“Don’t just stand there, give me a hand here. He’s heavy.”
Nope, not squeamish. Damn vicious female.
She could at least pretend some feminine qualities. He really didn’t like bossy, overbearing women. Harry crossed his arms over his chest and studied her. “I’m sorry to disappoint you, miss, since you do seem rather set on your course, but I’m not up to killing a man.”
“Coward.” She heaved and pushed and dragged the body closer to the edge. “Besides, who says he’ll die?”
“Now listen here—”
She jerked upright, her face flushed, one thick wisp of glossy black hair now hanging over her right eye. “No, you listen! You got me involved in this with your damn nosiness and misplaced heroism. This is all your fault. The very least you can do is…is…” Her voice dropped off and she covered her face with her hands. Her shoulders shook.
Harry had the horrible suspicion she might be crying.
Good God. He hadn’t wanted her to be that female.
CHAPTER TWO
“DON’T YOU touch me.” Charlie stared at the behemoth coming toward her, his expression now bemused. She drew a deep breath, absolutely refusing to give in to her tears, her disappointment. She felt humiliated and decided most of it was his fault. She lifted her chin in the air and said with disdain, “You’ve done plenty, already.”
He held up his hands—very large, capable hands. “I’m sorry. But we don’t have time for this.” She started to speak, but then he put the gun in the back of his belt, and she wanted that gun, damn him. She didn’t trust him, didn’t trust anyone at this point, and needed to be able to protect herself. Whoever would have thought a simple Monday could get so dastardly confused?
After all her efforts to move Floyd—and she really did want to toss his body out—it took Harry only a second to heave him to the other end of the truck bed, well out of danger from falling out.
He pulled a knife from his own pocket, stripped off Floyd’s jacket, and proceeded to cut it up. He used the cloth strips to tie and gag Floyd in record time.
“Now.” He stood and dusted off his hands.
He seemed to have things well in control and that annoyed her anew. At first, he’d seemed too pretentious to get involved in a scuffle. But once he’d gotten involved, he’d been beyond impressive. It wasn’t what she’d expected of him at all.
She was used to being the one in control, the one people came to for help. This man acted as though getting kidnapped and held at gunpoint was a regular part of his workweek. “Now what?”
The truck shifted again and Harry braced himself before giving her a wary, probing look. “You’re not going to cry?”
“No.” Charlie almost laughed at his look of relief. She hadn’t figured him to be the type to fall apart over female tears. She gave him a sideways look. “How about you?”
He paused, stared at her a moment, then raised his brows. “I’m holding up. Completely dry-eyed.”
“Good, because I can’t stand blubbering men.”
He gave her a small smile—a very charming smile actually, and she was beyond shocked that she noticed. She ducked her chin to avoid looking at him.
“We’re on an incline,” he noted thoughtfully. He picked up his coat from the corner, shook it out, then slipped it back on. “Let me get the door open and see where we’re headed.”
Charlie bit her lip and mustered up a calm tone. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, she’d always heard. “Since you have the knife, I’ll hold the gun.”
“No.”
She bristled at his blunt reply. “Why not?”
Harry carefully lifted the door a foot or so, then lay on his belly and peeked out. He kept looking at her over his shoulder, as if he expected her to push him out as she’d planned to do with Floyd. It wasn’t a bad idea, except that it’d be impossible; he was twice as big as Floyd and very alert. Besides, she didn’t particularly want to get that close to him.
His thick brown hair dripped with rain when he pulled his head back inside. “We’re near the Wayneswood exit.”
Charlie gasped. “Wayneswood!” She hadn’t realized they’d traveled quite so far. Her heart started an erratic pounding. “I have to get home.”
“Come here.” Harry lifted the door a bit more and sat, hanging his legs over the edge. He took the time to overlap his long coat, protecting his trousers as much as possible from the pounding rain.
Once Charlie had settled beside him—accepting whatever his plan might be, because she had none of her own—Harry took her hand. She jerked and had to struggle not to pull away. She didn’t want to look like a wilting ninny.
“As the truck travels uphill,” Harry explained, “it will have to slow down even more. We can jump out then. Luckily the rain will help conceal us, in the event Ralph glances out his mirror.”
“It’s too dark for him to see us.”
“Perhaps. But a flash of movement might draw his attention and we can’t take the chance. So lie low as soon as you can. Just flatten out on the road and we’ll hope the truck keeps going. I don’t relish the idea of getting into a shoot-out.”
“Coward. Give me the gun.”
He grinned and shook his head at her. “Valiant try, but I don’t provoke that easily, so you can hold the insults.”
He completely ignored the rude sound she made.
“Besides, I have experience in handling guns.”
His large hand felt so warm, and his muscled thigh pressed hard against her own. She shivered. Hand-holding with an appealing man was definitely not on the agenda for today. For the most part, it hadn’t been on the agenda for her entire life. Raising her free hand, she flicked her earring with the flattened bullet attached. “So do I.”
“You mean that trinket is real? And here I thought it was part of your costume.”
She ground her teeth. He was humoring her, and she wouldn’t put up with it. “It’s real.”
“Hmm.” She was very aware of his thumb rubbing along her knuckles, and his close scrutiny. “Whatever could you possibly be involved in that would require a gun?”
To ease her own tension, and defuse his attentions, she said, “I own a bar. Usually it’s as dull as dishwater, but one night things got too rowdy and there was gunfire. This particular bullet missed my head by an inch. I decided it was lucky. You?”
He watched her too closely and far too long before he answered. With an elegant shrug he said, “I’m a private investigator.” And that was that.
With no more confidences forthcoming, Charlie turned her attention back to the weather. “We’re going to be drenched.” Already her jeans were wet at the bottom. Her legs didn’t extend nearly as far as his, but the rain blew furiously in all directions.
“True enough. However, it’s not all that cold yet and the rain helps to mask the noise we make in the truck. I’m grateful to Mother Nature for her assistance.”
Charlie made a face at him, though he didn’t see it. So calm, so sure of what he planned to do. She wanted to know what was going on, who he was and what he’d been up to, why Floyd and Ralph had taken money from the store owner and what a private investigator had to do with it. Her curiosity was pricked, even though she had no room for other mysteries, other ventures. And now definitely