Chapter Six
“You know,” Lauren mused, staring out the window, “Kansas isn’t so bad.”
Calvin grunted. The sound wasn’t particularly encouraging, but they’d been driving forever, so she didn’t really care about his level of interest right then.
“It’s kind of hilly and pretty. I figured it’d be flat and painfully boring.” Granted, all her Kansas preconceptions were based on watching The Wizard of Oz as a kid.
With another grunt, Cal said, “We’ve just crossed the border. Just wait another few hours. The painful part will come.”
She laughed, turning her head to look at him. “Speaking of painful, my stomach’s going to start eating itself if we don’t stop soon.”
“There’s jer—”
“Don’t.” She cut him off, gagging. “Do not even mention jerky to me right now. There is a limit to the amount of dried beef that a human can handle over twenty-four hours, and we definitely discovered that limit—and exceeded it.”
The corner of his mouth tightened, as if he was holding back a smile. “Twizzlers?”
She rummaged through their plastic gas-station bag of snacks. “Gone.”
“Sour Patch Kids?”
Lauren made a face. “My mouth is raw from those little bastards.”
“Pringles?”
She grabbed the tube and turned it upside down, smacking the bottom. “Empty.”
“Guess we’re stopping, then.”
She whooped in victory.
Giving her a sideways look as his smile broke free, Cal asked, “Hell, where does it go?”
“What?”
“All that fucking food.” He gave her another up-and-down glance. “You’re so little.”
Lauren grinned. “High metabolism and lots of adrenaline rushes over the past couple of days. Plus it’s the junk-food rule of road trips—the more, the better.”
He opened his mouth as if to respond but then closed it and frowned, his gaze flicking between the road and the equipment panel.
“What’s up?” she asked.
“Van’s acting up,” he grunted.
“Uh-oh.” Her stomach tightened from something other than hunger. “How far until the next exit?”
“Seven-point-two miles.”
“Think we’ll make it?”
He shrugged. “Guess we’ll see.”
“Can’t you fix it? Maybe pull some VW engine maintenance data out of that high-functioning brain of yours?” Lauren asked, only half kidding.
That earned her another sideways look. “Not much I can do. It needs a new fuel pump. Without it, we’re pretty much fucked.”
“C’mon, you can MacGyver it up. A little chewed gum, a paper clip, some dental floss—good as new.”
The look he shot at her, all amused exasperation, made her laugh. “Easiest just to trade it in.”
Lauren stopped laughing. “Are we stealing another car?”
“Trading.”
“Okay, that worked when the victim was getting my very nice, trade-worthy car. No one wants this.” She waved her arms at the interior of the bus. “Even when it wasn’t dying, no one would’ve wanted this.”
“Sure they will. It’s a classic.”
Lauren opened her mouth to inform Cal that “old” and “classic” were not necessarily synonymous when her attention was caught by the engine’s chug as it started losing power. “That doesn’t sound good,” she said instead.
“Nope.”
As the bus’s speed dropped, she winced. “We’re going to be walking, aren’t we?” Just as she said the words, they passed an exit sign. “Saved!”
“Maybe,” Cal grunted, easing the VW onto the exit ramp. “Still have six miles to go.” He turned onto a two-lane road and Lauren saw the sign ahead.
“‘Myron, six miles,’” she read. “Myron. Huh. That doesn’t sound like a town with a whole lot of amenities, does it?”
“Eight hundred and eighteen people, a Rest-Up motel, the Myron Bar, a Dairy Queen, and a Gas and Grub. It’ll do.”
Lauren stared. “Seriously? They enhanced your brain and then put useless facts about Myron, Kansas, in there?”
He just shrugged. “Not so useless to us.”
She had to laugh. “Thanks, crazy government scientists, for giving us information to help us get away. Well, at least so we know that we can go get a beer and a dipped cone in Myron, Kansas, while we’re escaping.”
The van’s engine hitched again, and Lauren stopped laughing once more.
