Safe with a Stranger. Linda Conrad

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СКАЧАТЬ nodded as she unbuckled and prepared herself and her son to go. “Sure. We really have to thank you again for all you did for us. I don’t think we would’ve made it without you, and I wish there was something more I could do to say thanks.”

      The various ways he could think of were not suitable to say aloud to a near stranger. “No problem. Take care of yourself and Jimmy, ya hear?”

      Josh watched as she carried the toddler to the end of the line. She looked vulnerable. Vulnerable, worldly and sexy. What a strange combination. He didn’t think he’d ever met anyone like that before in his entire life.

      While he sat in the pickup with his tongue hanging out and watched as her line inched toward the bus door, two dark figures came out of nowhere and grabbed her and Jimmy. The same two dudes who’d tried and failed at the roadhouse. Ah, hell!

      He was out of the truck in an instant.

      Chapter 2

      Running full out, Josh reached them in time to lunge at one of the bad guys. That one took a swing and caught Josh hard on the chin, and then the same dude spun, hoisting Jimmy in his arms as he took off.

      “Jimmy!” Clare shouted while fighting the other guy.

      Before Josh could intervene, she stomped her foot on the goon’s instep, shoved her open palm up under his chin and then rammed her knee into his groin. That guy crumbled, and Josh took off after the one with Jimmy.

      Josh caught up to him with no trouble. But slowing the slime-ball down without hurting the kid in his arms was tough. Josh finally had the guy in a choke hold at about the same time as Jimmy started squealing and squirming. The boy wiggled like a greased calf at a fair, which seemed to confuse the goon, who couldn’t hang on to the kid.

      Josh used the opportunity to take his shot, poking his fingers hard into the guy’s eye sockets while jerking Jimmy from his grip with the other hand. Josh didn’t spend time gloating over his handiwork, just tore back toward the bus and Clare with Jimmy thrown over his shoulder.

      “Jimmy, thank heaven,” she sobbed when Josh reached her. Relief and gratitude filled her eyes.

      “Let’s go.” He grabbed her elbow, heading outside.

      “Go where?”

      “Anywhere but here. Get in the truck. Y’all are safer with me than on that danged bus, no matter where we end up.”

      

      After about a half hour of silently driving in circles, trying to lose the goons for sure, Josh thought better of his last remarks. “So where were y’all headed? Is there some other way you can get to wherever you’re going?”

      Clare turned to him, the tension in her face clear and alarming. “Um…”

      Well, that wasn’t much of an answer. In fact, this babe had been real slow coming up with any straight answers. He doubted that a word she’d said since the moment they’d met had been on the level. Well, he’d had enough.

      Josh spotted an all-night discount department store in the next block. The huge lot was busy with people coming and going and he figured they could join up and get lost in the crowd of trucks. He pulled in under the low-hanging branches of a willow and shut down the engine.

      “What are we doing here?” Clare softly asked.

      When he turned to answer her, the sight he beheld left him flabbergasted and holding his breath. There, through the low light and in the passenger seat of his old beat-up pickup, sat the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen holding a sleeping angel in her lap. Was it just a trick of lighting that made her suddenly look like a Madonna? Her skin was exquisite, like fine china. Every strand of her hair lay in silky perfection. Her nose wasn’t too small or too large, but just right. And her long lashes lay against high cheekbones as she gazed down at the babe in her arms.

      Josh swallowed hard against the lump in his throat.

      The mother and child made such a compelling picture that Josh wished he knew how to draw. He’d never been an artist, and he wasn’t sure that even a Michelangelo could manage to capture the perfect essence of this mother and child.

      His heart ached for all the pictures like this one that he would miss seeing in his lifetime. The pictures of a loving spouse and child that he would never have—and that his brother and sister would miss having in their lives, as well. Those thoughts sobered him, left him melancholy and finally made him angry. Exactly the way he’d spent the last fifteen years of his life. Mad as hell with no way to let it loose and no one to take it out on.

      But Josh wasn’t the kind to dwell on his troubles for very long. He was much more an action kind of guy. Kick butts, take names and take charge. It was the way he’d operated for most of his life. So, burying his personal problems like always, he decided to focus on Clare’s troubles instead.

      “We need to talk.” He swiveled to a position in his seat where he could watch her face as he questioned her. “I want answers about what the hell is going on. And don’t give me any of that bull about not knowing those two sleazy dudes or why they were after you. I’ve been shot at, sucker punched and chased tonight, and I want to know why.”

      

      Clare didn’t know what to do or say to answer his questions. She didn’t know who to rely on. Was Josh someone to trust? Did she dare?

      She kept perfectly still and stared at the man who was for all purposes a complete stranger. But as the flickering light from one of the parking-lot lamps filtered through the windshield and seemed to water down the edges of his face with soft gray tones and shadows, her insides softened toward him, too.

      The look in his eyes as he glared at her wasn’t stony or cynical or in any way threatening, despite his rough words. No, Josh’s facial expression seemed to reach out to her with unspoken compassion. And with something—warmer, more focused—underlying that. Clare didn’t want to think too much about the underlying heat. By now her own body was suffering from a wave of warmth just staring at his remarkably deep-set eyes and intense chocolate-colored gaze.

      He was easy to look at. And hot! Six-two or-three, she’d have to guess. All of that was lean, hard-packed muscle. Not the kind of muscle you saw in the gym, but the real sinew and form of an outdoorsman who didn’t hesitate to use his body. He was wearing camo pants and a tight-fitting black T-shirt. Old cowboy boots and a Stetson completed the picture. And what a picture it was, too.

      She drew in a shaky breath and her supposedly quick brain finally kicked into gear as she remembered that without his help, Jimmy would have been lost. And she would be hopeless. Even not knowing a thing about her, Josh had given her the sweetest gift in the world.

      She swallowed carefully, deciding that she needed someone’s help and it might as well be his. “It’s a long story.”

      “I’ve got all night. I don’t have to be anywhere until the day after tomorrow.”

      “Oh.” The way he’d said that, with a murmur of sorrow in his voice, made her curious to know where he was headed. But she figured she owed him the first explanations.

      She shifted Jimmy in her arms and rolled her window down halfway for some air. “Okay,” she began, wondering how she СКАЧАТЬ