Page 112 of Callan

I don’t waste another second.

I walk into the light, falling straight into his arms.

“People have been following me,” I say when he grabs me by the elbow and walks me around his ride.

He opens the other door and lets me fall inside while I still float in a cloud of male cologne.

Firm but without rushing, Callan rounds his car and claims the driver’s seat, a line of cars already behind us.

He glances at me.

I momentarily forget about my predicament, swept into his secret world.

Man, he looks all right.

Where was he going?

“Mackenzie?”

As he sets his car in motion, I become more focused, and the two men outside catch my eye.

“It’s them. They’ve been following me. And so have Carmen, your acquaintance, and some nasty-looking guy. They have paid me a visit. They roughed me up a little. They said they were looking for you. And your name was Charlie.”

I’ve probably wasted one breath to relay the entire story in a long string of unpolished sentences.

He moves his eyes to the side. The two men check every car moving down the street.

“Don’t worry about them,” he says, composed, tearing his eyes away from the two men. “They won’t bother you anymore,” he adds, an almost imperceptible sigh flowing between his beautiful lips.

He seems relieved.

Or maybe I’m projecting.

I, for one, am ecstatic that I’m no longer running down the street like a crazy woman looking for him and not knowing where to find him.

“So I was right…” I murmur, drinking in his profile.

My eyes float over his smooth coat and suit.

He was planning to go someplace. Perhaps he’s expected somewhere.

“They were after me,” I say.

He glances at me again, with that look on his face as if he knows where we’re going, while I have no idea.

“They are after me,” he says, calm.

“The two men?”

He nods while I study him in silence, his unabashed confidence turning me on like nothing else.

“Charlie?” I toss at him with a flicker of amusement in my voice. “Is your name Charlie?”

He turns right and then left. And then he pulls his car to a stop before turning the headlights off and checking something in the rearview mirror.

Looking like a postcard, the park sprawls out in front of us. No car or person crosses the road.

Satisfied with how deserted the place is, he moves his eyes to me.

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