“C’mon, hippie bus.” She patted the dash. “You can make it.”
Sliding a glance at her, Calvin said, “You do know the bus can’t actually hear you.”
“Can’t hurt.” She kept patting. “What a good hippie-mobile. Just another...what? Three miles?”
“Two-point-eight.”
“At least that’s more walkable than six.” Lauren sat back. “I’m not sure what’s wrong with me.”
Cal looked at her, his eyebrow raised. “Abso-fucking-lutely nothing, far as I can tell.”
She had to smile at that. “Thanks. I just mean, we’re running for our lives here, but there are moments when I forget about all that, and it starts to feel like we’re on a fun road trip.”
Glancing over, she saw his mouth tighten.
“I know,” she sighed. “It’s messed up. Being around you just makes me feel...safe, I guess.” And horny. And really happy. She caught the inside of her cheek with her teeth before she could say the last two things out loud. Looking over again, she bit down harder when she saw the muscles clenching and releasing at the curve of his jaw.
“Laur, I’m not—” He clipped off the rest of his words as the engine rattled and died. The bus coasted, rolling forward silently. Cal guided the bus to the side of the road, allowing the momentum to move them along until they slowed to a crawl. He stopped the bus and yanked the emergency brake.
“Grab all our shit and shove it into that duffel I bought,” he said, tucking up the wires hanging beneath the dash. “We’ll lock the doors so no one’s in here digging around. We should have a couple days before they tow and search it.”
Lauren dove for the back and started shoving bags of their belongings into the oversized duffel bag. Everything—packaging, tags, plastic bags, even their tied-up sack of travel trash—went in. She figured clearing out a stolen VW was kind of like camping in that they’d leave it like they found it, albeit not working and several states away.
“Toss me the disinfectant wipes, would you?”
Digging through a couple of bags, she found the container and chucked it in his direction. He caught it, pulled out a couple of wipes and started wiping down the steering wheel.
She cocked her head. “Not that it isn’t thoughtful of you, but do you really think the owners of the hippie-mobile are going to appreciate the cleanliness after we stole and killed their beloved bus?”
“Prints,” he grunted, wiping the back of the rearview mirror. “They know who we are, but there’s no reason to get sloppy and end up with you on file as a suspect for vehicle theft.”
“Right.” She turned back to filling the duffel bag. “That whole ‘fun road trip’ thing? Not feeling that so much anymore.”
They finished clearing out the bus in silence. Cal locked the doors with the wad of wipes in his hand, did a quick rubdown of the door edges and handles and then tossed the wipes into a plastic bag, tied it up and tucked it into the duffel. Taking the bag from her and leaving Lauren with only her purse to carry, he crossed the grassy ditch next to the road.
“Bye, little hippie bus.” Lauren gave it a wave over her shoulder as she followed. “Thank you for your service. We will never forget—”
“Lauren!”
“What?” She trotted to catch up with Cal. “I feel bad. Shouldn’t we be following the ‘no man left behind’ rule?”
“Inanimate object.” He glanced back at the bus. “Especially inanimate right now.”
“I can’t help it. I get attached to vehicles.” Trying to keep up with Calvin was making her puff. “Why are we off-roading it, anyway? Shouldn’t we follow the road to Myron?”
“Nope,” he answered, not slowing as he strode toward a thick line of trees.
“Why?”
“Because someone will drive by on the road.”
“And that’s bad?” She ran a couple of steps so she was next to him. “We could hitch a ride.”
He rolled his eyes and added a Midwestern twang to his voice. “‘So, where you folks headed? That your VW on the shoulder back there? Dwayne could bring his wrecker and give ya a tow. He prob’ly could fix it up for you in a week or so. Now that I’ve connected you to the broken-down, stolen VW bus, let me memorize what you look like so I can give a real nice description to any law enforcement officials or lab employees who might come sniffin’ around.’”
