Judith McNaught (20 page)

concerned about making a fashion statement!

"What," he repeated determinedly, "did you mean?"

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She was on the verge of an angry retort when two things occurred to her at once—that it was insane to deliberately antagonize an armed man and that if she could make him relax his guard by indulging in small

talk with him, her chances to either escape or get out of this alive would be vastly improved. Trying to inject a polite, neutral tone into her voice, she drew a long breath and said without taking her eyes from the road, "I noticed your jeans were new."

"What did that have to do with your deciding to offer me a ride?"

Bitterness at her own gullibility filled Julie's voice.

"Since you didn't have a car and you implied you didn't

have a job, I assumed you must be having a hard time financially. Then you said you were hoping to get a

new job, and I noticed the crease in your jeans…"

Her voice trailed off when she realized with a disgusted jolt that instead of the nearly destitute man she'd thought him to be he was actually a megamillionaire movie star.

"Go on," he prodded, his voice tinged with puzzlement.

"I leapt to the obvious conclusion, for heaven's sake!

I figured you'd bought new jeans so you could make a good impression on your employer, and I imagined how important that must have been to you while you were buying them in the store and how much hope you must have been feeling when you bought them, and I-I couldn't bear the thought that your hope was going to be trashed if I didn't offer you

a ride. So even though I've never picked up a hitchhiker in my life, I couldn't stand to see you miss having

your chance."

Zack was not only stunned, he was unwillingly touched. Kindness like hers, a kindness that also required

some kind of personal risk or sacrifice, had been absent from his existence for all the years he'd spent in

prison. And even before that, he realized. Shoving the unsettling thought aside, he said, "You envisioned

all that from a crease in a pair of jeans? You've got one hell of an imagination," he added with a sardonic

shake of his head.

"I'm obviously a bad judge of character, too," Julie said bitterly. From the corner of her eye, she saw his left arm swing toward her and she jumped, muffling a scream before she realized he was only holding out a cup of coffee from the thermos. In a quiet tone that almost seemed to carry an apology for adding to her fright, he said, "I thought this might help."

"I'm not in the slightest danger of falling asleep at the wheel, thanks to you."

"Drink some anyway," Zack ordered, determined to ease her terror even while he knew his presence was the source of it. "It will—" he hesitated, feeling at a loss for words, and added, "It will make things seem more normal."

Julie turned her head and gaped at him, her expression making it eloquently clear she found his

"concern"

for her not only completely revolting, but insane.

She was on the verge of telling him that, but she remembered the gun in his pocket, so she took the coffee in a shaking hand and turned away from him, sipping it and staring at the road ahead.

Beside her, Zack watched the telltale trembling of the coffee cup as she raised it to her lips, and he felt a

ridiculous urge to apologize for terrifying her like this. She had a lovely profile he thought, studying her

face in the light of the dashboard, with a small nose and stubborn chin and high cheekbones. She also had

magnificent eyes, he decided, thinking of the way they'd shot sparks at him a few minutes ago.

Spectacular eyes. He felt a sharp stab of guilty shame for using and frightening this innocent girl who'd

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been trying to be a good Samaritan—and because he had every intention of continuing to use her, he felt like the animal everybody believed he was. To silence his conscience, he resolved to make things as easy

on her as he possibly could, which led him to decide to engage her in further conversation.

He'd noticed she wore no wedding ring, which meant she wasn't married. He tried to remember what

people—civilized people on the "outside"—talked about for idle conversation, and he finally said, "Do you like teaching?"

She turned again, her incredible eyes wide with suppressed antagonism. "Do you expect me," she uttered in disbelief, "to engage in polite
small talk
with you?"

"Yes!" he snapped, irrationally angry at her reluctance to let him make amends. "I do. Start talking!"

"I love teaching," Julie shot back shakily, hating how easily he could intimidate her. "How far do you intend for me to drive you?" she demanded as they passed a sign that said the Oklahoma border was twenty miles away.

"Oklahoma," Zack said, half-truthfully.

"
W
e're in Oklahoma," Julie pointed out the instant they drove past the sign announcing they were there.

He shot her a look of grim amusement. "I see that."

"Well? Where do you want to get out?"

"Keep driving."

"Keep driving?" she cried in nervous fury. "Now look, you miserable— I'm not driving you all the way to

Colorado!"

Zack had his answer, she knew where he was going.

"I won't do it!" Julie warned shakily, unaware that she had just sealed her fate. "I can't."

With an inner sigh at the battle she was bound to wage, he said, "Yes, Ms. Mathison, you can. And you

will."

His unflappable calm was the last straw. "Go to hell!" Julie cried, swinging the steering wheel hard to the

right before he could stop her and sending the vehicle careening onto the shoulder as she slammed on the

brakes and brought it to a lurching stop. "Take the car!" she pleaded. "Take it and leave me here. I won't

tell anyone I've seen you or where you're going. I swear I won't tell anyone."

Zack reined in his temper and tried to soothe her with an attempt at levity. "In the movies, people always

promise that same thing," he remarked conversationally, glancing over his shoulder at the cars flying past.

"I've always thought it sounded asinine."

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"This isn't the movies!"

"But you do agree that it
is
an absurd promise," he argued with a slight smile. "You know it is. Admit it, Julie."

Shocked that he was apparently trying to
tease
her as if they were friends, Julie stared at him in furious silence, knowing he was right about the promise being ridiculous, but refusing to admit it.

"You can't really expect me to believe," he continued, his voice softening a little, "that you'd let me get

away with kidnapping you and stealing your car and then be so grateful to me for doing both that you'd keep a promise to me you made under extreme duress? Doesn't that sound a little insane to you?"

"Do you expect me to debate psychology with you when my whole life is at stake!" she burst out.

