Where Would I Be Without You - By CJ Hawk Page 0,98

Or worse. How the heck, do I explain my existence in that rundown shack?

I froze with a plastered smile on my face as I watched the black Range Rover slowly back up next to me. Then in what seemed like an even slower pace was watching the passenger window lower down. Who was driving the car was not who I expected. I wasn’t really sure what to expect. Maybe some dangerously looking mountain man, with a hidden knife next to his seat to dice me up with.

“Need a lift?” His voice was smooth and deep. His eyes hid behind very expensive sunglasses while his jaw was chiseled in a tense motion, and his mouth was set in a straight line. He had one hand draped across the black leather steering wheel and another down by his side. ‘Serial murderers come in all shapes and sizes.’ My inner scared cat voice squeaked in my head. While the sexual part of me imagined what lied behind those sunglasses and underneath the pricey tee shirt he was wearing. As if he read my mind, he raised his glasses to his head and attempted a smile. “Mike Smith. I believe we are neighbors.”

I reached my hand in to shake his. He accepted and pulled his hand off the steering wheel and turned towards me as he shook my hand. “Klarissa Rhi… I mean Beck.” Hell I had to remember I was no longer a Rhinholt.

He repeated his question as if I was bothering him. “Need a lift to town?” Before I could stop myself, I asked the stupid question, which I knew could lead to more questions I wasn’t prepared to answer. “How far is town?”

He cocked his head and with a squint of his eyes; he reached up, slide his glasses back down and draped his hand back over his wheel looking straight ahead. “Farther than you’d want to walk those pretty new shoes of yours.”

How did he know my shoes where new? Christ did I have immature stupid written on my forehead. I sensed Mr. Smith and I, if that was even his real name, were not going to be new BFFs. As if. Asshole. “No thanks. I’ll enjoy the walk into town.”

He grumbled something, then started to raise the window and drove about two feet. The Range Rover stopped again and this time, he shut it off and out walked a very tall and fit man with the type of features that read rich, yet laid-back man. He walked with confidence. His leather flip-flops matched his worn jeans. However, not his pricey cotton tee or his expensive shades or brand new Range Rover. He had money, but he had attitude as well. His blonde hair and blue eyes made him look clean cut. His lean athletic body shape did things to my body that any healthy normal woman would respond this way. I cut myself some slack for feeling any sort of attraction on looks alone.

I took a step back almost scared he was coming at me at such a fast clip. He stopped just short of the cliff we were next to and pointed out to a large boulder on a rocky cliff on a mountaintop quite a ways over. “Well, sweetheart. If you insist on walking, you might want to head straight down this hill and hike the next to walk straight down the next. Town is down that hill from that boulder there. On the other hand, you can catch a ride with me and be there in less than fifteen minutes. Your choice. I leave in ten… nine… eight…seven…” He was talking to me like a child.

I stopped him short. I put my hands up in the air. “I get it.” I examined my predator for a split second. His facial features softened quite a bit. The sun was starting to fall in the sky, and it lit up the back of his curly blonde hair like a halo. His hair was just shy of his neck with little light wispy curls on the edge of it. His blue eyes were intense when they weren’t hiding behind sunglasses and his face aged him somewhere in his thirties, possibly ten years older than my twenty-five. He was most likely far more educated and mature then I had ever been.

I jumped in the Range Rover’s passenger seat and clicked the seatbelt in. I felt messed up. I should have just grabbed a few clothes and started hitch hiking my