Lauren swung her purse, whacking him on the leg. “Sarcasm hurts, you know.”
“So does getting caught.”
“Ass,” she muttered under her breath, letting him get ahead of her again. “You’re making me all paranoid.”
He stopped at the tree line and waited for her to catch up. “Told you.”
“Told me what?”
“You shouldn’t feel safe around me.” He turned and weaved his way through the trees.
She glared at his disappearing back as she stomped after him. “I know. I just can’t help it.”
* * *
Lauren didn’t love nature. She didn’t love it at all.
The “path” through the woods was little more than a deer trail. Thorny bushes grabbed at her legs and her new winter boots weighed down her feet and made her clumsy. Her only other footwear option had been her heeled boots, and she didn’t think she could’ve jammed her swollen and blistered feet back into those torture devices.
It was more than a little perturbing to see Calvin, who was carrying the duffel filled with their belongings, maneuver through the trees with little apparent effort.
“It’s like he’s a freaking deer,” she muttered, tripping over a tree root. “No, a badger, mean with sharp teeth. No, a skunk!”
Her snicker cut off when he shot her a sharp look. “By the shitload of noise you’re making back there, I’d guess you were a herd of elephants.”
She glared at his back. “I’ll show you a herd of elephants, skunk-man.” She scanned the ground and saw a pinecone next to the trail. She scooped up the pinecone and hurled it at the back of Calvin’s head. It bounced off harmlessly, but it was enough to get his attention.
Before she could blink, he’d dropped his bag and had her back pressed against a tree.
“You are extremely aggravating,” he growled.
“Me? Watch how you’re throwing those stones around your glass house there, buddy.” To her annoyance, Lauren’s voice had gone all husky and turned-on-sounding. She couldn’t help it, though, not with Cal’s hips pressing her tight to the rough bark behind her.
He stared at her, his black eyes hard and narrow, his jaw tight. “We’re staying at the Rest-Up tonight.”
Lauren blinked. “O...kay. That was sort of random. I thought you’d be talking more about how irritating I am.”
“Hell yeah, you are.” Cal shifted his hips and a hard, denim-covered bulge dug into her belly. “You’re also fucking hot.”
“Yeah, you too,” she said. If the evidence of his arousal hadn’t been pressed against her, distracting her, Lauren would’ve been embarrassed by her dreamy voice.
The corners of his mouth turned up. “We’re buying condoms before we check in.”
“Okay,” she breathed.
His smile grew as he closed his hands around her waist and hoisted her up so they were face-to-face. Lauren squeaked as her feet left the ground, but she quickly forgot that she was dangling in the air when he kissed her, one of his hard, short, bossy kisses. He lowered her back down and turned to the abandoned duffel.
“C’mon.” He hoisted the bag and started walking.
Lauren blinked a few times, coming back to the reality of chilly woods and Cal’s quickly disappearing back. Snatching her purse off the ground where she hadn’t even realized she’d dropped it, she scampered after him as fast as the annoyingly bumpy and narrow deer path allowed. Despite the rough going, she couldn’t help but smile, thoughts of a motel room, condoms, and Calvin dancing in her head.
* * *
Thankfully, the trip through the woods eventually ended at the edge of Myron, and they were able to walk to the Rest-Up motel on an actual paved sidewalk. Lauren did a skip to catch up with Cal.
“Can we eat actual food tonight?”
His mouth twitched. “No more beef jerky and Sour Patch Kids?”
She gagged while doing another skipping step to keep up with him. “Gross. And slow down, daddy longlegs. Some of us are short and slow.”
“Jesus, Lauren. Did you just call me Daddy?”
She laughed and gave his arm a shove, which, as always, did not throw him off balance even a little bit. “Did I mention you’re gross?”
“At least I don’t have twigs in my hair.”
“Seriously?” Her hands flew to her head. Sure enough, there were pieces of bark and even dead leaf chunks caught in her ponytail. “You just let me walk through town like this? You suck.”
