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Furtively, his palms sweating, Zane watched her from the corner of his eye. He noticed that her jaw and arms slackened and her breasts rose and fell in even, deep breaths.
Ten minutes passed. She didn’t stir. It’s now or never, he thought as he approached the intersection. Turning off the main road and heading into the mountains, he guided the car eastward.
There was a chance she’d end up hating him for his deception and high-handedness, but it was a chance he had to take. He frowned into the darkness, his eyes on the two-lane highway that cut through the dark stands of pine and redwood. Don’t wake up, he thought as the seconds ticked by and the miles passed much too slowly.
It took nearly an hour to reach the old logging road, but he slowed, rounded a sharp corner and shifted down. From here on in, the lane—barely more than two dirt ruts with a spray of gravel—was rough. It angled up the mountain in sharp switchbacks.
He drove slowly, but not slowly enough. Before he’d gone two miles, Kaylie stirred.
The Jeep hit a rock and shimmied and she started. Stretching and swallowing back a yawn, she blinked, her brows knit in concentration. “Where are we?”
“Not in Carmel yet.”
“I guess not,” she said, rotating the crick out of her shoulders and neck as her eyes adjusted to the darkness. “What is this—a park?”
“Nope.”
“Zane?”
He heard her turn toward him. The air was suddenly charged. For a few seconds all he heard was the thrum of the engine and the strains of some familiar concerto on the radio.
Finally she whispered, “We’re not going back to Carmel, are we?”
No reason to lie any longer. “No.”
“No?”
When he didn’t answer, pure anger sparkled in her eyes. “I knew it! I knew it!” she shouted. “I should have never trusted you!” She flopped back in the seat. “Kaylie, you idiot!” she ranted, outraged. “After all he’s done to you, you trust him!”
Zane’s heart twisted.
She skewered him with a furious glare. “Okay, Zane, just where are you taking me?”
“To my weekend place.”
“In the boonies?”
“Right.” He nodded crisply.
“But you don’t have—”
“You don’t know what I have now, do you?” he threw back at her. “In the past seven years I’ve acquired a few new things.”
“A mountain cabin? It’s hardly your style.”
“Maybe you don’t know what my style is anymore.”
“Then I guess I’ll find out, won’t I? I can hardly wait,” she muttered, her eyes thinning in fury. She tossed her hair over her shoulder and waited, then quietly, her voice trembling with rage, she asked, “Why?”
“Because you won’t listen to reason.”
“I don’t understand.”
“We’re talking about your life, damn it. And you were going to go on as if nothing had happened, as if this—” he reached into his pocket and extracted the tape “—doesn’t exist! Well, it does, damn it, and until I find out if there’s any reason to believe ‘Ted,’ I’m going to make sure you’re safe.”
“You’re what? How?” she asked, though she was beginning to understand. “I think you’d better stop this rig and turn it around, right now,” she ground out.
