Taking Fire by Cindy Gerard Page B

tear trickling down her ash-streaked face. I. Do. Not. Cry.
    Her words came back as if she’d said them yesterday, not six years ago in her room at the Mustafa Hotel.
    He had to look away, before he did or said something stupid. She didn’t have the right to his sympathy. But he had rights. A whole shitload of them.
    â€œWhat’s going on, Talia?”
    His voice seemed to snap her out of her momentary letdown, yet she ignored him, swiped away the tear, and reached for the keys.
    *   *   *
    This day just kept getting better. Bobby scrubbed around in the glove box, looking for something for his headache, as she fired up the Expedition and backed out of the parking space. He’d just found a bottle of painkillers and popped the lid when she slammed on the brakes.
    Tylenol pills flew out of the bottle and up into the air like popcorn.
    Fuck.
    He looked around to see what was going on and swore again. The traffic—emergency, police, and military vehicles, news crews and lookie-loos—­continued to rush to the bombing site. The congestion they’d created was so thick she couldn’t get out of the lot.
    â€œLooks like we’re not going anywhere anytime soon,” he said, and turned on the AC full blast.
    He found three Tylenol on the seat, opened another bottle of water, and drank half of it down along with the pills.
    He offered the other half and some pills to her.
    She shook her head and glanced behind her. “Buckle up.”
    Executing a perfect bootlegger’s turn, she swiftly jerked into reverse, smashed the gas, whipped the vehicle around in a one-eighty, then slammed into forward gear and put pedal to metal. They shot up over the curb and climbed up the grass berm that made a bowl around the parking lot.
    â€œChi-rist!” he swore, as they bumped to the top, then nose-dived down the other side, across a wide cement walk, and jumped another curb. They barely missed hitting a fire truck, and then she cut across the street sideways and barreled over a planted median separating four lanes of traffic.
    The tires squealed on the hot pavement as she blasted off like a Formula One racer, finally going the right way.
    When she rounded a corner on two screaming wheels, he braced his feet against the floor and got a grip on the door handle and console. “If you’re going to roll this thing and kill me, I’d at least like to know what I’m dying for.”
    â€œYou’re not going to die. At least, not here.”
    That was reassuring.
    She was all focus and purpose as they screamed through the city. She took her eyes off the street long enough to grab the phone from her lap and shove it into his chest. “Hit redial.”
    There was a lot he could have said right then, none of it nice. He just clenched his jaw, punched redial, and listened to the phone ring. And ring. No one answered. No voice message picked up to tell him to leave a number.
    She shot him an anxious glance.
    He shook his head.
    That scared vulnerability surfaced again—just for an instant, before the tough girl was back—and left him wishing he could convince himself that he was immune to her pain and whatever was causing it.
    â€œKeep trying.”
    He dragged a hand across his jaw and stared at the white stone buildings flashing by. Then he stared at her and wondered, again, why he was in this vehicle with her and her bleeding bare feet. It wasn’t as if he couldn’t outmuscle her—well, on any other day. It was more that she was a force of nature, and he’d had no choice but to bend to her will.
    And, Jesus, look at her. Who wouldn’t be compelled to find out what drove her?
    Her hair tumbled wildly around her face where it wasn’t plastered against her temples and neck with perspiration. Her ruined skirt had ripped well past her knee. Black ash and gray dust covered her ­everywhere—her clothes, her bare arms and bare legs, and that