License to Thrill

said over her shoulder. "Valmer Getty."
    James turned to follow the policemen and Kat to the parking lot, but Detective Tenner called after him when he had almost made it out the door. "We're not finished with you, Mr. Donovan."
    James pasted on an amiable smile and, still walking, turned back to the man with a small salute. "I'll be back, Detective. Just want to make sure the lady gets to the station in one piece."
    Tenner raised an eyebrow suggestively.
    James attempted to snuff the man's suspicion with a stern look. "After allowing the letter to be stolen, it's the least I owe my client, Lady Mercer," he said, exiting before Tenner could respond.
    Outside, he glanced around the parking lot, somehow knowing the beat-up Volkswagen van was Kat's the instant he spotted it After climbing into his rented car, he watched in uncomfortable silence as the officers assisted Kat into the squad car, its lights flashing silently in the pre-dawn hour. Kat turned and looked at him as the car pulled away, her eyes reminding him of his promise. He made as if to follow the police car, then purposely slowed at a stoplight and lost them, heading instead toward her apartment.

    *****

    Kat watched him disappear from view in the side mirror and exhaled a pent-up breath. She shifted sideways to alleviate the immediate discomfort of having her hands cuffed behind her, but nothing could dispel the sickening swell of panic in her stomach. Her heart pounded erratically. She sank against the cold seat and closed her eyes, fighting the dizziness that threatened to overwhelm her. I will not pass out... I will not pass out....
    She opened her eyes to try to focus on something, but the sight of the wall of crisscrossed metal between her and the officers talking quietly in the front seat triggered another wave of nausea. Kat gagged, then leaned forward and vomited on the floor. The sudden braking of the car nearly tumbled her, but she caught herself with a jarring blow to her shoulder as Officer Campbell pulled into a convenience store parking lot.
    "You should have told us you were feeling sick," Officer Raines chided gently as he helped her from the backseat and unlocked her cuffs. The other policeman handed her a wad of tissues, which she gratefully accepted to wipe her mouth.
    The men appeared to be at a loss for a few seconds, then the older officer mumbled something about getting it cleaned up and walked toward the store.
    "Don't worry," Officer Raines said kindly. "We've seen much worse."
    "I didn't steal that letter."
    The young man shifted uncomfortably, obviously unconvinced. "Your lawyer will be able to help you."
    Kat's spirits lifted a fraction as the image of Valmer Getty, her father's friend and attorney, came to her. She yearned for one of Val's bear hugs. He'd convince the police and the district attorney that the charges against her were ridiculous.
    She watched Officer Campbell pour a box of baking soda over the mess she'd made and wished all her problems could be so easily absorbed. To her relief, Campbell waved off the cuffs when Raines reluctantly withdrew them again. They shepherded her into the backseat and were soon under way again.
    "Looks like we lost your friend," Campbell noted with a glance in the rearview mirror.
    Kat nodded, trying to look miserable, then realized it wasn't really a stretch for her at this moment. A strange feeling uncoiled in her chest when she thought of James Donovan. He was a virtual stranger and represented the owner of the document she had been accused of stealing, yet he was the person in the room to whom she'd turned for help. Even if he didn't believe in her innocence, she felt certain he would do as he'd promised.
    The memory of his lips and body pressed against hers seemed especially powerful now, when she felt so alone. She'd been seriously involved with a handful of men in her thirty-one years, but not one of their lovemaking sessions had left her feeling as desirable as James's lone kiss. Without thinking, she brought her shaking fingers to her mouth and brushed them across her bare lips. Then she shook herself, astonished that her mind could be elsewhere in her predicament.
    Under arrest and on her way to the hoosegow, very probably out of a job and, at the very least, bearing a tarnished reputation—and she was daydreaming about a smooth talker who probably collected American women like souvenir figurines.
    She was in big trouble—literally and emotionally—and intuition told her