In Safe Hands (The Safe House Series Book 1) (5 page)

***

"We're going to see Rockwell," Damian told her the next morning. Alexa stood with her back leaned against the car, arms crossed over her chest. Dawn streaked the sky above them a radiant gray, a vision far more enticing than his companion.

Alexa looked awful.

Had someone told him it was possible for those three words—Alexa, looks, and awful—to co-exist in the same sentence, he would have wagered the entire safe house property against it. Her eyes were bloodshot. Blond hair that wreathed her face beneath the hood of her sweatshirt tangled in a crowning glory that more resembled a small animal nest. Her face looked deathly pale, and there was a mark on her right cheek where the seatbelt rode shotgun overnight.

She had already refused the protein bar he offered her, and Damian didn't push the issue. The last thing they both needed was for her to lose the contents of her stomach all over the backseat that doubled as their bedroom.

"Why?"

Her voice was ragged, and Damian felt a pang of sympathy for her. She had been through a rough night all-around, and he could see she was doing her best to listen to him now.

"He's not picking up his phone. It's a few days' drive, but we should be able to make it to him before the trial. It'll be safer for you there than out here on the road."

"Be straight with me,” she asked as they got back into the car. “What’s going on?"

Damian passed her a fresh water bottle and a pair of shades, both of which she accepted gratefully.

"You guessed it last night. Someone doesn't want you to testify."

"
A
lot
of people don't want me to testify," Alexa pointed out as she slumped back into her seat. "I thought the witness protection program was supposed to be set up to help me avoid situations like this."

"It is," Damian agreed. "But the program is only as good as the people behind it. Someone on our side has been compromised, and I intend to find out who."

"I hope they don't find us first," Alexa mumbled.

"I won't let that happen."

Alexa shifted her head against the leather headrest to look at him and raised herself up a little in her seat to push the hood of her sweatshirt back. She looked a little less like a human hangover now and a little more like someone with the mental fortitude to make it through this. The change was almost imperceptible, but it was enough.

“I believe that now.”

A vibration radiated through his core. He preferred the sarcastic, distrustful Alexa to this newer, more vulnerable woman. Her sharp tongue made it easier to keep distance. This truth-spouting, confessional Alexa made him want to envelop her, protect her from anything and everything she had known her entire life. This Alexa made him want to prove things to her he shouldn’t want to prove.

He turned his attention back to the road ahead. His frown lengthened. Either Rockwell had betrayed him, or his boss would have the answers they needed. Damian couldn't see what the future held. All he could do was drive, and hope that his fast-dwindling resources would still be enough to keep Alexa Volkov alive.

Alexa felt like hell.

Her entire body ached from sleeping stretched out in the vehicle’s, and her head pounded with each sluggish beat of her heart. Damian had been kind enough not to remark on how she looked. He had also been kind enough not to remark on other things, too.

Alexa remembered all of it—every word, every touch. Had she
really
put his hands on her in the back of the car? She wanted to sink right through the floor, but settled instead for melting back into her disguise. Occasionally she observed Damian from behind the black lenses of her shades, but she saw nothing to indicate that his lack of sleep put him in similar bad shape. He kept his eyes trained on the road, the hard line of his jaw squared and resolute.

He really was beyond gorgeous. She had noticed his looks from the moment he exited his car to approach her and her escort at the gas station. The subsequent removal of his baseball cap at the diner had only confirmed what Alexa suspected all along. She wanted to hate the way he looked from the moment she first laid eyes on him, but that same moment had sealed her attraction to him.

Alexa wanted to find all cops repulsive, and Damian was ruining her lifelong aversion. It didn't help that she was actually starting to
believe
the man was as good as he appeared to be. His actions in regard to her situation, coupled with his continuing loyalty to Rockwell, spoke volumes of his character. She just hoped for both their sakes' that his loyalty didn't prove to be misplaced.

Damian caught her stare. He passed her the plastic bottle, mistaking her attention for a wordless request for more water.

"We won't sleep in the car again tonight," he promised her. "We'll find proper accommodations."

"I didn't mind," Alexa admitted.

Damian cut a quick look her way, probably to gauge whether or not she was coming onto him again. She most assuredly was not—and, she privately asserted to herself, she would not be drinking a single drop of alcohol for the remainder of her partnership with Damian Stone. Not if she was going to embarrass both of them with the result.

