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“But it has—”
“Do you want them to find you?” he interrupted sharply.
“Oh, right.”
As he turned on the coast road, she opened the phone’s case and lifted out the tiny card.
“Now,” he ordered.
Lowering her window barely an inch, she let it drop. A second later, he did a U-turn and headed in the opposite direction.
“Where are we going?” she asked, alarmed by the sudden change in direction.
“To a place I know you’ll be safe. You eat, and I’ll drive. I need to stay focused in this crazy ass weather.”
“You’re not taking me back to Vegas?”
“Hopefully that’s what they’ll think when they find your card. At the very least, they’ll believe we’re headed in the opposite direction. Once we arrive at the house where we’ll be staying, I have to know exactly what’s going on, and I mean every last detail.”
CHAPTER3
As Bianca ravenously devoured two muffins and drank the hot, rich coffee, she stole glances at the mysterious man behind the wheel. When he’d pulled her into his muscled arms, she’d felt his strength. Any man in such peak physical condition had to be an athlete, or perhaps a former athlete who stayed in shape. He’d said he worked in security, and though she could easily see him being a bodyguard, he had money. The Porsche Macan didn’t come cheap, and the beach house, even though it hadn’t been renovated, was still worth a mint.
They’d been traveling about ten minutes. When he’d been driving on the street behind the houses, he’d traveled slowly, but then sped up on the coast road. It was infamous for mudslides during the seasonal storms, and though he handled the powerful SUV like a pro, she was nervous. They could suddenly find themselves hitting debris that could spin the car out of control, but she was afraid to speak up. God forbid she distracted him at the wrong moment.
“You can relax now,” he said, slowing down.
“That’s the second time you’ve read my mind,” she blurted out. “Are you psychic?”
“No,” he replied with a chuckle as he turned off the road and started up a hill, “but if you were gripping that mug any tighter you’d break the damn thing.”
“You can’t blame me. That was scary. Why were you driving so fast?”
“It was a calculated risk. I didn’t want to be forced to turn around because of a mudslide.”
“What if we’d turned one of those sharp bends and slammed into one?”
“That was the risk,” he replied, shooting her a wink as they continued up the steep slope, “and it paid off. I suspect there’ll be a slide at some point before morning, and happily, we’ll be on this side of it.”
“Don’t you mean stranded?”
“I take it you’re not familiar with this area.”
“Not the canyons.”
“This road goes over the hill and down to the San Fernando Valley, and there are plenty of tributaries,” he continued as the slope began to plateau. “If one gets hit by a downed tree, there are other thoroughfares out of these hills.”
“Is that where we’re going, to the valley?”
“No, my sister has a house up here. She and her husband are gone for the month and I come up every few days to water the plants and check on things. You don’t have to worry, no one will track you here,” he said, turning into a driveway and stopping at wrought-iron gates.
Lifting the center console and retrieving a remote control, he pressed the button. As the gates swung open and he drove forward, an impressive single-story Spanish hacienda came into view.
“We’ll have to make a dash for the front door,” he declared, gesturing to the rain pounding the windshield as he parked next to the verandah. “Their cars are in the garage.”
“Nick, this place is gorgeous.”
“Yeah, it’s nice, and it has a great view, but Bianca, before we go inside…”
