Cutting Loose by Tara Janzen

on that second boot, jamming her foot into it, tugging it on.
    He checked his watch.
    Come on, Alex,
he thought. Every minute spent parked on the street, musing about Albuquerque and Lily Robbins’s legs, was one more minute the Aston Martin spent speeding away.
    â€œI’m just saying that kidnapping me isn’t going to help whatever the hell this mess is all about, and ten thousand dollars is about nine thousand more than you could get out of my family in a good year, which this one hasn’t exactly been.”
    She got her foot all the way into the boot, jerked the pant leg down over the top of it, and sure enough, her hand went for the door handle.
    â€œThat’s all I’m saying,” she said, her face still pale, her words a little rushed. “Whatever this is all about, you’re better off without me.”
    He noticed her fingers slowly curling around the handle.
    â€œWhere did you get the money?” he asked.
    â€œYou were in my suitcase. You saw the envelope. No name, no address. I thought it was from you.”
    Well, that set him back a bit.
    â€œAnd why would I send you ten thousand dollars and a plane ticket to Tahiti?”
    Her mouth tightened ever so slightly, more a sign of distress than anger, and a warm blush of color came into her cheeks.
    Oh.
    This was sweet.
    Damn sweet.
    â€œI would have sent more than ten,” he said, and the color in her cheeks deepened. “We’d be heading for the Maldives, not Tahiti, and I would have signed my name. I’d want you to know what you were getting into.”
    She dropped her gaze, and he saw the muscles in her arm flex, felt her fight-or-flight system kick into “flight” mode and settle into a holding pattern. She was actually trembling, and he wondered if she ever played poker, or if he could talk her into it. Her deception skills were—well, they were nonexistent, which absolutely fascinated and appalled him in equal measure.
    â€œDon’t,” he said.
    It was an order, and his tone shouldn’t have left a doubt in her mind, and still she was weighing her options. He could almost see the wheels turning in her mind—
Could she make it? Was she quick enough? Would he shoot her, if she wasn’t?
    The answers to those questions were no, no, and no.
    â€œDon’t,” he repeated, something he wasn’t used to doing. He was used to being obeyed, but considering that she was the only one currently available for him to order about, he figured his compliance ratio was about to hit an all-time low.
    That would not be good.
    â€œIf you want to leave, you can. I won’t stop you.” Personally, even by his own standards, which were damn high, he was an exceptional liar. “And I’m certainly not going to hurt you.” And that’s how it worked for him: Every layer of out-and-out fabrication came with a layer of truth, albeit a thinner layer.
    Much thinner.
    He was quite capable of hurting her to some extent, if that’s what it took to keep her where he needed her. And if it turned out that she wasn’t a New Mexico schoolteacher inadvertently overtaken by events, and was actually an international thug out to make a few million selling the bracelet on the black market, appropriate measures would be taken no matter how blue her eyes were.
    â€œBut there are a couple of things I want you to consider,” he continued. “The first being that it wasn’t my house that got shot all to hell this morning.”
    It was an incredibly salient fact, but he still wasn’t sure if she’d catch the significance of it right off the bat.
    Her answer suggested that she did.
    â€œI-it was mine,” she said.
    â€œAnd I don’t live in Albuquerque.” An equally salient fact.
    â€œI do.” Her trembling increased, which had not been his intent.
    â€œAnd when the shooting started, I was—”
    â€œStanding in front of me.”
    Yeah,