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“Hmm?”
Her shoulder was shaken. “Wake up.”
Feeling as though she were being roused from a coma, she opened her eyes and blinked Rye into focus. “It’s already been four hours?”
“No, but we have company.”
He left her, skirted the foot of the bed, and went over to the window, where he peered through the split in the curtains. “I heard their car. They’re just pulling up.”
“Who?”
“Your mere coincidence duo.”
That brought her wide awake. She kicked back the bedspread, came off the bed, and watched in alarm as Rye took his pistol from his flight bag. “What are you doing with that?”
“If we’re lucky, nothing.” He slid it into his back jeans pocket and covered it with his shirttail. Giving her a fulminating look, he said, “You’ve got one more chance to tell me who these guys are.”
“I don’t know.”
“Yeah, and there’s no cell phone service, either.”
Having caught her in that lie, he had a right to be angry, she supposed.
Still seething, he said, “Take off your jeans.”
“What?”
“Take off your jeans,” he repeated, enunciating each word. “Or at least make it look like you’re pulling them back on.” He glanced through the curtain. “You’ve got ten seconds.”
While instructing her, he’d been unbuttoning his fly and had got it undone just as two hard knocks landed on the door. He grabbed the pillow he’d been sleeping on and pitched it over next to hers.
A harder, louder knock.
In a grumpy and scratchy voice, Rye said, “Who is it?”
“We’re looking for Dr. O’Neal.”
“What do you want with her?”
“Is she in there?”
“Are you sick?”
The person on the other side of the door called out, “Dr. O’Neal?”
With a curt nod, Rye signaled for her to answer. Her heart was in her throat. She didn’t need to pretend to stutter. “J-Just a second.”
“Hurry up,” said the voice through the door.
She undid her jeans and lowered them a few inches. Rye opened the door as wide as the chain lock would allow and said through the crack, “Somebody had better be dying.”
Through the sliver, Brynn could see the tall, handsome man from the café. He said, “Let us in.”
“Like hell I will,” Rye said. “Who are you?”
“Makes no difference to you. Unlock the door.”
“Give me one good reason why.”
