Page 31 of Mercenary
“Someone who other men, like DiCapitano, might fear. Someone who helped me out of a bad situation. A situation I’m hoping you’ll trust me enough to explain. After I tell you what’s happened to me since you left me in San Diego, you’ll understand why I’m not equipped to find her alone. But for the moment, I’m thankful.”
She gives me such a hopeful look, like she believes in me. I feel like throwing the bottle against the wall.
“Don’t thank me yet.” Fuck guilt. I quickly break contact and stand, wavering on my feet as I turn and look down at her.
I’m not going to fuck Madelyn. Or kill her.
Though after it becomes crystal freaking clear why I answered her call, she’ll wish I had.
9
Madelyn
There’s a difference between karma and fate. Karma is the direct result of your own actions. What you dish out is what you get in return, whether good or bad. Fate is different. Fate is predestined. Written into your life before you were even born. Your destiny.
Karma might be a bitch but fate is a thief. It robs you of choices. It’s inevitable. And as I’ve learned time and time again, it can upend your entire life in a single blow.
I’d given up hope of ever seeing my stranger, yet fate decided otherwise.
He’s sitting in the seat beside me, driving his pickup truck as we head off to find my sister. He’s contemplative, tight-lipped, and unapproachable.
I sigh and stare out the window, watching the northern Texas landscape pass me by. If I expect answers to my questions anytime soon, it seems I’ve got to dig deep, be patient, and wait him out. Whatever is going to happen will do so in due course.
Like finding Kylie.
My sister’s beautiful face flashes across my mind. We’d grown apart while our mother was sick. Kylie spending less and less time at home. Disappearing days at a time. Bringing home money—from doing what, I don’t know. I was absorbed in my own world, in my schoolwork and lab work and in applying to college, and I never stopped long enough to truly question her like I used to do when we were kids. Besides, Kylie hates when I nose into her business. Younger-sister syndrome, she liked to tease me whenever I insisted. Now I wish I had done so.
After Mama’s passing, we relocated to a trailer park she’d insisted on. “A temporary residence,” she’d informed me, “until you transfer colleges.” As for her plans, we never saw each other long enough for her to confide in me. Heck, the last time I saw her, she’d rushed me out of our trailer and told me to meet her later at the Pitt. Then she’d pulled a no show. At the time, I thought a man was involved.
Now I’m not sure about anything.
What has she gotten herself involved in? Us involved in?
And where is she now?
The pickup hits a bump, jolting me back into real time.
I readjust the afghan across my body. He’s given me no time to change, so I’m barefoot and still wearing my tiny sleep shorts and a see-through tank. Not that he’s paying any attention to my lack of clothing, especially after he’d retrieved Mama’s afghan from my duffel bag, which he’d tossed in the back bed.
I frown, wondering if he noticed the gun in my bag. He didn’t act surprised. He didn’t act anything but distant. I suppose everyone in Texas, as they do in Oklahoma, carries a weapon. I feel fewer displays of testosterone and more rational discussion would make the world a more peaceful place. Except now I do have a gun . . . though it doesn’t mean I’ll ever use it.
The pickup slows as he turns into a truck-stop parking lot and parks close to the service shop.
“Do you need to use the bathroom?”
“What I’d like to do is take a shower. I feel grimy.”
He looks at me hard. Then his eyes rake across my body, down and downward still to linger on the exposed skin of my thighs. Like he’s searching for proof, mentally cataloguing each and every bit of me. Or at least, this is how he makes me feel.
He doesn’t move. For a second, I feel like there’s a softening in his posture as he continues to eat me up with his eyes. A delicious tension fills the air and my body responds, my pulse quickening and my nipples pebbling up beneath the afghan.
“Jesus,” he mutters, ruining the moment. “Be right back.”
I lightly touch my chin. It feels less swollen but is still painful. Nothing two Advil can’t ease. I climb out of the truck and retrieve my wallet and a pair of flip-flops from my bag. Sliding them on my feet, I hurry inside. According to the clock on the wall, it’s after eight p.m. Fate would have it, the truck stop is nearly empty so no one but the checkout clerk is around to see my afghan shuffle.
I smile at the thought as I quickly find a bottle of Advil on a shelf. I retrieve two cold water bottles from the refrigerated case and head to check out. Mission accomplished in less than two minutes.
Except when I open my wallet, all that greets me is hot air. No cash. My head pounds extra hard in protest.