But that didn't change the fact that she hadn't minded falling asleep in his arms. She had awoken to find herself turned over once more, and had gazed up at him for longer than she was willing to admit until the man stirred. That was when she had still been trying to convince herself that she didn't find him desirable. She was resigned to it now.

"All the same," Damian responded, "Backseat sleeping quarters weren’t what you were expecting when you entered into our program."

"If you're afraid I'm going to lodge a complaint—"

"You deserve better. With the trial against your father coming up in the next few days, you need to be well-rested. It won’t be easy."

"I know it won’t be easy," Alexa snapped irritably. "He's my father." Every so often, Damian’s words came out patronizing, reminding her of his fourteen-year-old comment. She was a grown woman, and she was too mixed-up in her own thoughts about the man seated beside her to maintain her temper.

“There must have been good times. For you to be so loyal.”

“Mostly when I was young and he would visit me during breaks from boarding school. He was adventurous back then. Less responsibility. Easier to move around, unnoticed, I guess. We went skiing in the Alps. Hiked the Columbia River Gorge. He taught me about his homeland, the extreme poverty of being so hungry that your stomach loses the ability to handle food. Said there was no humanity in anyone suffering like that. He promised to help as many of the families from his country here in the US as he could, however he could.”

“That where your pro-bono impulses come from?”

“I suppose.”

“That time with him? Sounds nice.”

His words caught her off-guard. That his perception of her father could ever be less than venomous spoke volumes about how far they had come since the diner conversation. “What about you?”

“What about me?”

“Why did you become a cop?”

“My father was a police officer. His father before him.”

“It’s in the blood.”

Damian’s near-perfect lips stretched into an easy smile. “Something like that.”

“You know, we’re not all that different. Raised by fathers with strong beliefs. Loyal to a fault, perhaps. Just so happens we’re on opposite sides of the spectrum.”

“There’s one important difference.”

“What’s that?”

“I don’t pledge loyalty to the wrong side.”

Alexa didn’t argue; she didn’t have it in her to fight. She turned her head toward the world outside her passenger window, the private victory of common ground as fleeting as the passing landscape.

***

"I don't like the look of those clouds," Damian muttered.

Alexa, who had been dozing in the passenger seat for the past few hours, stirred. The car radio was on, though dialed down so low as to be inaudible. She knew he had done so out of consideration for her. She craned forward in her seat and lowered her borrowed sunglasses, before removing them altogether. There really was no point. Damian was right about the sky outside. They were traveling an empty stretch of highway, headed toward an ominous dark-gray horizon.

"Maybe we should listen to the radio," she said quietly.

Damian reached forward to twitch the volume on the stereo. The weather report predicted rain, but didn't mention anything severe.

The first drop splashed across their window. Damian clicked on the windshield wipers. Within moments, the rain became a deluge. Alexa relaxed back into the warmth of her sweatshirt and listened to the droning voice on the radio.

The car jolted beneath them.

Alexa turned wildly to look at Damian. "What was that? Did we hit something?"

Damian focused on something in his rearview mirror.

Another jolt. The car slowed.

"No. No-no-no," she said as Damian immediately engaged the hazards and pulled to the gravel the side of the road. "This can't be happening."

"It's going to be fine."

"How
is it going to be fine?" Alexa asked.

The car rolled to a stop and lurched back on its haunches. Even through the driving rain, she thought she saw smoke escaping past the hood. An acrid burning smell assaulted her nostrils the next instant.

"Because I said so," Damian said curtly. He put the car into park unnecessarily and kicked the door open to let himself out.

When faced with a decision—a little rain or an exploding car—Alexa scrambled after him. Hell if she was going to chance the latter.

"You can't just
command
things to be fine!" she shouted above the roar of the rain. She followed him to the front of the car, crossing her arms and bowing her head beneath the hood of her sweatshirt. She was soaked through within minutes. Damian didn't appear to fare much better. When he noticed her beside him, he whipped his coat off his shoulders and covered her.

“Probably the alternator,” he yelled over the downpour.

“
This
I may write a strongly worded letter about.”

His expression transitioned from kick-the-tires pissed to something in the neighborhood of a scowl.

“A tow could be risky,” he said. “I can’t be sure my phone is secure.”

“I saw a sign back there for the next town. Can’t be more than a mile.”

"Come on." He led her around to the trunk. They bailed out their belongings and started down the road, leaving the car behind. Damian insisted he walk on the highway side, never more than a foot or two away. When Alexa turned to regard the vehicle in the distance, all she saw were the hazards blinking a muted red warning.

