Читать книгу Stolen Bride - Sally Carr - Страница 8

CHAPTER THREE

FINN grabbed her wrist and pulled her to him. ‘We are not on some Sunday jaunt,’ he said quietly, emphasising every word. ‘This is a dangerous game you’ve started, and it doesn’t pay to play around with your relatives. Didn’t it ever occur to you that I might think the worst when you didn’t immediately come back?’

She stared into his eyes. ‘I know more about my relatives than you do,’ she told him.

‘I doubt it,’ he drawled.

‘You are so arrogant,’ she said at last. ‘You always think you know best. Don’t you? I bet the only reason you were angry when I didn’t come back was because you thought the source for your latest book had just gone west.’

He stared, and she dropped her eyes. Then he sighed and released her.

She stood back, rubbing her wrist as though he had hurt her, and he shrugged irritably and pushed his fingers through his hair. A lock of it, like an untidy comma, fell over his forehead, and she stifled an entirely unreasonable instinct to reach up and brush it back.

‘You can leave right now, if you want to,’ he said softly.

She glared at him, reddening, knowing he was aware of the way she had been staring at him. ‘You know I can’t,’ she answered. ‘That’s a rotten thing to say to me.’

‘Maybe,’ he agreed, his eyes as hard as ice on a cold night. ‘But then I’m a rotten kind of person.’ He turned on his heel and Walked away, and after a few seething seconds Cara stalked after him, her teeth clenched as the gravel bit into her feet.

The car was parked in darkness near the exit, and she watched silently as Finn unlocked it. And then her eyes slid away from his angry eyes and taut face, seeing without registering at first a dark blue car coasting into the garage forecourt.

A very familiar dark blue car, empty except for one man. Luca.

‘Finn,’ she breathed, unable to say any more, the hairs lifting on the back of her neck.

Luca was easing his bulk out of the car. Then, halfway out, he saw her.

She stood stock-still, staring at him, as he slammed the door and came towards them with all the horrible inevitability of a runaway tank.

Finn spun round. ‘Get in the car,’ he ordered.

She put a shaking hand on his arm. ‘No,’ she pleaded. ‘Maybe he will listen to me.’

‘Cara.’ Finn bit the words out. ‘In case you hadn’t noticed, that is a gun in his hand, and he doesn’t look too pleased to see you. Now, get in the car.’

She looked at Luca’s hand, the sodium lights of the service station glinting dully off the absurdly small object he was carrying, and stood up straighter. ‘I’d rather face him,’ she said, her voice sounding strangely high.

Finn reached for her arm and squeezed it. ‘Everything’s going to be all right, Cara,’ he said quietly. ‘Just get into the driving seat and start the engine.’

She looked at him, his eyes once more on Luca, then did as she was told.

Finn, too, got into the car and pulled the door closed just as Luca came to a stop about three feet from them. ‘I should kill you where you sit,’ the Italian said. ‘Both of you.’

‘Bit messy,’ Finn remarked, his hand inside a paper sack he picked from the floor. ‘And besides—’ he shrugged ‘—what’s to say I won’t shoot first?’

He lifted his hand out of the bag, and the Italian glanced in surprise at the pistol Finn was holding. ‘You wouldn’t dare shoot,’ he blustered. ‘I have men all around.’

‘Not true,’ said Finn conversationally. ‘On both counts.’ He waggled the gun at Luca and added, ‘If you shoot me, I’ll shoot you, and that won’t get either of us anywhere. I’d go away and get some reinforcements if I were you.’

Cara swallowed hard. She had never heard anyone talk to Luca like that before. And yet Finn seemed so relaxed about it. As if he really didn’t care whether he upset him or not.

She stared straight ahead, looking out of the corner of her eye at the people crowded around the restaurant. So far they seemed oblivious to what was going on, but she wondered if Luca would do anything in such a public place.

He was glaring at them as if he was thinking about what Finn had said. ‘You wouldn’t dare shoot me,’ he repeated at last.

‘Try me,’ replied Finn. He added in an undertone to Cara, ‘Get going, for God’s sake.’ With one terrified glance at Luca she pressed her foot down on the accelerator, and the car leapt away spitting gravel. There were two sharp noises, as if a car had backfired, then they were on the autostrada once more.

