“I’ll go get the coffee and food. Make fucking sure she doesn’t get away while I’m gone.”
“I won’t.”
Nodding, he went to the desk to slip her keys into his pocket, when Mary suddenly came out of the bathroom, giving him a curious look that he was still there. To cover up his actions, he went to Jonas’s jeans to take their room key out of his pocket. “I thought I’d change my clothes before going to the diner.”
Innocently accepting his explanation, she took her suitcase out of the closet and placed it on the bed, needing a change of clothes for herself.
Frustrated that she would be suspicious if he kept hanging around after telling her that he was going, Hammer started to leave the room without her car keys, meeting Jonas’s eyes one last time before heading out the door.
Swearing to himself that he would have to change his clothes before getting the food, he hurried, not wanting to leave Jonas and Mary alone for long. He wanted it settled that they would be able to see her again before she left town.
Taking a quick shower, he was in and out of their motel room within twelve minutes. However, he ran out of luck at the diner. There were several customers waiting for their orders, and the waitress took her time finishing his order. Irritated, he was rushing back to the Escalade when a thought occurred to him.
Instead of taking a left toward the motel, he swung a right, going to the grocery store. Hurrying inside, he found what he was looking for sitting in a metal cart by the front entry. Picking up several items, he checked out and back was outside in minutes.
Satisfied, he drove back to the motel, anticipating Mary’s reaction at what he bought her. It might be a day late, but the meaning was the same, regardless of the date on the calendar.
He didn’t take a deep breath of relief until he pulled back into the motel parking lot and saw that her car was still there. Grinning in expectation, he knocked on Mary’s motel room door, waiting for her or Jonas to answer. When neither did, Hammer juggled the coffee and take-out in one hand as he twisted the doorknob. The door opened easily to an empty room, with the television left on to a game show.
It wasn’t the sound of the game show that was filling the room, though. It was the sound of Jonas’s yells and bangs from inside the bathroom.
“I fucking knew it!” Setting the coffee and food on the desk, he hurried to unwind the luggage cord from the doorknob that she had attached to the foot of the bed. The bathroom door flew open when he released it.
Jonas’s face was filled with rage. “Where’s—”
“She’s not here, but her car is still outside.”
“Fucking hell….” Jonas dropped the towel he had wound around his waist to pull on his jeans.
“Why in the fuck did you take a shower? I told you not to leave her alone!” Hammer strode over to the window, pulling the drape back to make sure the car was still there. Sure enough, it was gone. The wily woman must have made a run for it when he was getting Jonas out of the bathroom.
“The car’s gone! Let’s—”
Jonas was already grabbing his shoes and T-shirt as Hammer started for the door.
“When I get my hands on her, she’s not going to be able to sit down for a week,” he snarled.
Hammer would have laughed if he wasn’t just as angry.
Heaving himself into the driver’s seat, he ignored Jonas’s growl when he saw what was on the passenger seat. Picking up the red roses wrapped in cellophane, a red stuffed mouse, and two large, heart-shaped boxes of candy, he tossed them into the back seat.
“I’m going to use that luggage cord to tie her to the bed.”
Hammer didn’t pay any attention to Jonas’s threats as he barreled out of the parking lot. There were only two ways out of town. One headed toward Jamestown and the other led to Virginia. There were easier ways to get to Virginia without traveling through Treepoint, so Mary had to be heading back through the thirty-mile stretch of road toward Jamestown. The problem was, if they didn’t catch her before then, their chances of finding her would become more difficult. She could turn onto a number of county roads that led to several cities in Kentucky or take another road that headed to Tennessee. If she made it to Jamestown, odds were, they would lose her.
“Calm down.” Speeding up, he blew through town. “Call Knox before one of his deputies pulls us over.”
Jonas was reaching for his cell phone when the blue lights and the sound of a siren came from behind them. “Keep going,” he said. “Knox can radio them to let us go.”
“Dammit.” Hammer hit the steering wheel with his fist as he started to slow down.
“Why are you slowing?” Jonas yelled at him. “Knox—”
“Save your breath.” Hammer pulled to the side of the road, reaching for his wallet. “It’s Greer.”
“Son of a fucking bitch!” Jonas punched the side of the door.
