Run To You

her own family who didn’t like her. They called her guera . White girl, and they didn’t mean it in a good way. They thought she was spoiled because of her father’s money, but the money had never been hers. The trust was in her name, but she’d never had any control over it.
    Tears stung the backs of Stella’s eyes. She felt like a kid again, lying on her bed, alone in her room as one of her biggest fears rolled through her head. What if Sadie didn’t like her? She’d rather live her whole life not knowing her sister than have Sadie look at her like some people did. Like their own father had.
    As the first tear dripped on the lens of her big sunglasses, the toes of black tactical boots appeared before her blurred vision.
    “You’re going to miss your flight.”
    She was almost relieved to hear his deep familiar voice. “How’d you find me?”
    “Your cell has a GPS.”
    She looked up. Up past his long legs and flat stomach, over his big chest and thick neck to the frown pulling at his mouth. “You got here pretty fast.”
    “I hadn’t gone far.”
    Her gaze continued to his gray eyes drilling into her. “Is Sadie paying you to make sure I get on the plane?”
    “No. I pulled into short-term to make some business calls.”
    With the sun pouring over his broad shoulders, he looked bigger than ever. “And to make sure I got on the plane.”
    A sharp nod confirmed her suspicion. “The next one doesn’t take off for three hours.”
    “Yeah.” She took off her sunglasses and wiped a tear from her cheek with the back of her hand. “I can’t get on it.”
    “Why?”
    She shrugged. “I just . . .” She lifted the hem of her dress and cleaned the lens of her glasses. “I don’t like heights.”
    “You’re afraid to fly?”
    She nodded. Much better to lie than tell him that she was afraid her sister wouldn’t like her.
    “Why didn’t you say that? I would have made other arrangements.”
    “You didn’t ask.” She returned the glasses to her face. “You just shoved a ticket at me.”
    He pulled out his phone and punched a few numbers. “Yeah,” he spoke into his cell. “I need you to look at bus schedules in Miami and find a ticket headed to Amarillo.”
    Stella stood. She didn’t know what she was going to do, but it for damn sure didn’t involve a bus. “Forget it. I’m not getting on a freaking bus.”
    His scowl reached his eyes. “I’ll have to get back to you.” He ended his conversation and shoved the phone in his pocket. “What are your plans, Stella?”
    Wow. That was frosty. Good. She liked frosty. It kind of snapped her out of her fog. She reached for her backpack and put it over one shoulder. “I don’t know. Maybe I’ll . . .” What? “Maybe I’ll rent a car and go . . .” She stooped to pick up her duffel. “Somewhere for a while.” Until Ricky forgot about her. It couldn’t take too long. Could it?
    Mr. Stone Cold stared down at her. “Un-fucking-believable,” he said. “This was supposed to be easy. Just give you a fucking message and get the fuck out of town.”
    Wow, not only was he stone cold, he apparently liked the F-bombs. “Sorry.” She shrugged. “But you can leave now. You gave me the message from Sadie. I’ll be okay.” And she would. She’d been taking care of herself for the past ten years. Most of her life, really. She’d figure out something. She didn’t need help. Not from anyone. Especially from a man who was so cold he probably crapped ice cubes.

Chapter Four
    H e was hot. The kind of hot that had nothing to do with the ninety-degree temperature outside. Beau Junger directed the air vents toward his face and glanced across the rented Escalade at the twenty-eight-year-old sacked out on his leather seat. A white iPad sat on her lap and a pair of purple ear buds plugged her head with music. As far as Beau had been able to surmise from her annoying singing before she’d fallen asleep, she listened to indie crap.
    Right before she’d crashed, she’d taken the rubber band from her ponytail and pulled her hair over one shoulder. The long black strands lay on her tan skin and curled beneath the curve of her breast. Shiny like the night before.
    Damn. Beau pulled his gaze from her hair and smooth skin and turned his attention to the interstate heading toward Naples and Tampa. She was twenty-eight. Even if he wasn’t determined to keep it in his pants and wait until sex meant something, she was too young. Much too young for him to