bag containing her morning purchases over on the back floorboard.
Rhinestones and colored crystals were scattered along the carpet, twinkling merrily beneath the interior lights as she scooped them up and threw them back into her bag without bothering to return them to the small plastic bags they’d been in when she’d bought them.
That took far too long, as far as she was concerned. The damned cab was charging by the frickin’ half minute, if she remembered her last trip to New York correctly.
She had only so much cash on her, and her own credit card was barely going to cover her hotel room. The trip was supposed to be all expenses paid, but Piper knew the type of man Eldon Vessante was now. No doubt he had already called the hotel and informed them that he wasn’t paying for anything. That meant she’d better have her own card ready and waiting when she walked through the front doors.
Tossing the last of the colored crystals and stones into her bag, Piper stepped back, slammed the door, then hurriedly locked the car before rushing back to the front of the rental agency.
Depositing the keys in the night box, she all but ran to the taxi and gave the driver the address to the hotel.
Just as the vehicle
pulled out, the first raindrops began pelting the yellow-and-black vehicle.
“It’s finally raining,” the driver commented as he turned at the corner and headed for the hotel. “You in town for long?”
“Not really. ” She stared straight ahead, fuming.
“Business or just a visit?” he asked then, obviously in the mood to chat.
Every cabdriver she’d ever known had spent their time either on their cell phone or talking to the company about waiting fares. This one would have to be the chatty type.
“A little of both,” she answered, staring out at the rain as she tried not to cry.
Not yet.
She’d made certain she hadn’t cried on the way back to the rental agency. God forbid she get pulled over for any reason, even this far away from home, because she knew it would take less than an hour for Somerset’s chief of police, Alex Jansen, to learn about it. What Alex knew, his wife, Janey, would be quick to find out.
And Janey, being Natches’s sister and Dawg’s cousin, would find it impossible not to tattle.
Piper should have known better. She should have known it couldn’t be this easy. She’d worked far too long and too hard for it to happen as she had imagined once she’d received that letter from S. Chaniss.
“If it walks exactly like a duck and quacks exactly like a duck, then watch out for the explosion, because no two ducks walk or quack exactly the same,” she’d once heard Dawg say with a laugh.
