Friend, Lover, Protector. Sharon Mignerey
then Jack had set the pack down and was scratching Boo’s ears, massaging them close to her head, something she loved only slightly more than cookies. The dog looked as though she might dissolve into a puddle. An unexpected longing to be touched—with as much affection—feathered through Dahlia.
“Boo, back seat,” she repeated, her voice more stern.
Boo cast her a decidedly disgusted glance, jumped into the open space between the two bucket seats and plopped herself onto the floor.
“Nice dog,” Jack slid into the seat. “Her name is Boo?”
Dahlia nodded. “When she was a puppy, she was scared of her own shadow.”
“She’s not much of a watchdog, I take it.”
Remembering Boo’s restless prowl around the perimeter of the yard with her nose to the ground just this morning, Dahlia said, “She’s no rottweiler, but she’ll do.”
He chuckled, the accompanying smile revealing a dimple. Gorgeous and a dimple. There was no justice.
She was intensely aware of him, from the breadth of his shoulders and beautifully shaped hands to the button-down fly of his jeans. Dahlia could have sworn the temperature climbed fifty degrees. She flipped on the air conditioner and turned up the fan.
The instant he buckled the seat belt, she put the car into gear, determined to reclaim her usual focus. Even so, the silence stretched, thick and awkward, as she eased into traffic and headed east. It was the time she would have normally reviewed—with her rider—the objectives for their day, defined her expectations and answered questions.
It was a routine she had been through dozens of times, but darned if she could remember where to even start. Each time she opened her mouth to speak, her thoughts vanished. Finally she clamped her lips together, sure that she must look like a fish.
She had the feeling he was watching her behind those reflective sunglasses. Despite her best efforts to choose clothes that minimized the size of her breasts, most guys looked. Usually she took that in stride, though this student—this man—made her feel off balance. She briefly glanced down at herself, relieved that the button-down shirt she had layered over a T-shirt concealed rather than revealed.
“Sorry I’m late,” he finally said.
“No problem,” she automatically answered. No problem? Hah. Jensen, get a grip. The guy was late, and you would have left without him.
“Thanks for waiting, anyway.”
“You’re welcome.” Oh, brother. Dahlia cleared her throat. “I don’t remember seeing your name on the roster for my classes.”
“I haven’t taken any of your classes,” he said.
He didn’t add anything further, which made her glance over at him. His attention had shifted to the mirror outside the passenger door. Curious about what he saw, she glanced in the rearview mirror. The usual assortment of vehicles were on the road, including a police car in the center lane that kept the traffic at an aggravating two miles per hour under the speed limit.
“So why did you sign up for my field crew?”
“I’m thinking about changing majors.”
His answer was ordinary enough, but he acted as though the storm they chased was barely noticeable. No matter how shy, her students seemed as interested in the thunderheads as she did, their focus inevitably on whether they would see tornadoes. Some, in fact, were downright manic about the possibility.
Keeping an eye on the traffic, she riffled though a group of papers in a box between the two seats, at last finding a map. She handed it to Jack.
“We need to take one of the intersecting roads on the other side of I-25,” she said. “I want to get about five miles in front of the storm.”
Navigating the straight county roads of the high plains of Colorado was a simple task but one that usually told her a lot about her would-be assistants. A surprising number couldn’t have guided her off the campus. Jack opened the map up one fold and turned it around when he realized it was upside down. He glanced briefly at the street sign for the upcoming intersection, then continued to handle the map with the ease and dexterity of someone who used maps all the time.
“Your storm’s heading a little north from where it was,” he said. “And it looks to me like it’s picked up a little speed.”
Dahlia mentally gave him points for both observations. Even so, they were beneath the storm to the point she could sense the ozone in the air. Her anticipation increased.
Five minutes after they crossed over I-25, he directed her north onto the graveled road that she would have chosen, and they were making good progress on getting ahead of the storm.
“Are you new at CMU?” she asked.
“You could say that,” he responded.
The laconic reply annoyed her. “And what would you say?”
She glanced at him and found that his attention was once again focused on the side mirror. She looked in the rearview mirror. A car followed them, close enough to be catching the worst of the dust left in their wake.
A moment later Jack said, “What I’d say is that car has been following us since we left the campus.”
She glanced again in the mirror. “You’re sure?”
“Yeah.” He looked over at her, and she took her eyes off the straight road long enough to meet his glance—hidden behind the reflective sunglasses.
“Do you know them?” she asked. Apprehension slithered through her. She had been with dozens of students that she didn’t know, so riding with a stranger wasn’t new. But this feeling of impending doom was. A feeling that wasn’t supported by a single, substantiated fact.
“Whoever is back there?” He shook his head. “No.”
Reminding herself that tardiness and being good-looking weren’t valid reasons to distrust the man, she gave the other car another careful glance. It was white or beige or tan and looked like a thousand other cars. “I don’t know them, either.”
She lived by empirical evidence, what she could observe and what she could prove. To determine if the car really was following them, she made a left turn at the next intersection. A moment later the car appeared again in her rearview mirror.
At the next crossroads she turned again. Once more the car followed. Her attention became focused on the car behind her as much as the road in front. Surely the car wasn’t really following them. Surely this was some stupid coincidence.
It didn’t feel like a coincidence.
It felt menacingly deliberate.
Contrary to her assertion that she trusted only what she knew, she couldn’t bring herself to pull to the side of the road to let the car pass. She couldn’t have said why she was certain the car would stop, too. Then what? she wondered. Distressing images of murder and mayhem filled her mind. “You’ve been watching too much television, Jensen,” she muttered.
“Pardon?” Jack asked.
“Just talking to myself.” She turned at the next intersection, then watched for the car to appear behind her. From the corner of her eye she could see that Jack was also looking behind them, harsh lines bracketing his mouth.
The car whizzed through the crossroads without turning.
Shaking, and more relieved than she cared to admit, Dahlia slowed the van. The car continued on its way, a rooster tail of dust tracking its progress long after she could no longer see it.
“You okay?” Jack asked.
Dahlia straightened. “Yes.”
“You’re shaking,” he commented.
That he had noticed unsettled her even more. She had been in the field with