The vision of a beat-up brown van flashed through her mind, along with a snippet of conversation.
I have to go to Iowa tomorrow.
Iowa! Surely you’re not driving there.
I drive everywhere.
Preston was leaving town today. He was going far, far away. And he had a van.
He might be her only chance to escape.
But it was nearly eleven o’clock. What if she’d already missed him?
PRESTON HOLMAN BLINKED at the ceiling overhead. He needed to think of five good reasons to get up. That was the exercise, wasn’t it? The therapist he’d seen at his ex-wife’s insistence had told him to face each new day by making his list of five.
He glanced at the gun on the dresser. As usual, he could think of only one. Ironically, it was the same thing that had caused his divorce. But it got him out of bed every day.
Rolling off the mattress, he landed on his feet, peeled off his boxer briefs and strode to the bathroom to take a quick shower. He might have suffered a setback yesterday when the pharmacist who knew Vince didn’t hear from him as he thought he might. But Gordon, the private investigator he’d hired to help him track Dr. Vince Wendell, had called afterward with better news. And even if this new lead didn’t work out, Preston would still find him—somehow, somewhere. Dallas was counting on him, and he wouldn’t let his son down again, regardless of the cost.
A knock echoed through the room before he could start the water. He didn’t generally receive visitors. He’d quit associating with friends and family over a year ago—about the time he started carrying a gun.
It had to be Maude. She was the only person he knew who refused to notice or care that he didn’t want to be bothered. He supposed that in some perverse way he liked her motherly clucking. After all, he’d been searching the state of Nevada for months and always came back here.
Pulling on a pair of jeans, he fastened the buttons and shoved his gun in a drawer.
A shaft of sunlight blinded him as he opened the door, reminding him that he should’ve been up hours ago. He would’ve been, if it hadn’t taken him until five in the morning to fall asleep.
Raising a hand to shield his eyes, he blinked when he realized two people stood on his stoop—and Maude wasn’t one of them.
“Can I help you?” Keeping his gaze firmly affixed to the pretty woman he’d met last night, he refused to acknowledge the stocky, all-American boy at her side.
She dropped four quarters in her son’s hand and asked him to run to the office to see if Maude would sell him a diet soda.
The boy trotted off, and she gave Preston a hesitant smile, which faded quickly when he didn’t return it. “I’m sorry to bother you, but…”
“What?” he prompted when her words faltered.
Her eyes drifted to his bare chest. Then she lifted her chin. “I heard you say to Maude last night that you’re heading to Iowa today. Is that true?”
It was his turn to grow leery. “Do I really want to answer that question?”
“Why not?”
“Because I can’t see where you’re going with it, which makes me a little uncomfortable.”
“I’m not going anywhere with it. Well, of course I am, but…” She wiped her palms on her expensive linen shorts before folding her arms in a jerky, nervous movement. “My car’s been stolen.”
“From here?” He stuck his head out to check the far corner where, for whatever reason, she’d parked her car last night. The white Taurus was gone, all right, but he had a hard time believing it’d been stolen. Fallon had very little crime. He typically left his keys in the van.
“Not here, exactly,” she clarified. “At Wal-Mart.”
“Are you sure you didn’t forget where you parked?”
Her lips thinned. “I didn’t forget where I parked. My car is gone and my luggage with it. Max and I had to walk three miles to get back here.”
“Do you need to use my phone to call your insurance agent or…something?” he asked, still at a loss. He didn’t know this woman. What could she possibly want from him?
“No.” Her nails made indentations in her arms, beneath her white, short-sleeved sweater. “My insurance agent won’t be able to help me.”
“Because…”
“I only carried liability coverage. My boyfriend and I recently split up and…and I couldn’t afford anything more comprehensive.”
Preston considered her troubled face. She had ice-blue eyes with golden lashes, a small, elegant nose, a generous mouth, and the most beautiful sun-kissed skin and long blond hair he’d ever seen. Was she using her looks and that bad-luck story to see how much she could take him for? She was probably accustomed to getting whatever she wanted.
But he wasn’t a good mark. He traveled light. And he carried a gun.
“I’d offer to let you call your family or a friend or someone else,” he said. “But something tells me you’re not here to use the phone.”
“No.”
“So…what, then?”
She glanced over at the dirty brown minivan he’d picked up at some two-bit used-car lot along the way. He’d fallen asleep at the wheel and wrecked his truck—the only thing he hadn’t given his wife in the divorce.
“Actually, I was hoping maybe we could hitch a ride with you.”
The moment of truth. “Hitch a ride where?” he asked.
“Iowa.”
“What?”
“You’ve got room.” She appealed to him with those incredible eyes, and for the first time, Preston noticed how pale and drawn she was under that tan. “I have family there—in Iowa, I mean.”
“We’re complete strangers!”
“I know.”
She was also too thin. But he couldn’t do anything for her. He couldn’t stand the idea of having her boy in the car. And the loaded weapon was something else entirely. “Forget it. Won’t work.”
“Why not?”
“It takes three days to get there.”
She grew more agitated. “What about Salt Lake City? That’s closer.”
He wasn’t taking her anywhere. He started to shake his head, but she grabbed his arm. “Please?”
Damn it! Preston closed his eyes. Since the tragedy that had changed his life, no one dared approach him, let alone ask him for a favor. He was too filled with rage, too hungry for vengeance; all that negative emotion made others uncomfortable. So how had he suddenly found himself in this predicament?
He opened his eyes to stare down at the hand still gripping his arm so beseechingly—and saw a nasty-looking sore. It was only the size of a nickel, but he was willing to bet it hurt like hell, and it didn’t seem to be healing.
Taking hold of her wrist so she couldn’t immediately recoil, he said, “Where’d you get this?”
Her eyes slid to the injury. “It was an accident.”
He made no effort to pretend he believed her. “An accident?”
“I bumped into my boyfriend