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“Bobcat in a bag?” he muttered. “What was that about?”
She shrugged. She honestly didn’t know why she’d panicked at the thought of getting a room with one bed. It wasn’t as if they were actually going to spend the night there.
He shook his head at her as the elevator dinged to announce its arrival. He ushered her into the car as the doors opened. “After you, Princess.”
“Princess?”
“Apparently you’re the princess fromThe Princess and The Pea.Light sleeper?”
Her sleeping habits ranked low on the list of topics she cared to discuss with Ryan Hayes. So she flashed him a tight smile. “Sure.”
“Good to know, Princess.”
“Please don’t start calling me Princess.”
“Don’t call you Sparky. Don’t call you Princess. What do you want me to call you?” he groused good-naturedly.
“Have you considered ‘Leilah?’”
His laughter filled the small elevator car, and she smiled, forgetting about their predicament for a brief, shining moment. Unfortunately, the reprieve would be short-lived.
8
The tinny voicescoming through Ryan’s phone speaker were loud, urgent, and overlapping. He thumbed down the volume, not for the first time, and gave Leilah an apologetic smile in the smudged mirror that hung, not entirely straight, over the dresser.
She shook her head and leaned forward toward the phone. As she moved, the stiff material of the hotel bedspread crinkled.
“Omar!” she shouted her brother’s name over the cacophony of male voices, then waited.
The din subsided, and Ryan met her eyes with an approving look.
Omar’s agitated voice came through the speaker. “Yeah, sis?”
“We’re sorry we didn’t answer anyone’s calls after you found Marie. Like Ryan said, we were a little busy running for our lives.”
Jake cut in, but he had the decency to sound chagrined. “We hear you, Leilah. But we’ve been trying to reach both of you for nearly two hours. Was this really the first chance you had to call in?”
She eyed Ryan.
Fair enough. It had been his idea to wait until they’d left town to reach out to the team. He’d take the lumps for the decision.
“That was my call. My priority was putting as much distance between us and the armed goons as possible. And heading someplace where we wouldn’t be so conspicuous.”
Omar cleared his throat. “Sure, but be honest. That’s not the only reason.”
Ryan frowned at the phone, puzzled. “Meaning?”
“Meaning I know you, bro. You also didn’t want anyone to rush into a gun battle half-cocked. Am I right?”
“By anyone, do you mean you?”
“Hayes,” Omar growled through the phone.
Leilah arched an eyebrow at him, and he raised his shoulders.
“It’s possible I was concerned that if I called and told you someone wrecked your sister’s car so they could take a shot at us, you might react without thinking it through.”
Her expression told Ryan that she agreed with his assessment.
