Get Lucky (17 page)

“I had to tie up a few ends at work before I could leave,” she explained.

Marc nodded, glancing around her living room and noticing her luggage stacked against the wall. “How long did you say you’d be gone?” he asked, and picked up her suitcase and overnight bag.

“A week.”

“What if you’re gone longer?”

He started to the door and she stared at his broad back, her insides throbbing with need after that incredible kiss. “My boss wasn’t thrilled I was leaving for a week.”

Marc didn’t comment but let the screen door close behind him as he took her luggage to his car. She was really going through with this. He had all her clothes and was putting them in his car. As her insides twisted, she admitted to some excitement in being with Marc nonstop over the next few days.

“Where are those pictures?” he asked when he came back inside. “Did you pack them? I want to see them.”

“They’re in here.”

“Were you not going to bring them?” he asked.

London glanced over her shoulder when he followed her into her bedroom. His expression was harder than it had been when he greeted her. The bounty hunter she imagined him being stood before her in the flesh, strong, powerful, and focused.

“Honestly, I didn’t want them in with my clothes. I have all of them here.” There was something creepy about them she didn’t like.

London picked up the stack of large envelopes off her dresser and handed them to him, then walked around him and turned on her bedroom light. “Have you heard of a James Huxtable?” she asked when Marc sat on her bed and let the first group of pictures slip into his hand.

“No. Why?” He looked up at her for a moment before returning his attention to the pictures.

“He’s a private detective who showed up at the lodge the other day and asked me about my parents.”

That got Marc’s attention. “When did he come talk to you?” he asked, looking at her instead of the pictures.

“The first time was the day you left.” Which was a good thing. The look on Marc’s face was enough to let her know Marc would have bullied the PI and possibly even made a scene if he felt London’s honor needed to be defended. “He showed up again this morning,” she continued. “It was strange. The first day he showed up he told me my parents were on the most wanted list and wanted to know if I knew where they were.”

“The most wanted list? Which one?” Marc asked.

“I didn’t know there was more than one,” she said, shaking her head and pulling her gaze from Marc’s. “But this morning when he showed up again I decided I didn’t want him harassing me at work, even if I am leaving. I confronted him and asked if he knew where my parents were. He told me he guessed one of the game players had taken them, but he didn’t know which one. What kind of answer is that?”

“One of the game players?” Marc asked, suddenly sounding angry. “What is this guy’s name?”

“James Huxtable. His card is in my purse. Not that it says much. Just a name and his number.” She hadn’t meant to blurt out the bit about her parents being on the most wanted list. Marc had picked up on it, commented on it, and would ask her about her parents again. He wasn’t the kind of man to ignore a detail, under any circumstances. Oddly enough, she wanted him to know everything. She didn’t want to shoulder all of this by herself anymore. For now, though, London was cool with the conversation swaying away from the subject of her parents.

“Let me see his business card.”

London left him in her room with the pictures and went to the living room, where she’d left her purse. When she returned with the business card in hand, Marc was holding up two of the pictures, comparing them to each other.

“Do you know this place?” he asked, glancing at her over the eight-by-tens.

London sat down next to him and he made room on the side of the bed for her, then held up the two pictures she’d received with the note saying her parents were gone.

“What place?” she asked.

“Look at the buildings in the background. Have you ever been there?”

London frowned. She’d focused on her parents in each of the shots, comparing how they looked to the last time she’d seen them. She hadn’t given a lot of attention to the background in the shots. Both her mom and dad in each picture stood in between two men who had their heads down. They were walking toward the camera, or so it appeared. London narrowed her gaze on each shot, studying the street they were on and the row of businesses partially visible behind them in each shot.

“I don’t think so. Why?”

“Just curious.” He put the pictures back in their envelope and took the business card out of her hand. “Jake and I recognized the buildings in the background, which is what took us to Arizona and then, curiously enough, got us shot at and Jake injured. I’m searching for similarities between our situation and yours and wondered if you’d by chance been there, too.”

He flipped the business card over in his hand, stared at the blank back side, and flipped it again. “It’s just his name and a phone number.”

“I found that odd, too. I don’t even know where he’s from.”

Marc shook his head and grunted, handing the card back to her. “Let’s get going. I’ll drive for a while and let you take the helm once I run out of juice.”

London worked to calm her nerves by talking. She assured herself again and again she’d worked her way out of worse ordeals in her lifetime. Marc could be trusted. She’d seen the Web site advertising his family business and had called the number on it to reach him. None of that knowledge helped soothe her nerves when she sat next to him in his vintage Mustang and drove out of Aspen.

“So were the pictures you received similar to mine?” she asked once they were on the interstate heading south.

“Identical. Especially the notes. Down to the same font. I’d bet good, hard money they were sent from the same source.”

“God. Weird,” she whispered, studying her fingers in her lap. “What would your parents possibly have in common with mine?”

“That’s what I want to find out.” He looked over at her, studying her for a moment.

London didn’t look back at him. Instead, sighing, she stared out the window so she wouldn’t see him at all, not even through her peripheral vision. “Are your parents good people?” she asked, deciding if they were going to compare notes, he would start.

“The best.” He didn’t hesitate. “Dad was a cop with LAPD for twenty years. When he retired he started his own business. Jake and I jumped on the bandwagon almost at the same time. We’re licensed bounty hunters in the state of California.”

“So you can’t be a bounty hunter anywhere else?” she asked.

“We don’t usually have to cross the state line. We go after those who skip out on their court dates or violate their probations. Most of them don’t get out of the city before we bring them down. I can count only a couple times when we’ve had to leave the state.”

