“Well, I can certainly understand why you’d think that.”
“They said it was your father’s idea. To keep a closer eye on you.” He thought her gaze hardened at that. “Then I overheard the plan and realized you were in danger. Possibly.” He hesitated. This wasn’t the kind of thing you wanted to say to anybody, but it had to be said. “Your father wouldn’t... You just said you don’t want to go back to him. Is there a reason? Would he harm you?”
“That’s so ridiculous it doesn’t even deserve an answer.”
“You’re positive?”
She stalked off, leaving him staring for the moment at the spit and roar of the ocean. His heart raced out of control. He was on the rising edge of an adrenaline surge, the kind that he always rode through one of his capers.
He went after her.
She sat in the open side door of the van, putting on the little canvas shoes he’d brought her. They were red with big yellow silk ribbon, which she’d tied into a remarkable bow.
“You have impeccable taste,” she said, holding up one narrow foot, pointing the toe and striking a pose. She had the legs of a dancer, muscular and taut.
She also had the nerves of the best burglars in the business. He’d just informed her that her life was in danger and that her father might be behind the plan to get rid of her, and she was striking poses and taking playful jabs at his taste. Amazing.
“I used to think I had good taste,” he said. “Sometimes I wonder, princess. Come on. Let’s get another car. We’re too close to home to hang on to this one much longer.”
“And breakfast? I woke up this morning with a hankering—that’s an Americanism, isn’t if—for ham and eggs. With pancakes and syrup. And maybe toast and grape jelly.”
They ditched the van in a wooded area just past a collection of shops, then walked back there for breakfast. Ash ordered a bagel. Melina ordered everything she’d mentioned earlier, along with a large orange juice. She probably weighed all of a hundred and five pounds. Yet she’d outeaten him the night before and now again this morning. She’d done the same thing in London. She ate the same way she soaked up life, like a starving person invited to a banquet.
Why was this happening to him? he wondered. He’d managed, using every bit of willpower he possessed, to walk away from her once. Could he manage it again?
“We need a plan,” he said. That’s it. Focus on logic, on reason. “If you’re sure we can trust him, I suggest we call your father and—”
“Please.” She held up her hand to stop him. “I’d really rather not walk out on my food.”
“Why won’t you at least—”
“Besides, I have a plan.”
“I can hardly wait.”
She smiled. Her lips were sticky with maple syrup. She licked them with obvious relish. The tip of her tongue caught his eye and sent his pulse galloping.
“You’re not paying attention,” she said.
He tried to forget about her sweet lips, her teasing tongue. “Yes, I am.”
She grunted her disbelief. “I was saying I want us to tour the countryside.”
“Tour the—Melina, people want to kidnap you.”
“My father has been telling me that all my life. Maybe it’s even true. But I don’t care.” She dunked a forkful of pancake in syrup, drowning it. “I want to see Hollywood—the big sign, you know. And the desert. Las Vegas—maybe I could be a showgirl, do you think? I’m thin and I have long legs.”
“You’re five-two. You don’t have long legs.” He really didn’t need a conversation about her legs. He remembered them too well as it was.
“I don’t?” She popped the bite of pancake into her mouth and glanced down at her legs. “I always thought I did. Maybe it was being around Mother Aloysius. She was very short, I suppose. Under five feet I always felt statuesque around Mother Aloy-sius.”
“Well, you aren’t. You’re petite. You’re no match for the kind of men who—”
“Okay, forget Las Vegas. But there’s the Grand Canyon. And Texas. Do you suppose I could get a pair of hand-tooled boots? Now, if I had a pair of cowboy boots and a Stetson hat I would certainly be tall enough to—”
“Are you crazy? Look me straight in the eyes and tell me you’re not crazy.” If not, she was at the very least making him crazy. Because he was falling for it—for her, God forbid—all over again.
She paused, put her sweetly pointed chin in her palm and looked at him with dark-fringed eyes. She didn’t need makeup, stolen or otherwise.
“I’m not crazy,” she said. “I’m just making up for lost time.”
“Making up for lost time. You’ve had more advantages than ninety-nine point nine percent of the world and you want more. You are crazy ... and spoiled!”
She tossed her fork into her syrup-logged plate with a dull splat. She stood and snatched her sunglasses and hat off the table. “You don’t know the first thing about me.”
“That’s for sure! It’s hard to get to know a mirage, Mel.”
Her dark eyes snapped. “If I’m a mirage, what are you? Showing up in my life, disappearing, showing up again and snatching me right out from under the best security money can buy. Traipsing me down the California coast in stolen cars and pilfered—”
He slapped a twenty-dollar bill on the table, took her by the arm and directed her toward the door. “If you’re trying to attract the highway patrol, you’re doing a very good job,” he said between clenched teeth as they exited the restaurant.
She kept silent but snatched her arm out of his grasp. When they were almost out of the parking lot, her gait slowed, and then she came to a complete halt as she stared into the woods.
“Oh, my,” she said.
He followed her gaze. A black-and-silver Harley-Davidson was parked off the path, near a shed.
“Don’t even think about it,” he said.
“Oh, Ash.” She turned her best coaxing gaze on him.
“I know. You’ve never been on a motorcycle before.”
She smiled, all sign of her temper gone. Her emotions were as quick as summer lightning. “What fun.”
The way she said it held all kinds of promise. Not knowing what visions she had in her mind, Ash suddenly had plenty of his own. Her thighs pressed to his hips, her small, pointed breasts nudging his back, her excited breath in his ear.
He heaved an exasperated sigh.
“Just for a few miles,” she said.
“Mel, you don’t understand. People and their Harleys—this is asking for trouble.”
She pushed her sunglasses up and propped them on her head. “Ten miles. Five. Then we can trade it in for the most boring tan sedan you’ve ever seen. And we can make a plan. Whatever kind of plan you want.”
“Then you’ll call your father?”
“Not that plan. But any other plan.”
Ash knew when he was being had. But he simply couldn’t resist her.
He had to push the bike through the woods to another trail that led to the highway to avoid starting its engine close enough to attract the attention of the owner. And he was doing it, he reminded himself and her, on half a bagel and two cups of black