Pinups and Possibilities (16 page)

“Are we there yet?”

“Not quite, buddy,” I replied, and pulled us onto the highway once more.

For exactly forty-eight minutes, I used every ounce of willpower I had to keep my eyes on the road and my mind away from the thought of Polly’s mouth pressed against mine.

I slumped down in my seat and pretended to be asleep. The emotions rolling around just under the surface were almost too much to bear.

The last time I’d seen Howell, I’d known it was goodbye. But I didn’t expect it to be because he’d died on my behalf.

His face had been kind and proud as he undid the blood pressure cuff from my arm and pronounced me healthy.

“Is that a tear?” I had teased, afraid that if I didn’t keep things light, I’d break down completely.

“I’m an old man,” he replied. “Our eyes leak all the time.”

“Is that your medical opinion?”

Usually a jibe about his former life was enough to spark a reaction, but Howell just grunted. He crossed the room to peer into the soft-sided bassinet beside the single mattress. He gazed into it.

“You’re sure you want to call him Jayme?” he asked.

“I’m sure.”

Howell stood there for a moment longer, and I knew his mind wasn’t on my infant son, but on the little boy whose life he’d lost on the operating table so many years earlier. The past four months—three pregnant and one as a new mother—had given me plenty of time to piece together Howell’s story.

As a doctor, practising in his home town in the UK, Howell had fallen prey to a cycle of prescription drug abuse. Uppers to stay awake for the long shifts. Downers to help him sleep when he wasn’t working.

At the end of a particularly trying day, Howell was assigned an emergency heart surgery on a newborn boy. The surgery went poorly, and in the course of the investigation into the boy’s death, Howell’s drug habits came to light.

Jayme was the baby’s first name.

Faster than he could blink, Howell was being charged with negligent homicide. He’d panicked. He’d run. And in came Cohen, offering something that passed for sanctuary. Before long, Howell was in over his head, privy to too many crimes to count and an accessory after the fact in ninety percent of them. Twenty years was a long time to dwell on that kind of past. Howell had saved my life. And my son’s. He deserved to have a good memory attached the name.

“It’s fitting, don’t you think?” I asked softly.

Howell didn’t agree, but he didn’t argue, either.

“You need to go now,” he told me.

“I know.”

I stood, and I took my time gathering my things. I wanted to give Howell as much time with my son as possible. But it only took me a minute to collect my purse, my small suitcase and the diaper bag.

“You can stop standing there staring at me,” Howell stated in a gruff voice.

He said it without turning away from Jayme. After just a moment, his hand found its way into the bassinet to stroke my son’s cheek.

I smiled to myself and reached into my purse to pull out the single photograph I had inside.

“I want you to have this,” I said.

Howell’s hand closed over mine, and his eyes sought my face.

“Thank you.”

Even though tears were pricking my eyes, I laughed. “You’re giving me my life back. I’m giving you a picture. There’s nothing to thank me for.”

“Let’s just hope it works.”

A little shiver went down my spine.

“It will,” I replied with more confidence than I felt.

But a small voice in my head wondered if it would.

* * *

“You all right?”

As quiet as Painter’s voice was, it still made me jump. I glanced at the clock in the dash, and realized it was the first time he—or anyone else, for that matter—had spoken in almost an hour.

Jayme.

My eyes flicked to the rearview in a moment of panic, but it subsided quickly as I saw that he was flipping contentedly through a comic book he’d unearthed from his backpack and smiling to himself as he mouthed the words.

We’re safe,
I reminded myself, and ignored the small voice that wanted to add,
For now.

“Polly?”

“Yes?”

“He asked if you were all right,” Jayme piped up.

I swallowed. “I’m fine.” It was mostly true.

For now.

The hum of the Mustang slowed as we approached the outskirts of a midsize town, then came to a purring stop as Painter pulled us into a pitch-black shopping mall parking lot. The car dealership was right across the street, and it was a dead ringer for Barry’s, right down to the cracked, bulb-less sign and the inflatable—but totally deflated—gorilla. If it wasn’t so eerie, it might’ve been funny. But I couldn’t shake the goosebumps along my arms, and I sure as hell couldn’t make myself smile.

