Rarities Unlimited 02 - Running Scared

driver.”
    “Remind me to thump on him for you.”
    “How about I thump on him instead?”
    Shane grinned. “You must have mistaken me for my stupid twin.”
    “No way I’d ever suspect you of being stupid, despite your million-dollar looks,” she said.
    “Darling, I’m worth more than a million.”
    His expectant expression said that he was waiting for her to cut him off at the knees. She opened her mouth to oblige, only to be distracted by someone who was passing her as though she had her foot on the brake.
    “Idiot,” she muttered. “What does he think that piece of crap is, a fighter jet?”
    The ponderous RV wallowed as its owner dragged the vehicle back over into the slow lane.
    “Hope the tires are up to the driver’s ambition,” Shane said.
    “Whatever. As long as he augers into the landscape well away from me.”
    Shane noticed her constant glances into the rear and side mirrors. “Anybody following?”
    “If they are, they’re staying far enough back that their lights blend with other traffic.”
    The sign for Camp Verde loomed out of the night. Risa didn’t bother with a turn signal. She simply whipped over to the off-ramp, hoping to catch any follower by surprise. Just after the stop sign at the bottom of the ramp, she pulled way to the side of the road, shut off the lights, and watched the mirrors.
    Nobody turned off for Camp Verde.
    Nobody passed them.
    Nobody cared.
    “Wanna neck?” Shane said.
    “Sure. You strip first.”
    He laughed out loud and thought how comfortable he was with her, how right it felt to have her within reach. “You make me wish I was good at the one-on-one thing.”
    “Is this where I tell you that you’re better than good at the one-on-one thing?”
    “Not sex. Relationships.”
    “Oh. That. I haven’t had much luck in that department either. Guys seem to cramp my possibilities rather than expand them.” She looked in the rearview mirror. “I suppose I do the same to them.”
    “So far you’ve been running away too hard to cramp anything but my ego.”
    She gave him a disbelieving look. “What are you talking about? I tripped you and beat you to the floor.”
    “Is that what happened? I thought I cornered you and jumped you.”
    She tried not to grin, then gave up and laughed. “It was . . . something. Each time. Every time.”
    Shane’s eyelids lowered and his eyes gleamed.
    Random sparks of memory sent heat through Risa’s belly. She wanted to crawl into Shane’s lap and start licking just to see if he tasted as good as she remembered. She blew out her breath and started up the truck before temptation got the better of her.
    “You sure?” he asked huskily, watching her lush mouth.
    She groaned. “Do you harbor a secret desire to be arrested for lewd and dissolute conduct in a public place?”
    “Not until I met you.”
    “Shane.”
    “What?”
    “Shut up.”
    He was still laughing when she turned onto a surface street.
    The Cedars Motel was just off the main street and looked older than the bluffs rising against the stars. A tired neon sign blinked and sputtered, advertising rooms by the night, week, or month. Though the word below said vacancy, the office was closed. It looked like it had been for a long time. A handprinted card stuck inside the window told anyone who really cared about a room to call a local number and inquire about rentals.
    There were twelve units and two cars. Each car was parked in the center of its half of the dirt parking lot, as if afraid that the other patron might be contagious. Two units showed a knife edge of light behind tightly drawn curtains.
    “Friendly place,” Shane said.
    “You sure this is it?”
    “The reverse directory pegged Cherelle’s phone to this address. The map I pulled off the Net led us right here.”
    “I thought cops and emergency services were the only ones with access to the reverse directory.”
    “You thought wrong.”
    Risa drummed her fingers lightly on the steering wheel. “Which unit?”
    “Lucky number seven.”
    She grimaced. If unit number seven represented luck, she would stick with hard work. “No car. No lights.”
    “No key.”
    “No problem.”
    Shane’s eyebrows lifted. “Is my upright, uptight curator suggesting a bit of breaking and entering?”
    “No need. Cherelle always stashed keys all around, so when she forgot one—and she always did—she wouldn’t have to break a window to get in.”
    “Damn. And here I was going to shock you with my