Stolen and Seduced - Christine Pope

Chapter 1

Smart, Blake, I chided myself. Very smart. No good deed goes unpunished, remember?

My fingers tightened on my truck’s steering wheel, and I swore inwardly that this would absolutely, positively be the last time I got myself involved in my best friend’s ongoing personal drama. Yet another epic blowout between Jessica and her boyfriend Tyler, followed by another frantic phone call in the middle of the night, pleading for help. At least this time, she’d walked out on the jerk instead of barricading herself in the bathroom and sending me frantic texts, pleading for me to come get her and let her crash at my place for a while. I’d always said yes to those requests, mostly because I figured a few days away from that jackass Tyler could only be a good thing.

This latest go-’round, I was abruptly awakened at 2 a.m. by the chiming of the cell phone on my nightstand. I probably should have ignored it, except I was technically on call at the arboretum and knew better than to ignore anything work-related.

But the crisis wasn’t a roving band of javelinas or ravenous mule deer deciding to munch on our prickly pears in the middle of the night. No, it had only been Jessica yet again, saying she’d checked herself into a motel but she just knew people were dealing drugs in the parking lot, and the couple in the room next door was screaming at each other in Spanish, so please, couldn’t I come and stay with her, just this once?

I’d opened my mouth to say no, that it was two in the morning and I had to be at work at seven-thirty, but then I’d heard the yelling in the background over the phone, and thought maybe for once Jessica wasn’t inflating the situation quite as much as she usually did. So I said sure, and reassured Jessica that I could be there in an hour, tops. Never mind that I lived out in Superior, where I worked for the Boyce Thompson Arboretum, and Jessica was currently holed up in a Super 8 all the way over in Tempe. There was a lot of dark, empty road between the two towns, but I’d promised.

At least I’d gotten gas that morning on my way to work, and at least the tires on my Ford Ranger were relatively new. Not that the tire tread really mattered, considering it was early May and the roads were dry as a bone, with the summer monsoon rains still almost two months off. Still, I figured that was one less thing to worry about as I headed west on Highway 60, my feet shoved into a pair of flip-flops and the tank top I usually slept in supplemented by a pair of the khaki shorts that were my usual work attire.

Lately, I’d been less than thrilled about my own single state, but — if nothing else — Jessica’s continuing saga with Tyler seemed to prove there were definitely worse things in the world than not having a significant other. Too bad she was so scared of being alone that she’d rather be with a high-maintenance dumpster fire like Tyler than be on her own.

As for myself…well, the little town of Superior, Arizona, basically a wide spot in the road, didn’t offer a lot of diversions of the male type. Honestly, at twenty-five years old with almost fifty thousand bucks in student debt and a not-so-practical degree in botany, I knew I was damn lucky to have gotten my job at the arboretum, especially since even my meager pay from the state’s Parks department put me in the top income tier in the tiny town. Despite my relatively comfortable situation, I still had to drive into Phoenix or its surrounding cities to hang out with friends and do my best to meet someone interesting. Problem was, as soon as any promising guys found out how far off the beaten track I lived, they pulled a disappearing act. Apparently, my attractions weren’t enough of a lure to overcome my geographic undesirability.

It was black as pitch out there on Highway 60, with not even a moon to light my way. I tried not to think of all the spooky stories I’d heard about the Superstition Mountains, stories of people disappearing into thin air, cursed mines, portals to the otherworld…you name it.

And alien abductions and secret underground bases, I mocked myself. Don’t forget about those.

To get my brain to shut up, I reached over and flicked