Explosive Attraction - By Lena Diaz Page 0,27
didn’t trust anyone but himself to look after her, he forced himself to calm down. He drew a deep breath.
“Get out of my way, Jake.”
Jake shook his head. “Believe it or not, I’m actually trying to help. You can’t go out this way.” He pointed through the glass doors to the parking lot. “The St. Augustine Record has a reporter sitting in a silver Ford Taurus parked right beside your flashy truck.”
Rafe stepped to the side, shading his eyes against the sun reflecting through the glass. Sure enough, there was someone sitting in a Taurus beside his truck, a Taurus he recognized as belonging to one of the Record’s reporters—Robert Ellington.
He gave Jake a terse nod. “Thanks. I was going to swap my ‘flashy truck’ with someone else’s vehicle. I’ll just call and have him pick me up here instead.”
“Take mine. I’ll drive yours.” Jake held up a set of keys.
Ignoring the keys, Rafe waited for the sarcastic comment he knew would come next.
Jake’s face turned a dull shade of red. “Look, there’s no angle here. Yesterday morning I was trying to flag you down to trade cars at the hospital, but you practically ran me over. I just want to make sure Dr. Steele gets out of here safely, without some reporter following her.”
Wait for it. Wait for it...
“Besides, you suck at protecting people. You need all the help you can get.”
“Keep your keys.” He shoved Jake out of the way and pulled Darby through the door after him.
As they neared his truck, he pressed the clicker and unlocked the doors. He hurried to the driver’s side, picked Darby up and practically threw her inside, slamming the door closed behind her. Darby’s eyes widened when he pulled out a pocketknife and turned back to the car beside them.
The reporter was just getting out of his car when Rafe stabbed one of the rear tires. The reporter ran behind his car, his mouth dropping open like a widemouthed bass.
“Hey, what do you think you’re doing? You can’t do that.”
“I just did, Bobby.” Rafe couldn’t resist baiting the other man, knowing he preferred to be called Robert. He grabbed the man’s camera, holding it above the shorter man’s head, out of reach. He took out the memory card and the battery, tossing them through the open window into the back floorboard of the Taurus, then throwing the camera onto the passenger seat.
Bobby’s face turned bright red. “You won’t get away with this, Morgan. I have my rights.”
Leaning in through the open window, Rafe took the keys out of the ignition and tossed them into the shrubs a few feet away. “Dr. Steele has the right to be safe. That trumps the first amendment any day. Besides, I’m not stopping you. I’m just delaying you. Bill the station for the tire.”
He yanked his truck door open and hopped inside.
Darby glared at him. “Don’t you think you overreacted just a bit?” she accused.
“Nope.”
“Why not?”
Memories of the brutal home invasion, the senseless loss of his wife and the press’s intrusion into his private life had his jaw clenching. Ellington had been the worst of all the reporters, splashing the story in the newspaper long after other news outlets had let the story die a natural death. Ellington was the one who kept digging, looking for a motive.
He was the one who found out about the adultery.
That was the first, and only, time Rafe had ever lost his temper with a civilian. Ellington had spent a week in the hospital. Rafe had spent an entire month on unpaid suspension.
He twisted the key in the ignition and gunned the engine. “Let’s just say, he and I have a history.”
Chapter Seven
Darby quietly watched Rafe as he drove them down a residential street into the heart of St. Augustine’s historic district, a neighborhood of wooden two-story houses shaded by centuries-old live oak trees. He’d told her they were going to exchange his truck for another vehicle, but that’s about all he’d said to her since they’d left the police station.
“Want to talk about it?” she asked.
“Talk about what?” He put the blinker on, and slowed to turn down another street, edging around a group of teenagers standing near the end of a driveway.
“The reason you’re so angry. It’s not good to keep that kind of emotion inside. Talking might help.”
He shot her a quick glance. “And you’re a good listener, is that it?”
“I have a PhD in listening.”
His knuckles whitened against the steering wheel. “I’m well aware of