Page 55 of PenPal Hero

All Holt heard was what the man had left unsaid. Bonnie was going to remain unreachable indefinitely. He wanted to tip his head back and howl his frustration at the ceiling.

Four days later

Bonnie hated her short, platinum blonde hair. The color looked like it came straight from a department store bottle, which it had. “I look nothing like your child,” she grumbled for the umpteenth time as she peered at herself in the bathroom mirror. She stormed back into the room, hating the fact that it was dark outside. She was stuck for yet another night in a ratty motel that smelled like mold and other things she’d rather not think about.

There’s a very real chance I’m going to die of bed bug bites. Didn’t they carry diseases and stuff?

“I disagree.” Summer Rose smirked at her. She’d dyed her hair the same color as Bonnie’s. “You’re totally rocking it in frayed jeans and crop tops. They show off your country gal tan to perfection. I’m jealous.” She waved at her fair complexion and sprinkle of freckles. “All I ever get in the sun is more speckles.”

“I like your spots,” Jackson assured cheerfully. He was sitting at a rickety table in the corner of the room they were currently holed up in. It was the third hotel they’d stayed in. They’d been driving all day and checking in at a different place every night, paying with prepaid MasterCards and Visas.

“I need to call Holt.” Bonnie was tired of watching her oldest brother flirt with the petite security guard. She was glad he’d finally found someone he wanted to date, but sheesh! Their blossoming romance was not the channel she wanted to watch twenty-four seven.

“Not yet.” Jackson’s cheerful demeanor vanished. “It’s still too dangerous.”

“You don’t even know who’s after us,” she reminded petulantly, “much less if they’re still looking for us.”

“They are,” he growled. “Come on, Bonnie! A guy with a gun tried to kidnap you at your best friend’s wedding.”

“And a different guy with a gun succeeded in doing exactly that,” she snapped.

“She has a point.” Summer Rose propped her feet on the edge of the bed and held herself up by bracing her hands behind her on a chair. She started a series of dips, counting softly until she completed her first twenty.

“It’s my job to keep her safe.” Jackson went back to writing something in the notepad resting in front of him.

“I’m not your job,” Bonnie shot back, completely out of patience with his highhandedness. “I’m your sister. There’s actually a difference, you dope!”

“Not in our case.” He glanced up to wave his pen at her. “Newsflash. I’ve been employed by K&G Security for six years. Mom and Dad hired me to serve as your bodyguard the second they got me trained.”

She stared at him for a moment. “Why you—!” She went flying in his direction, tackling him so fiercely that his chair went flying backward. They landed noisily on the floor and started wrestling. “How dare you keep something like that from me!” She pummeled him with her fists, and he let her.

Someone knocked on the way-too-thin wall of the adjacent room and yelled at them to shut up.

“Here.” Flushing with an emotion that Bonnie couldn’t quite name, Summer Rose yanked something small and black out of her back pocket and tossed it their way.

Jackson swiped it out of the air.

Bonnie used his momentary distraction to deliver a bruising uppercut to his jaw that hurt her hand as much as it hurt him.

“Ow!” He rolled out from beneath her, setting her unceremoniously on her backside in the middle of the floor.

“Just let her do it already,” Summer Rose sighed. “I can’t handle the growing hostility in our little family.”

Bonnie’s jaw dropped. “We’re not a family!”

“I know,” Summer Rose grumbled. “Believe me, I know. I just want one night of sleep that doesn’t involve neighbors on both sides of us beating the walls down. One night,” she repeated with a yawn.

Like all their other rooms, there were two queen beds filling the ratty, smelly space. Bonnie had been sharing one with Summer Rose, while Jackson got the other one all to his irritating self night after night.

“Fine.” After a brief staring match with Summer Rose, Jackson finally relented. “But before she calls Holt, we need to set some ground rules.”

“Call?” Bonnie launched herself at her brother again, wrestling for the small black item Summer Rose had tossed to him. If there was any chance it was a cell phone, she was prepared to fight to the death for it.

Jackson held it over her head, just out of reach. “No more than three minutes at a time before shutting the phone off. I’ll set a stop watch. Anything longer, and we can be tracked. Even though it’s a burner, we’re taking no chances. Oh, and no telling Holt where we are.”

“I have no idea where we are,” Bonnie snarled, reaching for the phone again. They’d driven hundreds of miles. For all she knew, they were halfway across the country by now.

“Good. It’s better that way.” Jackson placed the phone in her hand.

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