No more car-camping, then.

A fleeting wave of regret rolled through her chest.

She wanted to force Damian to take his coat back but knew before opening her mouth that there was no reasoning with the man. He struggled through the rain beside her in a T-shirt and never uttered a word to voice his discomfort. She followed his lead now in more ways than one.

They didn't hike far. The pair turned off on the first divergent road they found and ran for shelter beneath the moldy awning of the
No Tell Motel
.

Perfect.

While she stood, shivering by their bags, Damian composed himself, running a hand through his hair and straightening his posture before entering the front office. In less than five minutes, he emerged with one keycard.

"Come on. I booked us a single."

"Wh-why a s-single?" Alexa stammered as they crossed the parking lot and paused outside room
235
, the
5
dangling as if it had given up right about the time the motel owners started a tumbleweed collection in the empty swimming pool.

Damian swiped the keycard in the lock. The pad turned green, and they were admitted into one of the smallest rooms she had ever seen. A queen-sized bed sheathed in a dubiously-washed comforter dominated the living space, and a small hallway indicated the probable existence of a shower. She headed straight for the bathroom as Damian pulled the door shut forcefully behind them.

"The Feds will be less likely to track us with one room." There was a tremor in his normally deep and steady voice. “Desk clerk will remember us as a married couple.”

“Married?” she deadpanned.

“On our honeymoon.”

“Wow. Nothing says forever like a stained polyester bedspread and lassoes on the wall.” A hearty guffaw escaped her that must have sounded so privileged and ungrateful. She dialed it back. He was doing his best to make her comfortable. The least she could do is acknowledge his efforts. “Seriously, thank you. A real bed sounds like heaven.”

She retrieved a towel from the bathroom and flung it over his head, forcing him to stoop as she sponged the freezing cold water from his hair and neck.

"The windows," he muttered.

She moved to close the blinds as he took over drying himself off.

“You can have first shower,” he suggested.

“No way. You can’t
protect and serve
if you’re sick.”

His dark brow quirked suggestively. “Serve?”

“We
are
on our honeymoon.”

Damian flashed her sexiest ghost of a grin she had ever seen then crossed the tiny, shared space to the bathroom. The awakening shower faucet sounded like he had started a wrestling match with a tuba-playing troll.

Alexa laughed. She pressed her own towel to her streaming hair and surveyed the room: one wire clothes hangar populating the closet; a cheap lasso decoration nailed to the wall; a mounted and framed sketch of a cowboy with an unfortunate case of bowed legs; and a Bible and fundamentalist leaflet in the top bureau drawer next to the card with pay-per-view porn instructions. Everything else was either chargeable to the room or nailed to the floor.

She removed Damian's coat and hung it on the chair. As she peeled off her sweatshirt, the cold fabric slogged across her shoulder blades. She winced. Goosebumps raked her skin. Despite the additional layers, her tank top was soaked through completely. She was in the process of pluck it away from her breasts when Damian reentered the room.

Alexa glanced up, startled.

He looked equally surprised. A bath towel rode low on his hips and hung off his V-line in a way that seemed somehow more indecent than if he had exited the bathroom wearing nothing at all. She stared at the man's naked torso, unable to tear her eyes away to even feign disinterest. In contrast to his broad, sculpted shoulders, Damian's waist was narrow and defined by a six-pack that almost looked painted-on. His chest was devoid of hair but a dusting of dark hair curled at his navel and offered an enticing treasure trail down, down…

God, almighty. She’s been staring at his crotch.

Alexa averted her eyes and walked briskly past him to the bathroom. Any tongue-in-cheek comment she might have made on his appearance died on her tongue, along with her voice. There was nothing funny about Damian Stone standing half-naked in front of her.

Was he doing this on purpose? Was this revenge for the way she had conducted herself the night before? Alexa endured the tuba-playing troll again and tested the water with her hand until steam gathered in the corner by the mirror. She stripped off her remaining clothes and drew the curtain closed behind her as if she could draw it across the scene. She had been looking forward to a hot shower all day, but a cold one felt far more appropriate right now.

"Alexa?" Damian’s muffled voice came from behind the closed door.

Alexa went rigid beneath the jet of water. Her arms came up to cover her chest then her bikini line before she remembered the shower curtain.

"Yes?" she called.

The bathroom door creaked open.

She couldn’t breathe.

"Sorry… I think I left the phone in here." Damian mumbled as he entered, his voice clear and so, so close, just beyond the thin, plastic barrier.