“C’mere.” His hand caught her upper arm, tugging her toward him. Turning her so she faced away from him, Cal started pulling bits of twigs and leaves out of her hair, swatting at her hands until she lowered them out of his way.
It felt kind of nice, having him gently pulling the tree debris free of her hair. She restrained a snort, feeling a bit like a chimp was grooming her for fleas. He tugged her ponytail holder until her hair fell loose around her shoulders and down her back. His fingers combed through the strands, giving a little shake to knock any stray bits of bark out of her hair.
“All gone?” she asked.
“Perfect,” he said, before something touched the top of her head.
Did he just kiss her hair? She glanced up, but he’d already grabbed the duffel and turned toward the motel entrance. Lauren hurried to catch up to him, ducking under his arm as he held the door to the front office open for her.
“Pony.” She held a hand outstretched toward Cal.
“We talked about this,” he said, walking past her to the desk clerk. “No matter how much you beg, Daddy’s not buying you a pony.”
Rolling her eyes, Lauren stepped up next to him so she could poke a finger into his side. As soon as she did, she resisted the urge to cradle her jammed finger. When would she learn that poking, shoving, punching, smacking, and otherwise trying to hurt the Bionic Man would only lead to her own pain?
“Ponytail holder, smartass,” she clarified, holding her hand out again.
“I like it down.” As if that settled it, he turned back to the motel clerk. “We need a room for tonight. Double. Non-smoking.”
Giving up on containing her hair for the time being, she shoved it back over her shoulders and idly examined the meager and dusty display of “Welcome to Kansas!” postcards.
“Look at her one more fucking time, and I’ll rip your dick off.”
Cal’s tone was so quiet and even, it took Lauren a moment to process his words. When what he said finally registered, her head jerked up and she stared. The skinny, greasy-looking desk clerk looked as if he’d swallowed his own tongue, and his hand shook as he slid the key across the counter. Lauren noticed his eyes didn’t even flicker toward her.
She looked at Cal, at his still face and flat, deadly eyes, and she swallowed. She was used to her road-trip companion—teasing, occasionally funny, often annoying, rough and impatient, sure, but never quite so...killer-like.
He met her eyes and jerked his head toward the door. Silently, she walked out of the office in front of him, feeling a bit like she was turning her back on a rattlesnake, poised to strike. Once the office door banged shut behind them, she couldn’t hold it in any longer.
“Rip his dick off?” She risked a glance at him and was relieved to see the predatory look in his eyes had softened a little.
“Didn’t like the way he was looking at you.” He guided her to the far side of the building with a hand just barely touching her lower back. Even after the eyes-of-death display, the light contact made her breathing speed up in a slightly shameful, definitely turned-on way.
“Wouldn’t a more appropriate threat have been to poke out his eyes, then?”
The touch of his hand on her back disappeared, and she looked over her shoulder to see that Cal had stopped, staring at her.
“What?”
With a short, harsh laugh, he just shook his head and starting walking again, steering her toward the door marked with a “20.”
“I just don’t know what his penis had to do with him looking at me,” she continued as he unlocked the door. Lauren knew it was a goofy train of thought, but she couldn’t stop babbling or she’d start thinking about the way his eyes had gone dark and dead.
He shoved the door open and nudged her inside in the same motion.
“Stay here.” Latching the dead bolt and chain, he dropped the duffel onto the floor. He moved to the bathroom and looked inside. Lauren waited just inside the door until he emerged from the bathroom with an “all clear” nod.
She took a couple of steps in, looking around. It was a typical motel room, although Lauren figured it could have been worse. It looked clean enough. Her musings were interrupted by a heavy arm yanking her back against Cal.
“His dick was the issue. That fucker was looking at you, thinking about putting his cock inside you,” he growled, his mouth almost touching her ear. “I’m the only one who gets to be inside you.”
Her heart was beating so fast, Lauren saw black dots crowd her vision. “It was just his thoughts,” she managed to say. “I’d never have slept with that icky guy.”