“What’s the plan?” I asked.

He nodded his head toward the dealership. “I’ll go in, stake out the perimeter and make note of any security measures in place. If there’s going to be a problem, I’ll come back and let you know. Otherwise, I’ll go ahead and pick the least shiny van in the bunch. I’ll roll it out to the street, load you guys in, roll the Mustang into the van’s place and we’ll drive off into the sunset. Or in this case…the sunrise.”

He sounded so sure of himself and so matter of fact that I almost believed him. I wanted to. Desperately. But insecurity crept back in before I could stop it.

“What if it doesn’t work?”

The words so closely echoed the end of my last conversation with Howell that my heart dropped in my chest and panic gripped me. I twisted my dress in my hands and held it between my fingers so Painter wouldn’t see how badly they shook.

“It
will
work,” Painter replied.

“How can you be sure?”

One of his hands found my fingers and pried it free from my dress. His eyes drifted to Jayme before seeking mine once more.

“Polly,” he said seriously, “It will work because it has to.”

Painter touched my hand to his mouth, then swung open the door and disappeared across the parking lot.

For maybe twenty minutes, I waited for him to finish his assessment of the car lot’s security system and report back. Jayme was content to flip through his comic book, but my restlessness quickly got the better of me. I had to step outside.

“Baby,” I murmured to my son. “I’m going to get some fresh air.”

He looked up from his reading and squinted at me. “You want me to come?”

For a second I was tempted. In the cool night, he’d be cold and he’d want to cuddle, and his nearness, the reminder that he was still a little boy…it would be reassuring.

And selfish.

I shrugged off the need to draw Jayme near and shook my head. “No, sweetheart. I just need to stretch my legs.”

“’Kay.”

“’Kay,” I agreed, and let myself out of the car.

The air was almost thick, like rain waiting to happen, and my nerves were so bad that I wanted to bite my nails, a habit I’d kicked within three months of being out of Cohen’s grasp. I paced the length of my car, trying to calm the racing of my heart.

Where are you, Painter?

I paced the length of the car, then paused. I reached into my purse to grab my cell phone so I could check the time before remembering that I no longer had a phone. Neither of us did. Too much of a risk. Too easy to be tracked.

But I wished right then that I
could
track Painter.

I slumped against the Mustang and slid to the ground in a moment of defeat.

“He’s just being thorough.” I said it out loud because the sound of my voice made it seem more real.

As if the universe sensed I couldn’t take the wait anymore, Painter’s voice, both startling and reassuring at the same time, carried through the air from behind me.

“Little help!”

I jumped up to see that he was beside a rusty, tank-shaped minivan. He had stopped between two plastic barriers at the end of the parking lot with the driver’s side door open and only the top of his head was visible. With a quick glance at Jayme, I jogged toward him.

“I thought you were going to come right back! What happened?”

“I got bit by a Rottweiler and had to bypass a laser security system. But it was no big deal.”

“Not funny,” I retorted. “I was actually worried.”

“Can we fight about it later?”

I could hear the grin in his voice, and I narrowed my eyes. “No. Because I’m mad
now
.”

He grunted and exhaled. “It was simple alarm. Passcode 1-2-3-4. I shut it off and took the van.”

“You could’ve come back and told me.”

“Polly?”

“What?” I snapped.

“This van is a brute. It’s heavy as hell and I’m on a bit of an incline here. Either my arms are going to give up or they’re going to fall off, and either way, I’m going to wind up as a pavement pancake.”

“Serves you right,” I grumbled.

But I pushed the plastic barriers aside anyway, then got behind the van to give it an extra shove. It really was heavy. And as we rolled it toward the Mustang, I was impressed that Painter had been able to get it so far on his own. I almost opened my mouth to say so. Then I remembered how annoyed I was. Before I could remind him of it, though, Painter came to the back of the van, grabbed my shoulder and spun me so that I had no choice but to meet his gaze.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“It’s fine,” I lied.

“No, it’s not,” he stated firmly. “You’ve been alone for a long time. I get that.”

