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I bend down and lift the first bundle. “Yep.”
“That’s got to be close to a million dollars.” He gasps.
“Yep,” I say again as my mind takes it all in.
I’d been wrong earlier. My day just got a hell of a lot better.
It’s legendary.
Chapter3
Eli
Kentucky
“How did you know?” I demand, turning to face Jeb, who’s now in the driver’s seat of the police cruiser.
He runs a hand through his sun-streaked dirty-blond hair. “Know what?” Jeb asks distractedly, probably still mentally counting the money stashed in the trunk.
“There were three police cruisers parked outside of the credit union,” I say having already figured out much of his mental process in deciding to rob a bank in the time it took for us to walk in the door and reach the teller window. There’s only one part of his crazy improv plan I hadn’t worked out. “How did you know which police car had the stash of money?”
He turns to me and—like I always do, when Jeb’s mischievous, blue-eyed stare is on me—I have to catch my breath.
“This cruiser was parked on a street that doesn’t get much foot traffic and had the best route to get to the highway.” His full lips quirk up like he’s about to share a joke. “But I really didn’t know for sure. It was just a guess.”
“You mean you risked our lives,” I take a step closer to him. “You risked us ending up in jail. You risked our mission to take down Patriots Now on a-a guess?”
He shrugs. “I was right.”
An image flashes through my mind of my hands around Jeb’s neck as I throttle him. For a moment I let myself indulge in the outlet for my frustrations, but then other images follow.My hands releasing his neck to run them through his blond hair to see if it’s really like catching sunshine beneath my fingertips. Then my hand restlessly wanders to the button snap cowboy shirt he’s wearing and feels his muscles bunch underneath the material as I explore their contours. Then they slowly travel down—
I pull myself out of my momentary madness to see Jeb’s handsome face smugly smiling back at me.
And that’s when I blow.
I start ranting, and I don’t stop. I rant through the sound of the sirens heading in our direction. I rant through a high-speed chase as Jeb corners the cruiser through razor sharp turns, jumps curbs, and goes a hundred down a street closed for construction, dodging rebar and bulldozers to come out on the highway ahead of our pursuers. I rant while disabling the cruiser’s router so it can’t be traced, monitoring the police radio, and navigating the route of our escape. I rant through a phone call to Johnny, telling him I’m never working with Jebediah Ezekiel Jones ‘ever—and I mean ever—again.’
I hang up the phone as Jeb twists the car in a U-turn that makes it feel like we’re riding a rollercoaster and then pulls behind a bank of trees. Sirens still sound in the distance.
“We’ll try hiding here,” Jeb says. “If they spot us, we’ll outrun them again, but I’d rather try to lose them now than play chase in a police car all day long. Sooner or later, one of these other police jurisdictions we’re traveling through is gonna get curious.”
He’s right, and it irritates the hell out of me. I take a deep breath, fortifying myself, and begin my rant anew.
“Eli,” Jeb says. When I pay no attention, he calls my name again. Finally, he reaches out to touch my arm. I shrink back like I always do at the temptation of his touch. He acknowledges my evasion by pulling his hand back and raising it in surrender.
“Eli,” he says again, and I try to ignore how much I like the way my name sounds on his lips. “I get it. It was foolish and dangerous, and a whole lot of other bad, bad things, but—” he pauses, his stubbled jaw breaking into an easy grin. “Ya gotta admit that was also a whole hell of a lot of fun.” His eyes gleam. “It’s the kinda job where legends are made.”
His excitement is contagious, and I feel myself giving in to his magnetic pull and almost smiling in agreement.
Then I catch myself.
There it is. That’s why I have to leave Kentucky. There are too many distractions here. Johnny, Cash, and Daisy, the obnoxious, loud, and messy thieves who’ve invaded my life here. And Jeb, who, as hard as I might fight it, I can’t stop obsessing over.
They are distractions and distractions are deadly.
Three weeks ago Cash almost died, and I have to believe if I hadn’t been spending so much time attending their tequila parties, learning how to play pool as a team building exercise, and secretly staring at Jeb, I would have been able to anticipate Patriots Now’s end move to assassinate Digger Mcree, the leader of the Reivers and Cash wouldn’t have been shot.
Fortunately, after a couple of tense days where Johnny almost went mad with grief, Cash pulled through, but I can’t let anything like it happen ever again. I started my crusade against hate groups so no one else would have to know the pain of losing their loved ones. I can’t—I won’tlet anyone else be hurt because I’m too affected by a dangerously charming, heart-racingly handsome thief.