His other arm circled her hips and clamped her tighter against him. The feel of his erection pressing against her ass, so hard and hot despite the layers of clothing separating them, cranked her heartbeat up another notch.
“Doesn’t matter.” His teeth closed on her earlobe for a painful, arousing second. “No one’s allowed to even think about you like that.”
“That’ll be hard to enforce...” Lauren really didn’t know why she was still talking. She wished she could stop it, but the flow of words just poured out of her mouth like her vocal cords belonged to someone else, someone really inappropriately chatty. Once his lips found her neck, however, she lost her ability to breathe, and that took care of the blabbering problem.
As his lips and tongue and teeth worked their way down the side of her neck, Cal nosed the collar of her jacket aside and bit lightly on her shoulder. With a hard, sucked-in breath, she grabbed the arm circling her chest with both hands, her nails digging into his skin. It wasn’t in protest but just because she had to hold on to something, something solid, and Cal’s arm was definitely that.
Lauren moaned as his tongue eased over the spot he’d just bitten, tipping her head to the side to give him better access. He lifted his head, and she groaned again, this time in disappointed protest.
“Still no goddamn condoms,” he rasped, his arms squeezing and then releasing her. “If this goes any further, I’m going to be inside you in about five seconds.”
“Right.” She swayed a little and Cal’s hands cupped her shoulders, steadying her. “No condoms. No sex. No babies that crazy scientists can stick with needles.”
“Exactly.” Cal let her go. Somehow, she managed to stay on her feet.
“I’ll...um.” She ran her fingers through her hair and found yet another tiny twig. “I’ll take a shower then, if that’s okay? For me to go first, I mean.” Great. A few minutes earlier she couldn’t shut up, and now she couldn’t put words together in a straight line.
“No problem.” He unzipped the duffel with a rough jerk of his hand. “I’ll just stay out here thinking about you all wet and naked and steamy. Go ahead.”
“Not helping!” Lauren almost wailed, darting for the bathroom before she hurled herself at Calvin. “My balls are just as blue as yours, so quit acting like you’re the injured party here!”
As she closed the door behind her, she heard Cal’s rough, short laugh.
* * *
Lauren opened the bathroom door a crack. The shower had been too cold to be pleasant, but at least she was pretty confident all the woodsy crap was out of her hair. Despite the libido-crushing water temperature, it had felt good to get clean all over. There was something about being on the road for so long that made her feel grimy.
“Cal?” she called through the barely open door.
She couldn’t see him but heard a grunt in response.
“Could you toss me the duffel bag? Or turn your back so I can grab some clothes?”
There was a slight pause. “Come out. I’m not looking.”
Lauren hesitated. “Are you ‘not looking’ like you were ‘not looking’ last night in the VW? Because that doesn’t really count as not looking.”
His snort sounded amused. “I’m really not looking. If I look, I’ll grab you, and you know where it’ll go from there.”
Tightening the small, threadbare motel towel around her, Lauren opened the bathroom door and stepped out hesitantly. Cal was sitting in one of the two chairs next to the small square table and his back was, as promised, facing her.
“No run for...necessities while I was showering?” she asked, digging through the duffel for clean clothes.
The back of his head shook. “Wasn’t going to leave you alone in here.”
“Oh.” She yanked on a pair of panties. They’d gotten a package of them with the rest of her winter clothes, just plain, unsexy cotton, but they were clean. She wished she’d had the foresight to pick up bras, as well. She’d rinsed out her underthings in the shower, and they were currently drip-drying on the curtain rod. With a mental shrug, she yanked a long-sleeved shirt over her head, figuring there was no sense in crying over wet bras. Although she was decently sized in the chest department, she wasn’t huge. Lauren figured she could go braless for one night without getting arrested for indecency.
As she tugged on her jeans, hopping a little as she pulled the denim over her hips, she felt her breasts bounce and frowned at them, reconsidering.