He and Jonas both knew that Greer wouldn’t listen to Knox. In fact, if the sheriff tried to call him off, Greer would just as likely arrest them instead of giving them a ticket.
“Here. Give him this. Tell him we’re in a hurry.” Jonas started pulling cash out from his wallet.
Hammer was a step ahead of him, his own cash already in his hand.
In his side-view mirror, he saw Greer saunter up to the side of his vehicle. Rolling the window down, he waved at Greer to hurry. Greer Porter went slower, pretending to peer through the dark, tinted windows.
“Fuck!” Hammer grabbed Jonas’s cash, then got out. “Greer, we’re in a hurry.” Showing him the cash, he tried to give the deputy a smile, knowing if he irritated him, Greer would take his sweet time before letting them go.
“Are you trying to bribe an officer of the law?”
“Yes.”
Greer took the cash, counting the bills. Satisfied, he stuffed it into his shirt pocket. “Works for me. I’ll give your ticket to Killyama. Make sure you don’t miss your court date.”
Hammer was so frustrated that he was about to rip Greer a new asshole, but Jonas’s yell stopped him.
Getting back inside, he slammed the door. “That son of a bitch shouldn’t be a deputy,” he snarled, putting the Escalade back into gear. “He should be the governor.”
Jonas didn’t respond, his eyes on the road ahead. “Mary’s going to get away. She got too big of a head start. She could turn down any of these side roads and we wouldn’t know. She could have family in the area and might not even be on the road anymore.”
“I know.” Jonas’s thoughts were echoing his own early ones. “You want me to keep going to Jamestown or turn back?”
“Keep going to Jamestown. If we don’t catch up with her, we’ll stop at the gas station at the turnoff. Maybe she doesn’t have much gas, and we could luck out and catch her there.”
Hammer pressed harder down on the gas, knowing deep down it was useless.
“How did you get yourself locked in the bathroom?”
“She tricked me.”
“No shit.”
“I forgot to take a condom to the shower,” he admitted.
“Let me guess; she offered to get it for you?” he said snidely.
“Yes.”
“She would have gotten me that way, too.”
Hammer wasn’t angry anymore. Jonas wasn’t ready to drop his anger, though, and Hammer couldn’t blame him. It had to have hurt his pride that she had taken off when he was buck naked.
“We’ll find her.”
“Yes, we will,” he seconded. “You can count on that. And when we do, I’m going to give her two choices.”
Hammer knew how Jonas’s mind worked too well not to know their future plans.
“Stay tied to our bed or marry us.”
“Exactly.”
“When she does, can I tell Killyama how Mary got away from you?”
“Only if you want to die.”
CHAPTER 9
Mika kept hidden against the side of the vending machine as she watched for Hammer’s vehicle
to pull into the parking lot. Gripping the handle of her suitcase, she wanted to go back inside her room and pretend she was just playing a game with Jonas.
She wanted to go back to the day before and do a re-do. She would never have gone to the bar. Hell, she wouldn’t even have gone for the soda. Because her plan had backfired. Her heart was breaking in two, and each part had a name: Jonas and Hammer.
She had wanted a simple one-night stand, yet it was anything but. That’s what her friend Julia had been trying to make her understand, yet she hadn’t seen the full picture because her heart hadn’t been involved.
There was no such thing as a one-night stand. You might only have one night in someone’s bed, but the memory of it lasts a lifetime. The casual encounter she planned had become so much more than she could have anticipated.
She deserved a broken heart. Jonas and Hammer had made it plain that they wanted an open and honest relationship, yet she wasn’t able to give them that. She would have only made it worse for them all if she stayed. It would have been like building a house of hay and not expecting a hard wind to blow it away.
Besides, Mika had no intention of leaving her job and moving to another state. She had worked too hard to get where she was at now. She couldn’t throw all her plans away because of the two men she just met.
What if they only wanted a one-night stand and all their talk was just a ploy to get laid? Instead of being angry that she had taken off, would they be relieved that she was gone?
“This is why one-night stands don’t work.”
Beginning to feel ridiculous that she was blowing the night out of proportion, Mika started to step out of her hiding place when she saw Hammer’s Escalade turn into the parking lot. She would have been able to face an angry Jonas for locking him in, but confronting two angry men in a motel room wouldn’t be a wise choice.