‘He shot at us,’ gasped Cara, changing gear and forgetting to put the clutch down. ‘He actually shot at us.’

‘Yes,’ replied Finn shortly. ‘Still think you can persuade him to see reason?’

‘You had a gun, too,’ she retorted. ‘That makes you just as bad as the rest of them.’

He looked at what he was carrying and smiled. ‘Not quite.’

There was a pause, then Cara glanced curiously at him. ‘Would you have shot him?’

There was an expression on his face she couldn’t read at all. ‘What’s the matter?’ she asked.

He hefted the gun in his hand and gazed at her rather apologetically. ‘I don’t think this would hurt anyone,’ he said at last. ‘Although I suppose it could make their teeth fall out.’

She wondered if she was hearing correctly. ‘Are you all right?’ she asked tentatively. ‘Shock can do funny things to people.’

‘You think I’m crazy, don’t you?’ replied Finn, and then her heart stopped as he put the gun in his mouth.

‘Mother of God!’ she shouted. ‘What the hell are you playing at now?’ With an enormous effort of will she kept driving. ‘Look,’ she said as calmly as she could. ‘Don’t do this. Please. I beg you. I—I’m sorry I said all those things to you back at the service station. Your nerves obviously can’t take all the strain. Maybe we should get a doctor or something.’

He removed the gun from his mouth and grinned broadly at her. ‘You’re really sorry?’

She nodded hastily. ‘Absolutely.’

To her utter amazement his smile widened. ‘Such a shame the gun is only made of chocolate, isn’t it?’ he remarked. And then putting the fake gun once more in his mouth he bit off a piece and relaxed in his seat. ‘Want a bite?’

Her hands felt wet on the wheel. She rubbed them briskly on her shorts and took several deep breaths. ‘No, thank you,’ she said shortly.

‘I always think it’s a shame you can’t get chocolate bullets, as well,’ he mused, breaking off the trigger and offering it to her.

‘What about a chocolate cruise missile, full size, that I could drop on your head?’ she retorted, taking the piece without even noticing what she was doing.

‘Do you always drive like this?’ he inquired.

She glared at him, but before she could say anything be asked interestedly, ‘Did you have lessons? Or are you learning as you go along?’

She clenched her jaw. ‘One of my uncle’s bodyguards taught me.’

‘That makes me feel much better,’ he said drily. ‘I’ve already aged twenty years this afternoon. By the time you’re finished I’ll need a wheelchair and an oxygen mask.’

Cara’s fingers tightened on the wheel. ‘Yes, well, you’re not the only one,’ she said icily. ‘If Luca had known about that gun...’ Her voice trailed away, her mind almost refusing to accept what had just happened. ‘How could you do that?’ she whispered.

He shrugged. ‘We didn’t really have much choice, did we?’ he remarked. ‘It was either bluff him or give up.’

‘But the gun.’ Cara thought of what he had done.

Finn stared expressionlessly out the window. ‘You said you were hungry,’ he remarked. ‘And when I went to get you something, they only had sweets left. It was either the gun or a sherbet lollipop.’ He shrugged. ‘I bought both, actually, but somehow, when it came to the crunch, I didn’t think Luca would feel very threatened by a lollipop.’

Cara shook her head. ‘If only he knew,’ she said softly.

‘He’s hardly likely to, though, is he?’ said Finn, stretching out in his seat. ‘You’ve eaten practically all the evidence.’

‘I was hungry!’ she retorted earnestly, and then realising that he was winding her up once more, thumped the steering wheel. ‘Do you want to drive?’ she demanded.

‘No,’ he said innocently. ‘No. I like being driven at a hundred and twenty miles an hour on an Italian motorway by a beautiful woman eating a chocolate gun.’

She shot a furious glance at him. ‘Surely you mean a beautiful but gormless woman,’ she snapped.

He lifted his hands in mock appeal. ‘I didn’t know you then,’ he said.

She pressed her foot down harder. ‘Well, you’re not going to get the chance to know me any better now.’

‘Is that because you’re going to drive us into the middle of next week?’ His hand rested lightly on her arm, and she jumped at the contact. ‘Slow down, Cara. We don’t need to go this fast.’

She eased back jerkily on the accelerator. He nodded. ‘That’s better,’ he said.