“Okay, so no hopping in public,” she muttered.
“Why not?” Cal asked. His head was bent over whatever he was working on at the table. His electronic gadgets, including what looked like a small printer, were arranged in front of him.
“Never you mind.” She sat on the other chair and pulled on a pair of woolly socks. “Just a private conversation with a couple of my body parts.”
The corner of his mouth quirked up as he glanced right at the body part in question. “I like that shirt.”
Lauren glanced down. It was a dark-red Henley that was fairly snug but she wouldn’t really describe it as sexy. Under Cal’s gaze, her nipples hardened, pushing against the fabric. Clearing her throat, she crossed her arms over the betraying bumps.
“Thanks.” She cast around for a different topic, one more calming to her nipples. “What’s all this?”
“This—” he handed her a plastic square “—is you. The new you.”
She looked at the driver’s license in her hand. It looked just like her old Florida license, same picture and everything, but the name was different.
“Misty Dawn Lincoln. Seriously? Misty Dawn? What kind of hippie parents did I have?”
Cal ignored that. “Here. Birth certificate, social security card, credit card. I even made you a library card. Empty out your wallet of anything with your name on it, but keep the generic stuff—coffee punch cards, shit like that. Makes it more authentic.”
“Wow.” She examined the documents. “You’re really good at this.”
“Memorize your birth date and your new social.”
“Okay. What’s your name?” Lauren leaned over to look at his stack of documents.
“Daniel Robert Lincoln.”
She grinned. “Are we married?”
His grunt was affirmative.
“Do we have kids?”
He stared at her. “Do you see any fucking kids?”
“So no kids.” Examining her new license, she held back a grin. “Do I like your parents?”
“What?”
“In-laws can be tricky.”
“You’re straight-up, balls-out nuts.”
She shrugged. “Probably. With a name like Misty Dawn, do you blame me?”
Cal just shook his head.
“Is she a real person?”
“Yep.”
“Huh. Is she a stripper?”
“No fucking clue.” He eyed her for a moment. “Why a stripper?”
“With a name like Misty Dawn, she’s either a stripper or a yoga instructor. I mean, really—what were her parents thinking?”
He laughed and shook his head again. “Grab your wallet, you nut. I’m taking a shower.”
Lauren dug through her purse for her wallet. “Hurry up. I’m starved.”
“Why am I not surprised,” he grumbled, grabbing some clothes from the duffel and heading for the bathroom.
* * *
When he emerged after his shower, shirtless and damp and utterly distracting, Lauren concentrated on her fingernails. Her bare fingers reminded her of something.
“We need rings,” she told him without looking up.
“We’ll get some at the next town big enough to have a jewelry store or a pawn shop,” he said. “Ready?”
“Sure.” She risked a glance at him, relieved to see he’d put on a shirt. It was hard enough not tackling him and having her way with him when he was fully clothed. Having to look at his bare skin and keep her hands to herself was just impossible. She touched the spot on her shoulder where he’d bitten her earlier and sighed.
“You’re killing me,” he muttered.
“What?” Lauren glared at him, her hands fisting at her hips. “I’m being really good. I haven’t grabbed you or tackled you or even stared at you too long.”
He just looked at her with those hot, hot eyes. “It’s your fucking smell. I can tell you’re excited.”
“Smell? Seriously?” Closing her eyes, she mashed the heels of her hands against her eyelids. “Can you please turn off your superpowers? Just for tonight?”
“Doesn’t really work that way.”
When she opened one eye, she saw he was smiling. “Great. That’s great. Can we go eat, then? At least I can satisfy one appetite.”
He gave a short bark of laughter as he plucked her jacket off the back of a chair.
“Ready?” he asked, holding the coat so she could slide her arms into the sleeves.
“As I’ll ever be.” She zipped up and grabbed her purse. “Let’s go, husband.”
His sigh was loud as he pocketed the room key. Lauren just grinned.