“Then what do you do?” She looked back at him, curious about his work. If she could keep the topic off her parents, everything would be okay. London really didn’t want to lie to him. But at the same time, telling anyone, especially Marc, what kind of people her parents were would cut her to the core. Admitting they could be on the most wanted list spoke volumes, and she hoped would satisfy him for now.

“We’ve been known to work with the local law. It hasn’t happened too many times.” He leaned back in his seat, yawning. “I’ve got a thermos of coffee behind the seat. Would you mind?”

“I can drive.” She twisted against her seat belt and found the thermos.

“Do you know how to drive a stick?”

London laughed, thinking of the many different cars she had driven before being old enough to have a driver’s license. “I can drive anything,” she promised.

They pulled into a roadside rest stop and London stood on her side of the car, stretching and squinting against the sunny sky. The air was crisp, and snow covered the ground in patches. There were a few other travelers, none parked too close and all going about their business, ignoring her and Marc. It was a quick, hard rush she hadn’t anticipated, being on the road, no one around her giving her a thought. Every time they’d taken off when she was a kid, London had listened to her parents as they grew eager for the next town, discussed the golden opportunities awaiting them there. London had shared their excitement, not knowing any better or any different. The same rush of excitement attacked her now.

“God, you’re sexy.” Marc wrapped his arms around her from behind before she finished stretching.

London jumped but smiled when she tried twisting in his arms. “I admit I’ve enjoyed the view you’ve been offering, too,” she said.

His blue eyes matched the color of the sky. “Have you, now?” he said, his voice dropping to a husky drawl. “You were a thousand miles away just now. What’s on your mind, London?”

“Oh gee. I don’t know. Maybe that I just left my job and home to travel to another state with a man I just met, all because I’ve received pictures in the mail of my parents whom I haven’t seen in years.”

His expression grew solemn as he searched her face. When he touched her cheek, there was something so incredibly gentle and comforting about it, London closed her eyes, unwilling to let herself drown in his gaze. Marc would sweep her off her feet without even trying; then she’d have no one to blame but herself.

“As intense as all of that sounds, there’s more to it than that,” he said, continuing to stroke her cheek with his fingers.

“Oh, lovely,” she said, wrinkling her nose and making a face when she opened her eyes and looked up at him. “Do tell. I love a good mystery.”

He smiled and she saw how tired he was when the sun highlighted the dark shadows under his eyes.

“First, let’s do that bathroom run,” she added, thinking the sooner he got some sleep in the car the better it would be. Not to mention, standing so close to him with his hands on her as they were made her ache to have sex with him. She didn’t know when that would happen so she didn’t want to get herself worked up about it.

They were back in the car and Marc finally accepted that she wouldn’t wreck his car and relaxed in the passenger seat when London’s cell phone rang. He jerked his head up, looking around the car as she gestured behind her seat.

“My purse,” she indicated, pointing behind her seat. “My phone is in my purse.”

Marc pulled her purse into his lap and opened it, finding her phone and glancing at the screen before handing it to her. “Can you talk hands free?” he asked.

“If I put it on speaker.” She saw Meryl’s name on the screen and took the call. “Hi, Meryl. Hold on; I need to put you on speaker.”

Marc turned down the heater in the car and returned to his reclined position, although London doubted he was trying to fall asleep.

“Hey, girl, how are you doing?” Meryl sounded cheerful as usual. “I figured I would check up on you, make sure everything is okay.”

London couldn’t help smiling. She hadn’t elaborated on anything before leaving. Meryl was insightful enough to know this was a unique type of adventure and wanted to make sure London was all right. It felt good having a friend, knowing someone out there cared about her.

“You’re such a sweetheart,” she said, grinning at her phone, which she held in between her fingers while holding on to the steering wheel. “And I’m doing fine. We stopped at a roadside stop and now I’m driving.”

“Okay. I won’t keep you. This guy asked about you after you left. He seemed surprised you left work.”

Marc rolled his head on his seat, glancing at her and then the phone.

“Who was it?” London asked.

“He said his name was James Huxtable. He said you two were friends, but I’d never seen him before.”

“We’re not friends and don’t tell him I left town. If he asks about me again tell him I’m home sick, or something,” London said.

“You’ve got it. I figured he wasn’t telling me the truth. There was something about him I didn’t trust. You know I’m good at reading people.”

“The best,” London said, and couldn’t help agreeing with her. There was something strange about James Huxtable. “Feel free to call again if you need to,” she added before saying good-bye.

“You don’t want a private detective knowing you’re out of town?” Marc asked when she’d dropped her phone into her purse, which was still on his lap.

She took her purse from him and slipped it behind her seat. “I agree with Meryl. I don’t trust him.”

“Why not?”

“He was very evasive, wouldn’t answer my questions, and when he did he spoke in riddles. Worse yet, he knew he was talking in riddles and seemed to get off on how it frustrated me.”

“Sounds like a creep.” Marc didn’t elaborate but closed his eyes.

Eventually London started exploring Marc’s car, learning how to work the radio and then finding his CD collection and popping a classic rock compilation into the CD player. Marc’s breathing slowed and grew raspy. He never started snoring, but his heavy breathing let her know he was finally sound asleep. She kept the volume low and sang under her breath to Eric Clapton while enjoying the drive and beautiful day. The peaceful surroundings didn’t completely relax her thoughts, though. London couldn’t help wondering what more there was to the story that Marc had mentioned at the roadside stop.