“Lose the mask, princess. We have to move. I assume that rental car is registered to your name.”
What is even happening right now? “I…y-yes.”
“I already took out their surveillance system,” he says offhandedly, before stepping back and kicking open the door, glass shattering, metal squealing. “Mask, Jessie.”
“Oh, right,” I breathe, whipping off my disguise and shoving it in my pocket. “Wait. What are you doing here?”
“There’s no time to talk now.” Ryan takes my hand and urges me through the door. We run across the street toward my parked rental car and somehow, I have enough mental fortitude to toss him my keys and hop in the passenger side.
“Seatbelt,” he growls.
I don’t argue.
“Cell phone.”
Feeling like a puppet with its strings being pulled, I hand him over my device. He powers it down, along with his own and sticks them in his pocket. “Cell towers,” he says offhandedly. “If we’ve been seen, we don’t want them tracking us.”
Seconds later, we’re peeling out of the space and I’m a fugitive.
And so is my best friend?
“What the hell, Ryan?”
“I could ask you the same thing.” His jawline flexes and just like this morning, there’s an interesting little kick in my belly—apparently my body is all about bad timing. “What were you thinking, Jessie? Robbing a store at gunpoint?”
My face heats. “How did you know I was going to do it?”
“You were acting weird this morning. I followed you. After about the third time you checked the chamber of your gun—in plain view of the street—I put two and two together.”
Yikes. “You followed me? Ryan, that’s an invasion of my privacy.”
For some reason, this makes him laugh. “I’m taking you somewhere to lay low until I know if the police can connect you to an attempted robbery. There could be eye witnesses or cell phone footage. As soon as I know what they’ve got, I’ll take care of it.”
“Like destroy it?” I twist to face him in the driver’s seat and take hold of his forearm—which…wow. Are those muscles underneath his loose-fitting shirtsleeve? I take my hand back like I’ve been burned. “Ryan, you have to drop me off. You can’t be a part of this. You’re a police officer and you’re making yourself an accomplice. What if you lost your job?”
“Then I’d find another way to keep you safe,” he bites off. “Which apparently is going to require even more diligence than I thought. As soon as we get where we’re going, I want to know why you needed that cash.”
Panic climbs my throat. “You can’t force me to confide in you.”
“I can and I will, Jessie.” He takes a hard right at a corner and the smell of burnt rubber fills the car. “You had it your way for the last thirteen years, shutting me out. But you just put your life in danger and I won’t fucking have that, princess. All bets are off now.”
I watch with my jaw in my lap as he whips off his glasses and tosses them out the car window. “What in the Clark Kent is going on here?”
There’s no humor in his laugh. “You’ll find out soon enough.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Jessie
We’ve been driving in tense silence for over an hour when we pull up in front of a cabin. Ryan cuts the car engine and I sit forward. I have no idea where we are, but it’s beautiful.
Sunlight filters in through leafy green trees and through their thick trunks, I can spy water in the distance, shimmering green and blue. Most of all, the gentle wind is alluring and calming, because there’s nothing else. It’s so quiet and unlike anything I’m used to. My childhood was loud and scary. Life in Philadelphia is a rush of sound at all times, whether it’s car motors or horns or voices. This is peaceful—and despite my harrowing morning, I’m immediately lulled by my surroundings.
I’m so enraptured, it takes me a moment to realize Ryan is studying me closely, as if memorizing my reaction. “What is this place?”
“I own it,” he says, after a brief silence. “Bought it after I sold my parents’ house.”
“That was five years ago, Ryan. You own a cabin and never said anything?”
He touches his tongue to the corner of his mouth. “I guess we both have our secrets.”
Stop looking at his tongue. “I’m keeping mine.”
“We’ll see.”
Ryan pushes out of the car before I have a chance to respond and I’m more than a little thrown off as I climb out after him. What happened to my