Mon Dieu, he was becoming a freakin’ Knight in Shining Armor. Next people would be calling him The Cajun Knight, as well as The Swamp Solicitor, for chrissake! Talk about!
“Why are you frowning?” Sylvie asked.
He glanced to the right as his jeep idled at a red light on Verret Street near the courthouse. With her precious briefcase on the floor near her feet, Sylvie was holding onto the overhead crash bar with one hand and the equally precious Happy Meal box with the other. Her ebony hair looked as if she’d stuck her finger in a light socket, partly due to the tussle on the floor back at her town house and partly due to the wind produced while riding in his open vehicle. Her face was flushed from fear and warm sun rays. Her silk blouse was plastered against some rather enticing curves.
Not that he paid any particular attention to these irrelevant details.
“I’m frowning because I’m driving around with two rats. I’m frowning because someone is trying to kill me, or you, or both of us. I’m frowning because we should be the hell out of Houma by now, instead of hanging around like clay pigeons. I’m frowning because you conned me into taking you into hiding with me. I’m frowning because…” He saw that she was about to protest the “con” remark, but he went on quickly before she could speak. “Most of all, I’m frowning because you make me want impossible things.”
Now, what made me disclose that? For sure, my emotional circuits have gone haywire.
Her mouth opened, then shut, then opened again as she stared at him incredulously. “Things?” she finally squeaked out. “You want things from me?”
“Yep,” he said. When he saw the panic on her now-beet-red face, he winked. Let her think he was just teasing, as usual. He was just teasing. Really.
Oh, God! First feelings, now I want things from her!
Damn, I should have gone fishing today.
But, man, I would really, really like to kiss her. For a long time.
And other things. Oh, yeah, definitely other things, including…
A driver behind him honked to alert him to the light change, and Luc moved forward in the late afternoon traffic.
This whole situation was crazy. So many strange and deadly serious events had occurred in the past three days, ever since he’d entered Sylvie’s lab. He needed answers to some important questions to figure out who the perps were, but he couldn’t do any investigating while under fire. Claudia Casale was tops in her field, and he trusted her to do the preliminary investigative work for him. But, holy hell, it was going to be hard enough to cover his own ass, let alone Sylvie’s little heart-shaped butt.
What made him think he could do a better job of protecting her than Sylvie’s mother? Without giving it another thought, he swung the wheel of the Jeep and proceeded to make a sharp turn in the highway and over the bayou, much to the fury of the drivers behind him. The operator of a battered pickup truck that fishtailed around him flipped him the bird. As the vehicle—better known as a Louisiana Cadillac—rattled on down the highway, Luc noticed its bumper sticker. “Keep honking… I’m reloading.”
Luc continued to drive, now in a different direction.
“No!” Sylvie exclaimed with alarm. “You are not taking me to my mother’s.”
He gave her a sideways glance of surprise. “How do you know that’s where I’m headed?”
“I can read your face,” she said, “and your face says, ‘How do I dump Sylvie and ride off into the sunset?’ Well, think again, cowboy. I’m going with you. We’re in this together.”
“Oh, yeah?” That was real bright, LeDeux. He surreptitiously peeked her way to see if she shared in his low opinion of his conversational skills. Then he did a quick double take.
Sylvie still held onto the crash bar and her mouse hotel with white-knuckled intensity, but her hands were shaking, and her overwide eyes glistened with tears that she blinked to hold back. The woman was clearly in shock. Plus, she’d probably never ridden in a Jeep with no door before. Lots of firsts in her life today, for sure.