Chapter 8
Teslyn dressed and zipped up her small bag before trying to wake Ivy.
The poor girl was exhausted, and it quickly became clear Teslyn wasn’t going to be successful.
Putting the strap of her bag over her shoulder, she threw back the covers and picked up her sister, carefully standing up.
Ivy was surprisingly light for a girl her age, and Teslyn wondered if Ivy was on her own in the food department, as she herself had been by that age.
Dealing with the struggles of her own childhood was infinitely easier than seeing another child struggle with the same things, and Teslyn gently kissed Ivy’s forehead before making her way down the wide pine staircase.
Wyatt was waiting for them. “I put your car in the backyard. They’re looking for it.”
“Okay.”
He reached for Ivy. “Let me take her for you.”
Teslyn pulled away. “I’ve got it.”
He held the door for them, and she carefully walked to his truck. It was high off the ground, and she struggled to get Ivy onto the bench seat in the back, still refusing his help.
“I’m going to grab some pillows and blankets,” he said.
“They belong to the rental unit.”
“We need them for Ivy.”
She looked torn for a moment before nodding her approval.
She climbed into the cab of the truck as he ran back to get them.
The inside of his vehicle was spotless, with leather seats and what looked like real wood on the dashboard.
There was nothing to give her any insight into his personality, no fuzzy dice or travel mug with his favorite football team emblazoned on the side, and she thought of her own car, with its “Dogs welcome, people tolerated,” cup coaster and crystal blue jay hanging from the mirror.
Not everyone has a personality.
He certainly didn’t seem to have one, and not just because of his truck. For all he’d managed to eek out of her about her own life and the trailer fire, she knew next to nothing about him, and she vowed to rectify that while they drove.
Of course, not knowing him hadn’t kept her pulse from leaping when he’d grabbed her arm, and it hadn’t made her any less excited when his gaze had dipped to her breasts beneath her thin nightgown. She rolled her eyes. The fabric wasn’t that thin. She was kidding herself to think he’d even noticed.
It had been too long since a man looked at her with interest in his eyes, and maybe she missed it more than she wanted to admit.
Images from her adolescence flashed in her mind, Marilyn’s boyfriends with their greedy eyes and fast hands.
She took a big breath in and held it, letting it go over a count of four like her therapist had taught her.
It didn’t help.
Growing up, her burgeoning sexuality had been a double-edged sword.
Being attractive to men—and being attracted to them—brought up a lot of baggage she’d been using to avoid relationships in her adult life.
She’d struggled enough with her sexuality in Osprey.
The last thing she needed was to struggle with it now—Wyatt Sorenson’s smoldering rainbow-hazel eyes be damned.
Besides, it was just her reliance on him that had her warming up to the man, not any real enjoyment of his company.
It was like Stockholm syndrome or something, a kind of reverse Florence Nightingale effect, clearly psychological and borne of her desperate need for help.
Satisfied with that answer, she let her eyes drift closed.
His door opened, startling her. “I got you some, too,” he said, holding out a pillow and a blanket so fuzzy she nearly moaned out loud at the texture.
“Thank you.”
He moved to the back door and tucked pillows on either side of Ivy, covering her with a puffy Thomas the Tank Engine comforter before closing the door as quietly as he could. He climbed in the cab. “You all set?”
She nodded, instantly struck by how much had changed since the last trip she’d undertaken less than twenty-four hours earlier.
Then, she’d been alone, anonymous, and free.
Now she was one of three, and wanted for crimes she hadn’t committed.
The first trip should clearly have been the better of the two, but she wasn’t so sure, and that uncertainty had her rattled.
Maybe I’m out of my mind.
“I’m thinking we head east, back toward HERO Force in Atlanta. At least there we’ll have help if things go backwards. Once we find out which congressman we’re dealing with, we can make a plan from there.”
“Sounds good to me.” She figured she would change the subject, take this time to get to know him as she’d decided she should. “You know all about me. Why don’t you tell me about you?”
He shrugged. “Not a lot to tell. Born and bred on a cattle ranch in Wyoming.”
She turned her body toward him and grinned. “Are you telling me you’re a bona fide cowboy?”
“I worked on the ranch until I was twenty-one. That’s when I enlisted in the Navy to become a SEAL.”
