St Kilda Consulting 02 - Innocent as Sin

Rand said.
    “Royal Palms?”
    “Yes.”
    “Joe Faroe?” she asked.
    “Among others.”
    She followed Rand out to the car, then confronted him before he loaded the box into the SUV. “And I’m supposed to take all this on faith.”
    “I wasn’t the dude waiting for you with handcuffs and duct tape.”
    Kayla closed her eyes. All she saw was the handcuffs, scuffed from horrible use, and thick duct tape to force back her screams. “Point taken. But that still doesn’t tell me why you helped me.”
    “I want you.”
    Her eyes snapped open. “Well, that’s blunt.”
    “You wanted honesty. You got it.” Half the truth, anyway. The rest isn’t mine to tell.
    She stepped aside. “Be careful what you ask for, is that it?”
    “Pretty much.” He tossed the box in back and started to get in the driver’s seat.
    “McCree, this is my car. It says so down at the DMV.”
    “Your point?”
    “I drive.”
    “Have you been trained in high-speed evasion?”
    She stared at him, then turned and got into the passenger side. The door slammed behind her. Hard.
    “The thing about choices,” Rand said as he drove out of the ranch yard, “is that they’re never as clear as they seem when you make them.”
    It didn’t take Kayla long to get to the bottom line. “What do you know that I should and don’t?”
    “Nobody’s motives are pure. Nobody’s.”
    “Including you?”
    “Yes.”
    “St. Kilda Consulting?” Kayla pressed.
    “It’s a human organization made up of people whose motives aren’t one-hundred-percent angelic.”
    “Joe Faroe?”
    “He’s nobody’s angel.”
    “Like Bertone,” Kayla said.
    “No. Faroe is a hard son of a bitch, but he’s honorable. Bertone is slime on cesspool walls.”
    “What if I don’t want to go to Royal Palms? Do I have a choice?”
    “You have the same choice you had in the garden before I showed up.”
    “Fight and die.” She made a low sound. “You really know how to sweet-talk a girl.”
    “You’re a woman.”
    “Doesn’t mean I don’t like sweet talk,” she retorted.
    “Every time I call you beautiful, or touch you, you stiffen up like I burned you.”
    She shrugged. “You did.”
    In the dashboard lights, Rand’s expression shifted. “Talk about blunt.”
    “Being hunted by a kidnapper does that to me.”
    “Frees your inner bitch?”
    “That, too,” Kayla said, smiling. “But mostly it reminds me that my next breath is a gift, not a guarantee.”
    Rand’s mouth thinned as he thought of Reed. “Amen. Amazing how knowing, really knowing, the fragility of life makes choices easier. ‘If I don’t do this, will I go to my grave regretting it?’ is the only question that matters.”
    The first thing Kayla thought was how she would feel if she didn’t pursue the heat she felt between herself and Rand.
    It’s been too long since a man made me curious, edgy, aware of every difference between male and female.
    Girl, your timing sucks.
    “So you count regrets in terms of things you haven’t done,” she said.
    “Always.”
    “Is that why you work for St. Kilda instead of painting fulltime?”
    “My time at St. Kilda could be real short,” was all Rand said.
    “Why do I get the feeling that you aren’t entirely happy working for St. Kilda?”
    “Because I’m not.” His voice didn’t encourage more questions.
    She asked anyway. “Then why are you with them?”
    “They made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.”
    “They threatened you?” she asked, startled.
    Rand’s fingers tightened around the wheel as the SUV sped through the darkness, pushing a cone of light ahead. A desert night and sweeping light that Reed would never see.
    “My reasons for being with St. Kilda are personal, private, and have no bearing on your decision,” he said.
    “Which decision?”
    “To go or not to go to Royal Palms,” he said sardonically.
    “Whither thou goest,” she said, her tone equally biting.
    He gave a crack of laughter. Then he realized how long it had been since he had laughed. “I like you, Kayla Shaw.”
    “Same back, Rand McCree. Well, most of the time.”
    He was tempted to ask about the rest of the time, but he didn’t. “Liking you wasn’t part of the plan.”
    “What plan?”
    “Despite its lack of perfection, St. Kilda Consulting is a necessary organization in today’s world of transnational crime, failed and failing states, feral cities, and the just plain savage places in between. All the places where duly