Judy returned and slid two enormous slices of pie in front of them. She looked as though she wanted to stay and talk a bit longer, but a telephone call interrupted her, to Donovan’s relief.
Donovan tried to think of something to say to Chloe, but since nothing came to him, he turned his attention to his coconut pie with three-inch-high lightly browned meringue—the diner’s specialty. He enjoyed the food—but the itch at the back of his neck didn’t go away.
The only conversation between them while they ate consisted of Chloe telling him that he’d been right about how good the pies were here. He replied that he’d been sure she would like them, and then they fell into silence again. Donovan was aware that Judy kept giving them questioning looks, as if wondering why they were there together, and why they were being so quiet, but for once the waitress stayed discreetly in the background. He assumed she had realized that he wasn’t in the mood for chitchat today.
There were no other customers in the place when he and Chloe paused at the cash register so he could pay the tab. Judy took his money with a hearty invitation for them to come back soon.
“The grocery store is only a couple blocks away,” he said, turning to Chloe just inside the exit door. “If there’s anything you particularly want, don’t hesitate to say so.”
“I would like some fresh fruit,” she admitted. “And tea—oolong or Ceylon, if possible. Anything but Earl Grey. I’ve never developed a taste for that blend.”
Donovan rarely even noticed the brand of the tea bags he occasionally dunked in water to make iced tea in the summertime—much less the blend of the leaves encased in the bags. “We’ll see what’s available.”
She reached for the door handle. He beat her to it. With one hand at the small of her back, he opened the door and guided her through it, scanning the nearly empty, gray-shadowed parking lot as he did so.
“You’re doing it again,” Chloe murmured, eyeing him quizzically. “Acting as if you’re guarding me from some supposed danger.”
He hesitated a moment, then shrugged, knowing it would do no good to deny that he was on alert. He tried to come up with an explanation that would satisfy her—without revealing the extent of his odd paranoia. “You’re involved with a wealthy and powerful man. There are inherent risks in that association, not to mention the possible annoyance of the paparazzi.”
“Paparazzi?” She laughed. “I hardly think I’d be of any interest to them.”
“You might be surprised,” he murmured, noting the way her laughter made shallow dimples appear at the corners of her soft mouth.
As if on an impulse, she patted his arm when they stopped beside the passenger door of his car. “I think it’s rather sweet that you’re taking such good care of me,” she said, her tone gravely teasing.
He surprised himself—and undoubtedly her—by chuckling. “Just doing my job, ma’am.”
“I’ll be sure and tell your boss to put a commendation in your employee file.”
“Do that.” He opened her door for her, his faint smile fading at her mention of his boss—the man who should be teasing with her in this parking lot. As he headed around the back of the car toward the driver’s side, an image of her smile stayed in his mind.
Despite his earlier vigilance, the attack caught him completely offguard. Maybe it was because he’d been so close to getting in his car and driving away. Or maybe because he’d finally talked himself into discounting those nagging, apparently groundless premonitions.
He should have known better. His instincts had always been very accurate. They’d only betrayed him once before—and that, too, had led to disaster.
Something cold and sharp punched into the back of his neck. Someone big and solid pushed him against his car, pinning him there so tightly he could hardly breathe.
Donovan wasn’t a small man—six feet tall, a hundred and eighty pounds—but whoever was behind him dwarfed him. Even then, he might have had a chance in a fight—he’d been well-trained in hand-to-hand combat—but whatever had been injected into his neck was already taking effect, blurring his vision, making his stomach lurch.
His legs started to shake, no longer supporting his weight. He would have crumpled had he not been pressed against the car.
He heard a vehicle pull up close to his own, and got a peripheral impression that it was a van. A side door opened.
“Chloe,” he said, but his voice came out only a gasping croak. Lock the doors, he wanted to yell. Blow the horn, do something to get attention.
Everything went black before he could make his unresponsive tongue form the words.
“Wake up, Donovan. Oh, please wake up.” Chloe spoke the words softly, but urgently, trying to penetrate the drug-induced stupor he’d been in since they’d been taken outside the little diner. She was concerned that he’d been out so long, and by his pallor and his very shallow breathing.
What if the bastards had given him an overdose of whatever sedative they had used? What if he didn’t wake up at all? She risked speaking a little louder. “Donovan? Can you hear me?”
He lay on his back on a bare blue mattress, both his arms stretched above his head. His wrists were secured by a pair of handcuffs that had been looped around one vertical bar of a black iron headboard. Chloe was on her knees beside him. One end of a pair of cuffs encircled her right wrist, the other end locked around another of the iron bars. She’d never worn handcuffs before, and the metal felt cold and heavy against her skin.
Since she wasn’t wearing a watch, and Donovan’s had been taken away, she had no idea how much time had passed. She only knew that panic was building steadily inside her with each passing minute.
Hearing a noise from somewhere else in the house, she spoke again. “Donovan? Please open your eyes.”
A sound rumbled low in his chest—a cross, she decided, between a growl and a groan. Whatever it was, she’d never heard a more welcome noise. It proved that he was alive—and, she hoped, beginning to rouse. She laid her hand on his chest, just above the spot from where the groan had emanated. “Donovan?”