“You—”

He cut me off with a sudden, rough kiss. Two days of stubble rubbed my lips and my knees were suddenly weak and my heart began to hammer in my chest. When Painter finally released me, I had to grab the van to keep from collapsing.

“I do get it, Polly.” The raw emotion in Painter’s voice perfectly matched the yearning in my body. “You haven’t had anyone to believe in for years. You wake up in the morning and wonder if you’d made one different choice, changed one left turn for a right, or thought about something for five minutes more…would it have sent your life in another direction? A better direction? You wonder every day if the things that have gone wrong are your fault and why no one else notices how many secrets you’re hiding.”

My mouth opened, then closed again without a word.

Painter reached for my face and traced a line along my chin like he’d done it a thousand times before. In the near dark, his green eyes shone with undisguised intensity.

“It’s been the same for me,” he admitted. “And until two days ago, I haven’t had to answer to anyone but Cohen in half a decade. I’m not used to thinking of someone else before I make a move. So like I said…I’m sorry. I don’t want you to have to worry about those things with me,” he said softly. “Do you forgive me?”

“I—”

Painter leaned down and locked his lips on mine again. His hands dug into my hair. He kissed me until I was breathless once more.

“Please?” he said.

He pulled away and shot me a puppy-dog stare that was at odds with his generally hard exterior. It stirred a desire to protect him. To do whatever it was he was asking for. If only I could remember exactly what that was. I stared at his face, caressing the chiselled line of his jaw with my mind and losing myself in his hopeful gaze.

He was asking for forgiveness, dummy,
I chastised myself.

“Yes,” I managed to get out.

As I snaked my arms around his neck and leaned up for another kiss, a resounding crack echoed from the direction of the Mustang. I spun quickly, but Painter was even faster. In a blur, he shot from my side.

“Jayme!” I called out.

I rounded the van. Shattered red plastic dotted the ground at the rear of Painter’s car. Frantically, I sought out my son. His small form was pressed down on the backseat, hands covering his ears and eyes shut tightly.

He’s okay. Just scared.

I breathed out a temporarily relieved sigh. Then the trunk of the Mustang swung partway open and any relief I felt evaporated.

Painter was already there, his strong arms gripping the metal and trying to forced it closed. I stood frozen to the spot, watching in horror as the trunk bounced against him as Smith tried to kick it open.

Painter’s holler brought me out of my stupor. “Get your kid! Get him now!”

Quickly, I closed the gap between myself and the Mustang, popped open the door and folded the front seat forward. My hands closed on Jayme’s shaking shoulders. His eyes opened briefly.

“Mommy?”

“C’mon, baby. We’re going.”

My son’s skinny arms shot out and as soon as they were firmly around my neck, I lifted him from the car. Then I grabbed my bag and backed up toward the van.

“The key!” Painter yelled, his voice strained. “My pocket!”

I slid open the side door of the van, pried Jayme’s hands away from me, and deposited him and the bag on the wide seat there. I murmured something reassuring, then slid the door shut again. Without thinking too hard on the fact that I was about to get
closer
to the dangerous man in the trunk, I hurried to Painter’s side.

Sweat covered his brow and his muscles were rigid as he held the trunk lid in place. An angry, muffled string of curses carried out of the trunk. Painter ignored it.

“Van key,” he grunted. “Fast as you can. Left side.”

I stuck my hand into his left front pocket and yanked out the dealership key ring with the single key attached.

“Go,” Painter commanded.

“I’m not leaving you here.”

“Go!”

“Painter…”

“Please, Polly. You need to be in that van with Jayme buckled up and the engine running,” he said in a soft way that directly contradicted the forceful set of his jaw.

He was right. But that didn’t mean I had to like it. The thought of abandoning Painter to fight off Smith on his own filled me with dread. And a terrible amount of guilt.

“Aaaaaaaah!”

The furious scream was accompanied by a push violent enough to jar one of Painter’s hands free. As he lost half of his tenuous grip, a wiry arm appeared from under the crack in the trunk. It finally spurred me to move away. I darted for the van, jumped in the driver’s seat and slammed the key into the ignition. I had to turn it over three times before it roared to life.