She could picture it, his wide shoulders and slender hips straddling a horse, a cowboy hat dipped low over his brows. He had the strong, quiet disposition she imagined a cowboy would have, and it amused her to no end. “Do you know how to lasso animals?”
“Of course I do.”
“And ride a bull?”
“That wasn’t my thing. More of a specialized cowboy skill.”
“Did you wear plaid shirts and call people pardner?” She giggled at the John Wayne image she had in her mind, and exactly how he fit—and didn’t fit—that mold. God, she was overtired, and getting goofy.
“I’m glad you find my upbringing amusing.”
“Oh, come on. I’m just teasing.”
“It was a good life. A real good life.”
She cocked her head. “Then why’d you leave?”
He sucked in his cheeks, and she had the feeling he was deciding whether or not to tell her the whole truth.
“My dad and I were a lot alike. Stubborn. Thick-headed as mules, both of us.” He changed lanes and checked the speedometer, easing off the gas.
“My mom constantly ran interference.” He grew quiet.
“So what happened?”
“She died when I was a sophomore in high school.”
Teslyn suddenly felt she’d wandered over some imaginary line labeled, Do Not Cross, but it was a little late to backtrack and make smalltalk. “I’m sorry.”
“Dad and I butted heads constantly after that. No matter what I said, he said the opposite. The world was changing, the market no longer sustaining a ranch like his. I tried to help, but he would have listened to a bum on the street before listening to me.”
The pain in his voice was palpable. “Do you talk to him?”
“I call on his birthday. He sends me a Christmas card every year from sunny St. Augustine. He’s retired now, got a place on the water that I’ve never even seen.”
“Now that you’re older, maybe the two of you could have a better relationship—”
He turned his head to look at her. “Let’s talk about something else.”
She jerked her head back. “I was just going to say—”
“This topic is off-limits.”
“You still have time to make a different choice—”
“Change the subject, Teslyn. Or hell, look out your window. I don’t care. But when somebody says a conversation is off-limits, you need to respect that and back the hell off. Besides, I hardly think you’re one to lecture me on having healthy relationships with parents.”
His words stung. Just when she’d seen a piece of his past that made him who he was today, just when she was starting to care, he’d pulled back and slammed the door on her fingers. “Fine.”
She turned to face her door and stared at the dark landscape flying by her window, wishing she didn’t need this man’s help.
She dreamed she was in her own vehicle, Ivy asleep in the back seat, driving someplace safe.
But they were a far cry from safety, and she needed him, all right.
For the time being, they were stuck together.
You should be grateful. He could have called the police instead of helping you. You need to remember that.
Wyatt’s phone rang. This time, he put a small earbud in and transferred the call to that. “Hey, Jax. Got a sit-rep for me?”
Teslyn turned to be sure Ivy had slept through the commotion, while listening intently to Wyatt’s side of the conversation.
From what little she could glean, HERO Force was in place and about to do…
something. The energy coming off Wyatt seemed to fill the truck’s cab.
When he hung up, she asked, “Everything okay?”
“Yeah.”
He obviously wasn’t going to elaborate, nor was he making any other conversation. Giving up, she folded her pillow and tucked it between her head and shoulder. “I’m going to get some sleep.”
“Okay.”
She pulled her blanket up to her neck with a frustrated yank, then closed her eyes and willed herself to sleep. This man was a supremely irritating, closed-mouthed, insensitive thug.
A wisp of a touch on her ankle had her eyes popping open. Wyatt tugged at her blanket, pulling it over her exposed foot. He shot her a look before his eyes went back to the road. “Just wanted you to be warm. Goodnight, Teslyn.”
A pulse beat down low in her abdomen.
Damn him.
“Goodnight.”
She worked to make her brain quiet, sleep slowly overtaking her consciousness when Wyatt spoke up. “Son of a bitch,” he swore, the truck suddenly slowing down.
His tone and the change in speed had her instantly on alert. She sat up. Red and blue lights flashed in the distance. “Oh, no.”
“Looks like a roadblock at the state line.”
Panic had her breath coming quickly. “What are we going to do?”
“Sometimes, the only way around is through.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“It means we’re going through that roadblock, and we’re going to convince them you and Ivy are not the droids they’re looking for.”
“Star Wars? Really?”
He looked at her like she was crazy. “It’s never a bad time for a Star Wars reference. You wake up Ivy. We need to get our story straight before we get to that barricade.”