Run To Rome

“You know what I meant.”

“What, you’re not having fun?”

Halli jerked her head up and straightened in her seat. “No, I’m not. Getting shot at and kidnapped wasn’t listed anywhere on my itinerary.” The planned one or the windblown one.

“It wasn’t?”

“Of course not,” she snapped, glaring at him. “After we landed, right about now, in fact, we were supposed to go right to the hotel to freshen up, then get something to eat and tour the Villa Carlotta instead of listening to Ben’s bright idea to stop for a quick look at the lake. Tomorrow after breakfast, I wanted to visit a couple churches headed south and around Como, and after lunch, we were going to explore the village of Careno.” She ticked off each day on her fingers. “The next day I planned a drive around the lake until we reached Mandello to see the motorcycle museum—my brother’s a motorcycle nut. Then on Wednesday…or was it Thursday?...no, Wednesday, we’re going to—”

She halted mid-sentence when his eyebrows became visible above his sunglasses and underneath the bill of his cap. Heat flooded her face as she lowered her hands to her lap.

“You were being sarcastic.”

He gave her a patronizing grin. “Yes.”

And the pathetic idiot that she was, she’d given him a play by play. To avoid looking at him, she stared out her side of the car and opposite the lake as he navigated south. They were now driving around Lake Como, Italy, and she couldn’t even enjoy the scenery.

Heck—alone with Trent Tomlin, and she couldn’t enjoy the scenery. The man voted Most Sexy by women across America not once, not twice, but four times. Most of her female co-workers at PBS had agreed; any woman who didn’t fantasize about Trent Tomlin was either blind, or a lesbian.

She snuck a quick peek from beneath her lashes. Yeah, though he hadn’t been easily recognizable, he was still hotter than ever with all that rough scruff.

She’d always loved his movies, especially the Shain West ones that were an exciting cross between Indiana Jones and Romancing the Stone, but set in the 1800’s. However, things she’d heard on TV and read in the tabloids while standing in line at the grocery store suggested he was an irresponsible, incorrigible, work-a-little-party-too-hard Hollywood playboy.

She wasn’t naïve enough to believe everything they printed, but a picture told a thousand words. Or more accurately, a hundred pictures told a thousand words. The beautiful co-stars, glamorous supermodels and semi-talented pop singers who adorned his arm changed as often as his tie. So while she may have fantasized about the image of the man like the rest of America, it didn’t mean she respected him.

And, now that she’d been abducted by him, she certainly didn’t like him.

“Where exactly is your house?” she finally asked. They’d passed Brienno and Moltrasio, names she recognized from the hours pouring over maps the past two years. Yet more miles between her and her family.

“Torno.”

If only she hadn’t wasted so much of her camera battery filming on the plane and in the airports. But she’d wanted to catch every moment to remember later. Trip of a lifetime and all that. Then the town name Trent had said registered and she realized they’d be traveling through more populated areas as they rounded one of the southern tips of

the lake.

“Why don’t you just stop at an electronics store and buy a battery?”

“Great idea, if you don’t take into account that most of the shops close down between noon and three for the traditional Italian siesta, and right now”—he glanced at his watch—“it’s one-fifteen.”

Darn it, that’s right. She knew that, too, and had even planned for the inconvenience—just not the rest of this craziness.

“And,” he continued, “I can’t really drive around town with bullet holes in my windshield, now can I?”

She wished he would. Maybe the police—la polizia, she mimicked in her head—would stop them, and she would be free. At this point, she acknowledged it wasn’t so much that she was afraid of him, she just wanted things back to normal. Back with Ben and Rachel. They would never believe what’d happened—she wouldn’t believe it if it hadn’t happened to her.

Come to think of it...what had he been doing there? Halli snuck another glance toward his stern profile as they passed the sign for Cernobbio. How did he know she’d been filming and those guys would come after her? Were they really after him?

Halli shifted in her seat to get a better look at his face. “Why were you—”

“Sonofabitch.”

She drew back, then followed his gaze to see a large, dark blue SUV-type vehicle up ahead on the side of the road. Two uniformed men stood at the rear, alongside the pavement. One waved a red and white paddle and the other—Halli’s heart went nuts all over again—had a very big, very scary-looking gun slung around his neck and shoulders. The kind the bad guys used in the movies.

“Oh my God, who are they?” she whispered.

“Carabinieri.”

Even the name sounded scary. Instinctively she cast Trent in the role of protector and leaned closer. “Are they bad?”