she asked incredulously. “Never mind,” Pru retorted when her remark earned her a puzzled scowl, adding urgently, “Get this thing started.”
“That’s what I’m doing,” he told her as he turned the key in the ignition. After one false cough, the car came to life.
“Hurry, get us out of here,” Pru cried, craning her neck to look back toward the farmhouse.
One of the men was tumbling out the window, head first. The other was already out and racing across the field toward the van. Prudence sucked in her breath as she saw the man whom she took to be the ringleader get into the van. He’d been the one who was driving yesterday morning when they’d dragged her off the path.
Her stomach twisted into a knot even though she refused to give in to panic. “Oh, God, they’re coming after us.”
“What did you expect?” her rescuer asked. Tires squealed as he hit the road.
Only then did she remember to buckle up. She pushed the metal tongue into its slot. “A S.W.A.T. team, not a half-naked man.”
“Sorry,” he told her. “The realm is fresh out of S.W.A.T. teams at the moment.” Stepping on the gas, he slanted a quick glance in her direction. “What part do you object to? That I’m half-naked or half-dressed?”
Oh, God, heaven spare her. Another man with an ego. “I object to the fact that my father sent a Neanderthal to rescue me.”
His mouth curved in a smile that remained exclusively on his lips and nowhere else. “Sorry, James Bond was busy dallying with a woman who knew that you catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar.”
Restrained by the seat belt, she still twisted around in her seat, looking out the back window and holding her breath as she tried to focus through the sheets of falling rain.
“Is that the way you think of yourself? As being a honey-deprived fly?” But before he could make any sort of a cryptic retort in response, Prudence realized something. The van wasn’t moving. Wide-eyed, she looked from the rear window to the driver on her right. “They’re not coming after us. Why aren’t they coming after us?”
Instead of answering, the dripping driver with the hard body leaned over into her space. She was about to push him back when, one hand still on the wheel, he flipped open the glove compartment. Two round, plastic-looking things tumbled out onto her wet lap. She had no idea what they were.
“I think these might have something to do with it.” He caught the confused expression on her face as he straightened again. “They’re distributor caps.”
Pru came to the only conclusion she could. “So the van’s disabled?”
“Unless one of them’s got a spare distributor cap in their pocket.”
Spinning the steering wheel around, the man executed a 270-degree turn and sped off in a new direction. Plumes of water flew up on either side of the vehicle while sheets of rain continued to come down. The road, when they finally reached it, was slippery, threatening to wrench control of the car away at the first unguarded moment.
He put the windshield wipers on high and they urgently began to duel with the rain. “You picked a hell of a day to be kidnapped.”
That she was rescued had not yet actually sunk in. The sensation was further impeded by the fact that she wasn’t completely sold that they were out of danger, no matter what the bare-chested man said about the distribution hats, or distributor caps, or whatever those things he’d taken off with were.
Prudence shoved both items back into the glove compartment, fighting with the door to get it closed. She was too full of adrenaline, too full of fury, to relax. And his smart mouth wasn’t helping the situation any.
“Next time I’ll have the kidnappers check the weather report before they abduct me,” she snapped, shifting in the wet seat.
He spared her a quick look, then shook his head. She caught the latter and it only served to further fuel her anger. “You really do have a sunny personality, don’t you?”
The mean-spirited nickname she’d been awarded immediately crossed her mind. Her eyes narrowed as she looked at his damn-near-perfect profile. Probably had women falling all over him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“That sometimes the tabloids get it right.”
She stiffened, pressing her lips together as she pushed a fallen wet strand out of her eyes. God, but she was tired of having to defend herself, of having her every move scrutinized and found lacking by someone. And when the truth didn’t live up to expectations, there were always lies to use.
Her voice was monotone and weary as she said, “I had you pegged as someone who reads trash.”
“And just when did you make this character assessment, Prudence? When I crashed into the room to rescue you or when I used my body as a human shield as they were shooting at you?”
For a second, there was nothing but the sound of the rain, beating against the windshield and the noise of the tires as they struggled against the ever-softening ground. Prudence flushed. He was right. She was being incredibly waspish. Living up to, she realized, all the nasty stories that were written about her. Stories that were taken out of context because the public demanded its daily dose of gossip, whether or not it was true.
She took a deep breath, then said, almost in a whisper, “Sorry.”
“What was that?” He took one hand off the steering wheel and cupped it to the ear closest to her. “I didn’t quite hear you. Sounded like you said you were sorry.”
She didn’t know whether to laugh at him or hit him. She wanted to do both. Instead, she settled for warning him. “Don’t push it.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” he quipped.
Joshua glanced in the rearview mirror. In the distance, on the road, he could just barely make out the beams of two headlights foreshadowing an advancing vehicle.
Had there been a third car somewhere? A car he hadn’t seen?
There’d been no time to go scouting into the barn or the garage. Now he wished he had.
Stepping all the way down on the accelerator, he drove as if it were a foregone conclusion that they were being followed by her abductors.
“Damn.”
Prudence jerked like a piece of toast popping out of its toaster. Twisting around in her seat, she looked behind at the road.
“Is that them?” she wanted to know. “Are they following us?”
Ordinarily, he’d say something to comfort the kidnap victim. But Pru didn’t strike him as someone who would appreciate being lied to or hearing half truths. So he shrugged and gave it to her straight. “I don’t know. Maybe.”
“I thought you said you disabled the cars.” Her tone was nothing short of accusing.
Maybe he should have lied to her. “The ones I could see.”
She looked panicked. “Were there more?”
At this point he had no way of knowing with any certainty. “There could have been.”
“Could have been?” she repeated incredulously. “Isn’t it your job to know?”
He’d had just about enough of her carping. It was hard enough maneuvering in this weather on these roads without having to deal with her as well.
“Look, this wasn’t exactly D-day at Normandy. I didn’t have days to plan out your rescue. Approximately thirty-six hours ago, I was sleeping in my own bed, blissfully unaware of you as anything other than an occasional headline to my right as I deposited my groceries onto the conveyor belt at my local supermarket.”
His repeated references to the tabloids seemed to make her bristle. “And now here we