"I realize you're afraid, but your life isn't at stake unless you put it there. You aren't in any danger unless

you create it."

Perhaps it was exhaustion or the low timbre of his voice or the steadiness of his gaze, but as Julie looked

at his solemn features, she found herself almost believing him.

"I don't want you to get hurt," he continued, "and you won't, as long as you don't do anything that attracts attention to me and alerts the law—"

"In which case," Julie interrupted bitterly, snapping out of her trance, "you will blow my brains out with your gun. That's very comforting, Mr. Benedict.

Thank you."

Zack held his temper in check and explained, "If the cops catch up with me, they'll have to kill me, because I'm not going to surrender. Given the vigilante mentality of most cops, there's a good chance

you'll be hurt or killed in the fray. I don't want that to happen. Can you understand that?"

Furious with herself for being subdued by empty gentle words from a ruthless murderer, Julie jerked her

gaze from his and stared out the front window. "Do you actually think you can convince me you're Sir Galahad and not a depraved monster?"

"Evidently not," he said irritably.

When she refused to look at him again, Zack gave an impatient sign and said curtly, "Stop sulking and start driving. I need to find a roadside telephone at one of these exits."

The moment his voice chilled, Julie realized how foolish she'd been to ignore his "friendly" overture and

antagonize him. What she probably ought to be doing, she belatedly decided as she pulled back out onto

the highway, was fooling him into believing she was resigned to going along with him. As the snowflakes danced in front of her headlights, her mind began to calm and she thought carefully about possible ways out of her predicament, because it now seemed horribly likely that he was going to force her to drive him

through Colorado as well as Oklahoma. Finding a means to foil his plan and get away became not only a

necessity, but a downright challenge. To do that, she knew she had to be objective and to keep all traces of fright and fury from clouding her thoughts. She should be able to do that, Julie reminded herself bracingly. After all, she was no sheltered, unworldly, pampered hothouse flower. She'd spent the first eleven years of her life on the streets of Chicago and done just fine! Chewing on her lower lip, she decided to try to think of her ordeal as if it were merely a plot in one of the mystery novels she loved to

read. She'd always felt some of the heroines in those novels behaved with sublime stupidity, which was
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what she'd been doing by antagonizing her captor, she decided. A clever heroine would do the opposite, she'd be devious and find ways to make Benedict relax his guard completely. If he did that, her chances

to escape—and get him returned to prison where he belonged—would be dramatically increased. To accomplish that goal, she could try to pretend she was coming to think of this nightmare as an adventure,

maybe she could even pretend to be on the side of her captor, which would require a stellar performance, but she was willing to try.

Despite her grave misgivings about her ability to succeed, Julie suddenly felt a welcome calm and determination sweep through her, banishing her fear and leaving her head clearer. She waited several moments before speaking, so that her capitulation wouldn't seem too sudden and suspicious to him, then

she drew a steadying breath and tried to inject a rueful note into her voice: "Mr. Benedict," she said, actually managing to cast him a slight, sideways smile, "I appreciate what you said about not intending to

hurt me. I didn't mean to be sarcastic. I was afraid, that's all."

"And now you aren't afraid?" he countered, his voice laced with skepticism.

"Well, yes," Julie hastened to assure him. "But not nearly so much. That's what I meant."

"May I inquire what brought about this sudden transformation? What were you thinking about while you

were so quiet?"

"A book," she said because it seemed safe. "A mystery."

"One you've read? Or one you're thinking about writing?"

Her mouth opened, but no words came out, and then she realized he'd inadvertently handed her the perfect means to his own defeat. "I've always wanted to write a mystery someday," she improvised madly, "and it occurred to me that this could be, well, first-hand research."

"I see."

She darted another glance at him and was startled by the warmth of his smile. This devil could charm a snake, she realized, recalling that same smile from the days when it had flashed across movie screens and

raised the temperature of the entire female audience.

"You are a remarkably brave young woman, Julie."

She choked her irate demand to be called Ms.

Mathison. "Actually, I'm the world's greatest coward,

Mr.—"

"My name is Zack," he interrupted, and in his impassive tone she sensed a return of his suspicion.

"Zack," she hastily agreed. "You're quite right. We ought to use first names, since we're apparently going

to be together for—?"

"A while," he provided, and Julie made a Herculean effort to conceal her frustrated fury at his oblique reply.

"A while," she agreed, careful to keep her tone neutral. "Well, that's probably long enough for you to

help me with some preliminary research," she hesitated, thinking of what to ask him. "Would you, well,

consider giving me some insight into what prison is really like. That would be helpful for my story."

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"Would it?"

He was scaring the hell out of her with the subtle, ever-changing nuances in his voice. Never before had

she known a man or woman who could convey so much with imperceptible changes in his voice, nor had

she heard a voice like his in her life. It had a rich baritone timbre that could switch instantly and unaccountably from polite to amused to icy and ominous. In answer to his question, Julie nodded vigorously, trying to counteract his skeptical tone by injecting energy and conviction in her own.

"Absolutely." In a flash of inspiration, she realized that if he thought she might be on his side, he'd be even

more likely to lower his guard. "I've heard that a lot of innocent people get sent to prison. Were you innocent?"

"Every convict claims he's innocent."

"Yes, but are you?" she persisted, dying for him to say he was so she could pretend to believe him.

"The jury said I was guilty."

"Juries have been wrong before."

"Twelve honest, upstanding citizens," he replied in a voice suddenly iced with loathing, "decided I was."

"I'm sure they tried to be objective."

"Bullshit!" he said so furiously that Julie's hands tightened on the steering wheel under a fresh onslaught of

fear and dread. "They convicted me of being rich and famous!" he snapped. "I watched their faces during

the trial, and the more the district attorney raved about my privileged life and the amoral standards of Hollywood, the more that jury wanted my blood!