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“You’ll get there, Claire, if I have anything to say about it.” He crunched another chip and she laughed.
“Somehow you don’t inspire a lot of confidence with potato chips all over your face.” She reached out to touch a crumb on his bottom lip at the same time his tongue darted from his mouth to catch it. When his tongue touched her fingertip, their eyes met for a split second, and she jerked her hand back as if scorched.
“Sorry.” The fire continued in her belly and she made a fuss of opening her tamed soda. “I should keep my hands to myself. You’re not a five-year-old.”
“No, I just had food on my face like a five-year-old.” He sucked the salt from the tips of his fingers, which did nothing to quell the warmth that was infusing her entire body.
He balled up the chip bag and cracked open his bottle of water. “You don’t happen to have any hand sanitizer in that huge bag you call a purse, do you?”
“Would I be the mom of a five-year-old if I didn’t?” She pawed through her bag, happy for the diversion. “Got it.”
He held out a cupped palm. “Hit me.”
She squeezed the clear gel into his palm and he rubbed his hands together.
“Tell me about Ethan.”
“Really?” She dropped the sanitizer into her purse. “You’re just trying to get my mind off of things, aren’t you?”
“Partly, and partly I want to hear about Ethan. Maybe I’m trying to get my mind off of things. I had switched gears into retirement mode, and now I’m on the run to another safe house in a long line of safe houses.”
She huddled into her coat. “I’m sorry. You’re so good at your job, I forgot this was a second-thought, last-minute assignment for you before retirement. Now you’re in it.”
He shrugged. “I’ve learned not to take any job for Prospero lightly, but I do want to hear about Ethan.”
“You don’t have to twist my arm to talk about my son.”
As the bus rumbled north into the night, she slid low in her seat and spoke softly about Ethan. And Mike was right, just as he was right about so many other things—the day’s fears and anxieties receded, replaced by warm memories of her son.
Several hours later, as they reached the end of the line, she jabbed Mike in the arm. This time she’d woken up first, which gave her the chance to raise her head from his shoulder. She was pretty sure she’d tipped her head toward the window as she began to doze off, but Mike just had that kind of shoulder—the kind a girl could lean on.
She owed Lola Coburn big-time for sending him her way.
Mike was alert in an instant. “We’re here?”
“Yes.” She twisted her head around. “And we’re among the last few passengers. What next?”
“We pick up our next mode of transportation and then get a good night’s sleep.”
“We just slept.”
He rubbed the back of his neck. “I said a good night’s sleep, and we still have some work ahead of us before we reach that point.”
Mike hadn’t been kidding. Once they got off the bus, they picked up what looked like an abandoned car at a junkyard. The keys had been stashed on top of the visor, and Mike had retrieved a black bag from the trunk.
The car didn’t have chains, but the snow tires had enough traction to get them safely to a cabin tucked in the woods at the end of a harrowing journey on a two-lane road, just beyond a small town.
Mike pulled the car around to the back of the dark cabin.
“I’m hoping this place has heat and light.” She dragged her purse, much lighter without the cash, into her lap.
“It has everything we need for at least a month’s stay. Our support team is top-notch.”
“A month?” She grabbed her coat from the backseat of the junker. “I hope we’re not going to be holed up here for a month.”
“It’s like the end of the earth up here, isn’t it?” He opened the door a crack and the cold air seeped into the car. “Ready?”
“Ready as I’ll ever be.” She swung her legs out of the car, her high-heeled boots, ridiculously unsuited for a cabin in the middle of the Vermont woods, in the snow.
