A car was approaching.
Thomas heard it coming before he saw it—many twists and turns much further down the winding mountain road—still far enough away for him to be unable to tell the make or color.
It was alone—no vehicles behind it that he could see, at least—and it was moving fast, engine straining as it headed up toward him.
He had to make a choice. Hide, or step into the road to try to flag down the driver.
He was naked, he was bloody, he was in the middle of freaking nowhere, Maine, and oh yeah, he was Black, so hide it was gonna have to be.
But he was going to hide more with stillness than actual cover, using the power of light and shadow and his reconnaissance training to blend into the brush that was close to the edge of the tarmac. He parked himself toward the end of a stretch of relatively straight road where he’d have a good long look at the approaching vehicle—and as much of the driver and passengers that he could manage to see through the rain-sparkled windshield, considering light and shadow would be working against him, too.
His location was not as secure as it would be if he did a deep dive into the dense forest that was back about ten yards from the road. He’d be invisible there, but likewise the approaching car would be little more than a flash of movement to him as it passed.
And it was entirely possible that the vehicle—still moving way too swiftly for these dangerous roads—was some sort of security team backup, sent by the Queen to trace their route after he and Tasha had failed to arrive at the mountaintop compound.
It was hard to know for sure, since he still had no idea how long he’d spent unconscious. Were he and Tasha even missing yet?
The car was getting closer—the engine’s whine louder—so Thomas slowed his breathing and aimed his gaze toward the road’s distant curve where the vehicle would first appear. He’d have maybe three seconds, tops, to look, assess, and ascertain whether or not he should leap to his feet and attempt to stop it as it approached.
And he’d have just a few seconds after that to run for cover if he made a misjudgment and the car ended up belonging to the men who’d taken Tasha and nearly killed him.
Try to kill me once, shame on you. Try to kill me twice... Nope, I’m not that goddamn stupid.
And there it was. An SUV, similar to the one they’d climbed into at the airfield. Big. Black. Windshield wipers sweeping off the still-falling rain.
A single passenger inside—just one, the driver. Unless there were others in the vehicle, with their heads down.
A flash of...
Red hair...?
Thomas stood up, because holy shit, his eyes plus the waning light hadn’t played a trick on him. That was, absolutely, Tasha behind the SUV’s steering wheel.
He stepped—just a little—into the road, arms up and out, trying to make himself the largest, most visible target possible.
He knew when she saw him, because she hit the brakes. Hard. The SUV’s tires grabbed the road as she skidded past him to a stop, leaving long streaks of rubber behind her.
She immediately scrambled out and ran toward him as she called his name. “Thomas! Oh my God! Are you okay?”
“How the hell did you—” He was already running toward her, too, meeting her halfway in an awkward embrace because, shit, he was bloody. And, oh yeah, he was naked. Also, she wasn’t exactly leaping into his arms to be rescued. No, despite the handcuffs on her wrists—some fool had cuffed her hands in front of her, thank God, or she wouldn’t’ve been able to drive—she clearly thought she was rescuing him. She tried to support his weight by pulling his arm across her shoulders as she led him toward the passenger seat of her car.
She didn’t let him finish his question, either. “Get in! Quick! They’re behind us.”
“I got this,” he said as he reached to open the SUV’s door, and she ran around the vehicle and pulled herself behind the wheel. “Go, but no one’s behind you.”
“They must be.” She gunned the engine and accelerated back onto the road, still heading up the mountain as he tried to make sense of this. “I didn’t exactly make a stealth getaway.”
The clock on the dash read 1:47 PM. So he hadn’t been out for that long—and they were still about an hour from when they should’ve arrived at the resort. It was only after they failed to show up that they’d officially be missing and an alarm would go out.
Tasha glanced at him and reached to crank the heat. “God, you must be freezing. My sweatshirt’s still in the back. How bad is it?”
He turned to look, and saw that her entire suitcase was still back there—open, with the contents spilling out. His bag, however, was gone, and with it his medical kit. Damnit. As a hospital corpsman, he felt almost as adrift without his medical kit as he did as a SEAL without a weapon.
Tasha’s sweatshirt, though, was a hoodie. It was huge and warm-looking. It was pink, of course, bearing the words “Impolite Arrogant Woman.” He grabbed one of her T-shirts—it was soft and gray and said Nope—to dry himself off as best as he could after putting that sweatshirt on his lap. Not that being naked in front of Tasha Francisco was even close to being the worst of his problems right now.
“Do you have your phone?” he asked.
“They took it,” she informed him as she took the next series of tight curves like a professional race car driver. He would’ve expected no less from her. “Along with my laptop. And all your things.”
“I don’t suppose you have an extra pair of jeans in here, in my size?”
“Best I can do is pajama pants with a drawstring belt,” she answered. “They’re red. Plaid.”
Of course they were. Thomas found them easily. They were flannel, but they were thin. Still, anything was better than sitting here bare-assed. Assuming he could get them up his XL legs.
“I stole them from Ted,” she told him as if reading his mind. “And he’s tall and jacked, too, so they should fit. There’s also a pair of slipper socks in there. They’re pink. And fuzzy. Your feet must be freezing. And God, your head... Thomas, you’re still bleeding.”
Shit, yeah, he still was. The tee he’d been using as a towel was ruined. He used it to dry off his feet. “Sorry. I’ll try my best not to get any blood on your sweatshirt, but—”
“I don’t care about my sweatshirt,” she told him hotly. “I care about your head. Where they hit you. How bad is it? Do we need to find a hospital?”
She was serious—like it was merely a matter of making the choice to stop and get medical aid. Nah, Princess, let’s stop at the next Starbucks, instead. It’s nothin’ a good latte won’t fix... But he didn’t say that, because it suddenly occurred to him...
“Are you okay?” he asked, even as he reached up, wincing as he touched the place on his head where he’d been hit. There was a lump, and it was definitely sore and bruised, but as far as he could tell the brunt of the bleeding was from a relatively superficial scrape. “They hurt you?”
Tasha shook her head.
“You lying?” he asked as he pulled on the red plaid pants, tying the drawstring around his waist, then finally getting the hoodie up and over his head. “Cause I’d like you to put a little voice to that no.”