Strange Bedfellows. Kasey Michaels

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ we? I mean, anything has to be better than spending the rest of this miserable night up here.”

      She didn’t say it, but the words with you hung in the air, heard by them both. She took off her glasses, which she really only needed for driving—but wore almost constantly—and which were steaming up, anyway, and placed them on the dashboard.

      “Do you want to take the chance of being caught in another slide?” Sean leaned his head out the window, looking down. “There’s a boulder smack up against my door and the back door, holding both of them closed. Lovely dent in the metal, by the way. The road, if we could reach it from the shoulder, is nothing but a river of mud and boulders. We can’t get out your side because your doors are smashed up against the guardrail. If we do get out of here, it’s going to have to be through the back hatch.”

      “If we could reach it? If we get out of here?” Cassandra moved her body a little closer to his. “Don’t you mean when we get out of here?”

      He turned his head, looking at her from only mere inches away, then put his hand on hers, squeezing it—which was the first time she noticed that she had been gripping his shoulder tightly. “We’ll get out of here, Cassandra. I promise.”

      Well, as long as he promises, her inner self said, even as Cassandra tried, and failed, to relax her hold on his shoulders.

      Then Sean aimed the flashlight onto the muddy roadway once more, and at the man who now stood about twenty yards away from them, obviously not able to move closer without possibly injuring himself in the debris littering the roadside. “Do you think it’s really wise to try to walk out of here, sir?” he called over the sound of driving rain and crashing thunder.

      The man waved his hands as if trying to ward off some unseen danger. “I must go on!” he yelled at them. “I—I must go on!”

      “What a strange reaction. Do you think he’s injured?” Cassandra asked, immediately concerned for the man. “Do you recognize him?”

      “I wouldn’t recognize Jason in this dark and rain,” Sean told her, then motioned for her to be silent while he spoke to the man once more. “I think you can make it to the Jeep if I light the way with my flashlight. You’ll be safer with us until the storm’s over and somebody comes to check on the slide.”

      “No!” the man shouted back, sounding frantic. “I must go on! There’s something I must do…someone I must—I need your flashlight. Yes, that’s it. Give me your flashlight! I’ll send help.”

      Sean moved the flashlight, centering its beam on the stranger’s face so that Cassandra saw the man’s wet hair—it seemed to be blond, but she couldn’t be sure. His eyes, however, made her gasp aloud, for they were an intense blue, and they seemed oddly vacant, as if the man was unsure of himself, of his surroundings. Which was silly, because she had never seen a more determined-looking man—save Sean Frame, of course.

      The man held up his hand to block the harsh light from his eyes, took a few steps toward the Jeep, then called again. “The flashlight. Just give me your flashlight. And tell me the name of this road so I can give directions to a tow truck.”

      Cassandra rolled her eyes as Sean did as the stranger said, then watched as the flashlight arced through the air, to be caught by the tall, lean man with the strange blue eyes. “Well, there goes our only light,” she grumbled, not knowing why she was angry. “We could have used it as a rescue beacon, you know.”

      “I think he’ll make it,” Sean said as he watched the man moving away, picking his way through the mud and boulders. “The slide can’t be more than a quarter-mile wide, I imagine. Once he’s free of this area he shouldn’t have any problem making it to the gas station at the bottom of the hill. With any luck, we’ll be out of here by morning.”

      Cassandra couldn’t help it. She wanted to be out of here now, out of the Jeep, away from Sean Frame, away from her thoughts about Sean Frame. “Oh, really. He’ll make it. But we have to stay here. That doesn’t make sense, Sean, and you know it.”

      “Look at your shoes, Cassandra,” he told her, closing the window and turning on the radio. “You can’t walk out of here in those high heels, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to carry you. That man, whoever he is, is only responsible for himself. I’m responsible for you, and you’re staying right here. We’re staying right here until someone comes and gets us. Now, be quiet, and I’ll see if I can find a radio station that’s still working.”

      “You’re the living definition of a benevolent despot, do you know that? One man in charge of everything, and thinking he’s doing his subjects a great big favor by taking care of them. I mean, Mr. Grimes could use you for show-and-tell in his European history class,” she groused, silently agreeing that her shoes had definitely not been made for slogging through calf-deep mud.

      And if there were another slide…?

      No. She’d stay where she was. She wouldn’t like it, but she’d stay.

      The speakers crackled as Sean punched buttons, trying to find a working station. “You’ll run down the battery unless you turn the motor back on while you do that,” she told him, looking for reasons to hate him. “It can get cold up here, you know, and I’d like to think we can use the heater once in a while.”

      “I don’t know if the mud has covered the tailpipe, but I’m fairly certain it has. Better to be a little cold than die of carbon monoxide poisoning, I’ve always said. It’s a good thing you picked me up, Cassandra, because you never would have made it out here alone.”

      “If I hadn’t stopped to pick you up I’d be home right now, warm and dry and feeding Festus, who is probably starving by now and writing me out of his will,” she pointed out, she hoped, reasonably.

      “Festus? Who in hell is Festus? Ah—got one! Let’s listen.”

      “Pandemonium continues throughout the Grand Springs area, with Vanderbilt Memorial Hospital running on its backup generators as the blackout continues. The power outage is to blame for many accidents at intersections where the signals are not working. There have been several mud slides in the area, and motorists are urged to remain at home except in cases of emergency.

      “Just a minute, folks. I’ve just been handed a few updates. All right. There are still several dozen people trapped in elevators around the city, so if your loved one is late tonight, don’t panic—he or she may still be stuck at the office.

      “And now, back to music. We’ll give a rundown of cancellations and postponements at ten past the hour and interrupt for any updates. Also check us out on Twitter and Facebook. And please, folks, remember. It’s still raining out there, and the weather center is warning of dangerous lightning and the possibility of more slides. There are no reported fatalities yet, but this isn’t over. Again, please, stay where you are.”

      Sean turned off the radio, and Cassandra stared at the windshield, at the dark and the rain and the continuing streaks of lightning.

      “Oh, God,” she breathed quietly, and closed her eyes.

      Chapter Three

      Sean switched off the ignition and sat back against the seat, his eyes on Cassandra Mercer.

      He realized that he’d never looked at her before—really looked at her. He’d known her for nearly СКАЧАТЬ