But Dr. Wong refused to commit. “I’ll discharge her as soon as she’s ready to go.”
He wouldn’t budge from that stance, no matter what Dan said. So, more frustrated than ever, he retreated to Carlie’s room.
“Hey, Sunshine,” she called when he walked in. “What’s with the joy and happiness?”
That was all he needed: Carlie in one of her more outrageous moods. How was he going to break the news to her?
“How are you feeling?” he asked.
“I’m a lot better. But it still feels like I breathed in a bunch of mascara brushes.”
Mascara brushes? “Then I hope you cough out the little porcupines faster than you breathed them in.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that you’re going to have to feel well enough to sneak out of here sometime tomorrow. We have to get going while we still can.”
Her eyes widened, and she swallowed hard. “Where are we going? Or can’t you say?”
“I shouldn’t say anything, but I know how hard this has been on you. Prepare yourself. We’re headed for the steam bath better known as Florida in August.”
Once again, Carlie took his words and turned them upside down. “Really?” she asked, excitement in her voice. “I’ve always wanted to go to Florida! Promise me one thing.”
“I’m not promising anything. Tell me what you want, and I’ll tell you whether we can work it out.”
She sat up and crossed her arms. “Work it out, nothing. You owe me, Secret Agent Man. You wouldn’t take me shopping at the outlets, so now you have to take me to see the Mouse. We, Danny Boy, are going to Disney World.”
Dan had the sinking feeling he’d lost control of his assignment. And the loss was all because of a beautiful blonde, her killer smile and his growing desire to please her.
He was in trouble. And it had nothing to do with the mob.
It was the mob widow who posed the danger, to his health.
His heart’s health.
FOUR
That bruise on Carlie’s forehead was going to drive him nuts. How long did bruises last, anyway?
Against his better judgment, he stole another glance across the width of the front seat of his Bureau car.
He had to face the truth. Her beauty exerted a pull on him. It was shallow of him, but with a woman as attractive as Carlie Papparelli, a man would have to be totally blind not to feel it.
He wasn’t blind.
The small bruise over her left eyebrow stood out from the near-perfect background of her looks and underscored her vulnerability. It made him more aware than ever that her life—literally—was in his hands. He’d never shied away from responsibility, and he wasn’t about to start now, but for some reason this assignment weighed more heavily on him than most others did.
He almost couldn’t recognize himself.
Everyone he knew commented on his easygoing nature, his lighthearted view of the world, his ability to cope in tough circumstances with ease and poise. That all changed the day he’d met the mobster’s widow.
He didn’t like it. Not one bit.
Another glance.
Carlie had closed her eyes, leaned her head against the window and appeared to nap. The slightest hint of a smile curved her lips, and her peaceful expression nearly stole Dan’s breath away. How could she stay so calm?
Mobsters wanted to make mincemeat out of her, yet she still slept with the trust of a child.
Maybe she did trust him. He hoped so, because otherwise their circumstances would be grimmer than even he thought them to be. He knew his job; he had an excellent track record with the Bureau. He’d yet to lose a single witness under his care.
One more look at her reminded him of the scale of his task.
He usually handled mousy paper-pushers who’d blown the whistle on crooked colleagues. He’d never had to worry about making the subjects of those assignments inconspicuous; they were inconspicuous. But Carlie?
He needed someone to show him how to turn a stunning Cinderella back into a frumpy maid. He didn’t have a magic slipper to take from her foot.
The thought of her footgear made him smile. Carlie struck him as a firm supporter of “the more, the merrier” approach. That is, when it came to her heels. He’d never seen anyone handle stilettos, even while wearing jeans, quite as expertly as Carlie Papparelli did. The most irritating part? She looked great while doing so.
He chuckled. She’d better hope they didn’t have to hoof it to safety any time soon, because if they did, she’d be in major trouble. Those spikes weren’t made for running.
When he realized how indulgent his thoughts were, he forced his attention to the matter at hand. He couldn’t afford to expend many warm and fuzzy thoughts on Carlie as a person. That would spell danger.
So he drove on in silence.
She slept on.
“Hey!” she said about two hours later. “How about we hit a fast food joint or something? It’s way past time for me to use the little girls’ room.”
“And here I thought you just loved the little toys.”
“Watch it, Secret Agent Man. If I get a squirt gun, you’re in trouble.”
Dan cringed when, as they walked into the burger place, every head turned their way. All its patrons stared at Carlie, who, oblivious of the attention, headed for the ladies’ room.
Yeah, he had trouble on his hands, all right. The biggest part of that trouble was to convince Carlie that something had to be done about her looks.
“Aw, come on,” she wheedled moments later. “Why can’t we eat at least one meal a day at a table? I’m really tired of squeezing stuff out of foil packets and decorating my clothes with it because you hit yet another bump.”
He almost broke. Almost.
“Be glad that’s the only kind of bump we’ve hit on the road to a long and healthy future for you. Those bombs and bullets weren’t figments of our imaginations.”
She shuddered, and an infinitesimal pang of guilt hit him. But then, in a subsequent moment of reason, he banished the pang to where it belonged: far, far away from his thoughts.
“I intend to get you to that witness stand in one piece. If that means you’re going to wear a mustard-ketchup-and-barbecue-sauce tie-dye job, then you’d better get yourself a new perspective on stains.”
She rolled her eyes, grabbed her bagged meal, turned away, and click-click-clicked her way to the door. There she paused to give him a glare. “So, Danny Boy, are you just going to stand there? If my memory serves me right, you’re the one who finished reading me the riot act about the dangers of exposure not two seconds ago.”
He shook his head and followed.
Outside, he yielded just a bit. They ate in the parked car. In silence.
When Carlie was done, she turned to face him. “How long is it going to take you to get me to Florida? All I know is that we’ve been driving for ages, and I don’t see any sand or palm trees yet.”
“That’s because it takes more than a couple of hours to drive from Pennsylvania to Florida. Especially if we want to make sure none of your family’s friends are on our tail.”
She sighed. “So how much longer do you want us to live out of your car?”
“As long as it takes.” He