around the faded English gardens to the barnlike garage at the back of the house. “We can talk about it on the road. Just run!”
With the sudden fury of a lioness she lashed out, struggling to break free of him. One fist found its mark, attacking arms and chest already battered; her nails clawed at cuts still open and bleeding. “Get away from me! Don’t touch me!”
He grabbed her wrists, trying to hold her writhing body still. “Have you gone nuts? We’ve got to get out of here now!”
She stilled, panting; then she jerked out of his hold, her face blanched, her eyes glassy. “I thought you were dead!”
He rocked back on his feet. “What?”
“You—they said you were dead—” she whispered.
He blinked and frowned, reasserting mental control. Of course they did. Damn fool he’d been to not think of it before!
Did that mean Tessa had never—
He shook himself. “Well, you can see I’m not. Now that’s established, which car is yours so we can get out of here?” He reined in the fierce desire to shake her—he had to get her trust, and bloody fast. “Every second counts. Get in your car!”
She broke away, bolting to a beat-up brown van. “Thank God, a four-wheel-drive,” he muttered as he threw himself onto the passenger seat. “We’ll need to go over some rough roads to—”
She leveled a small gun in his face. “Shut up.”
He shut up. Yeah, she’d changed, all right.
“Good.” She spoke with a fierce, terrifying quiet. “How much did he pay you to do this? Did you set this up, or did he?”
His heart pounded in sickening rhythm, but he lifted a brow in a show of cool unconcern. If she saw the fear clenching his gut she’d leave him behind on the road alone and unarmed. “Which ‘he’ are you talking about? Your dad, your brother or your husband?”
She held the gun before his eyes without wavering, her vivid, glowing face filled with grim hatred and desperate resolution. Terror lurked beneath the steel in her eyes, held at bay only by the force of her will. “Damn you, David, answer me!”
He reached out to reassure her, but halted as she lifted the gun barrel to level right between his eyes. “Does it matter now? For God’s sake, Beller’s after us!”
Her eyes glittered. “How much is he paying you this time?”
“What?” Paying him? This time? “What the—”
“I hope you asked for more this time. A resurrection’s a rare occurrence. After all, anybody can die. It’s Easter holiday, too—very appropriate. I hope you asked for double time, at least.”
He blinked again. “Are you insane? What the hell are you talking about? And why now? Beller could be here any minute!”
She shook her head, showing her teeth in a fierce smile. “So you’d better prove to me I’m safer with you than him, and fast. Or you’re on the road. Don’t move, David. I know how to use this—and don’t think I won’t. Did you work out this plan, thinking I’d be so shocked by your sudden resurrection from the dead I’d go along with anything you said without question? How much is Cameron paying you to bring me to him? How much?” She was screaming now, her forehead beading with the perspiration of intense stress.
He could feel tiny drops of sweat breaking out on his upper lip; he watched in wary fascination as her finger curled around the trigger, her thumb pulled off the safety catch. “I’ve never taken a cent from your father, your brother or Beller. I’d never sink as low as that.”
The gun wobbled in her hand. “They told me you were dead—and you never came for me,” she whispered a second time. “Why?”
The half-terrified, confused betrayal in her eyes was something he understood—he’d been there. He’d hated this woman every minute of the past six years, and her look, her words said she didn’t exactly hold tender memories of him, either. “When we’re safe I’ll explain,” was all he could think to say.
Explain? What a joke. Could anyone understand the crazy mess his life had become since meeting Tessa?
“This is a scam.” Her voice was a hoarse croak. “You can’t pull a trick on me he hasn’t already tried—and I’d rather die now than go back to him.”
He finally lost it. “Tessa, for God’s sake will you look at me? It’s not just you he’s after!” With a lightning movement he had the gun in his hand, jamming the safety into place, checking the barrel for bullets. “Don’t scream—if I was going to shoot you I’d have done it years ago. Now look at me, woman,” he snarled. “He did this to me because of you!”
Eyes wide with horror gradually unclouded. She seemed to look at him, to take in the blood trickling down his temple, the swollen eye and torn lip, the contorted purpling masses on his arms, chest and thighs through his torn T-shirt and ripped jeans. “If I had a car left I wouldn’t be here. Beller blew up my truck, right in the middle of town. God knows how—I was only gone three minutes. Thank God whatever he used had a faulty timer.”
Or maybe it didn’t? He frowned. Maybe Beller didn’t want him dead—just disabled. Unable to reach Tessa in time.
I thought you were dead, she’d said….
There’s no time to think!
He handed her back her gun with the bullets still in the barrel, sweating on the hope she’d understand the significance of his act. “Your landlady’s watching us from the back window. How long do you think we’ve got until he charms her into spilling her guts? When he knows what type of car we’re in and which way she saw us go, we’re stuffed until we can get a new car. So can we please get the hell out of here now before he kills both of us?”
Her eyes searched his for a moment—the strange, unforgettable eyes of amber and gold that still visited his dreams after six years. Then she started the car and screeched away from the house. But she left the loaded gun on her lap—and whether it was to use on him or Beller he didn’t know.
Right now he didn’t care. He was safer taking his chances with Tessa than an obsessed maniac like Cameron Beller. On a blown-out quiet sigh he said, “Head for the northern highway. We can stay at my place tonight.”
Her voice filled with disbelief and contempt. “We? You think I’d stay with you? I’ll get you out of town, but that’s it.”
“We don’t have time for this,” he snapped. “When we’re away from here and safe we can take a stroll down memory lane, throw a few recriminations around. I’ve got a few questions I wouldn’t mind asking myself. But let’s work at keeping alive first!”
“We’ll talk? About what, David?” Her voice quivered with fury; her hands clenched and unclenched on the steering wheel. “About how you walked out on me? How you disappeared without a word, leaving me to believe you were dead until now?”
“Keep your eyes on the road. I didn’t escape a car bomb to have you slam me into a pole.” He put out a hand, steadying the steering wheel as the van flashed past farms on the northern edge of town. They hit a straight stretch of open road, flanked by flat brown paddocks and half-rotting fences. He kept an eye on the road behind them, throwing up a fervent prayer for a quick sunset, a sudden autumn storm or miraculous fog; but the sun kept shining and the van could be seen for a mile either way. “And don’t call me David. I go by the name Jirrah now. Jirrah McLaren. David Oliveri no longer exists. And I didn’t lead you to believe anything. I had no idea you thought I was dead.”
“What do you mean you don’t exist?” Tessa drove one-handed; the other caressed her brow, as if soothing herself. “What did you think I’d believe when you didn’t show up? They said—”
“If you haven’t worked out by now that your family are lying,