“Besides all the high-tech computer chips on board?” Cam swallowed a bite of his fourth slice. “It’s rare. Rare things are always valuable.”
“True.” Everly sat back, stuffed at last. “And that’s why you want it? Because it’s valuable.”
“Sure.” He offered her the last slice and she declined. He downed it in three bites, then grinned. “What about you? Isn’t that why you want it?”
She blinked at him a moment, still not trusting him enough to give the full truth away. “Yep.” Her phone buzzed in her pocket, reminding her of the deadline looming over her. “Valuable. That’s it. You ready to get out of here? Those thugs probably have the capo’s permission to tail us by now.”
Cam sipped the rest of his soda then pulled out his wallet and slid out of the booth. She followed him to the register where he paid then grabbed a couple of mints from a basket on the counter. He handed her one then held the door for her as they walked out into the misty early morning. Dawn was just starting to streak the sky as she climbed back into the Aeon. “Right. Let’s go.”
Everly didn’t feel like she’d learned everything she needed to know about Cam and his mission, but it felt like she had the upper hand at any rate. He liked looking at her, liked her body, and he was a gentleman. All things she could use to her advantage when the opportunity arose. Plus, he might be a whiz when it came to the car’s computer chips, but there was no way he knew more than her when it came to what was under the hood. She’d been rebuilding engines since high school. Cam wouldn’t know a piston if it bit him in the ass, let alone all the advanced machinery onboard the Aeon. That gave her the advantage she hoped.
3
Cam scooted halfway beneath the Aeon’s chassis. They were still at the Pump and Pie, parked off to the side now in the shadows. Good thing he had brought along his trusty Mag light attached to his key chain. The military-grade flashlight was tiny, yet powerful enough to illuminate the underside of the vehicle while he did a scan for trackers. For once the info-mericals hadn’t lied.
“Now what the hell are you doing?” Everly asked.
From where he was crouched beside the vehicle, he could see the tip of her white sneaker tap-tap-tapping against the pavement. She was agitated. That thought sent a wicked little frisson of satisfaction through him. Good. She’d been a pain in his ass since they’d hightailed it out of that two-bit chop shop of her father’s. A
bout time he got a little payback.
Cam carefully checked every inch of the underbody before standing and walking around to the back of the Aeon to switch out the license plates. He didn’t look at her as he spoke, keeping his gaze on the task at hand to avoid losing one of the tiny screws holding the plate in place. In the pre-dawn gloom, it would be impossible to find, even with his flashlight.
“I was looking for bugs and trackers,” he said as he loosened the screws then slid the old license plate out of the holder and affixed the new one the guys had given him before he’d left the offices. Cam wasn’t sure where exactly they’d gotten the fake registration and he wasn’t about to ask. This Aeon had ties to the federal government and for all he knew they could’ve gotten the big guns involved—FBI, CIA, even NSA. Best to keep his head down and not ask questions.
“Trackers?” The derision all but dripped from Everly’s tone. “You think the mob gives a shit about trackers? They’ve got spies everywhere. For all we know, that knocked-up waitress was one of them. She could be calling us in right now.”
Cam glanced back inside the pizza joint and spotted the server behind the counter again. Sure as shit she was on the phone too. His stomach took a tumble before he shook it off. Everly was just paranoid. She’d grown up with mafia crawling out of the walls. Now, she expected to find them everywhere. And while Cam was likely to agree that they needed to get on the road sooner rather than later, he doubted the mob had stooges this far out in the boonies.
“And the only bugs you’re likely to find down there are ants. Maybe a cockroach or two.”
He stood and tossed her the old license plate, which she caught one-handed. “Get in the car.”
“Fuck you,” she said, looking like she was going to hurl the plate back at him. “Stop telling me what to do.”
“Stop acting like a spoiled brat and maybe I will.” He grinned then turned at the sound of another car pulling into the gas station lot. Instead of stopping at the pumps, the old black sedan pulled up to the front of the pizza joint and cut the engine. Cam stayed close to the building’s wall and squinted down at his watch. Three-fifteen a.m. Not exactly the prime time for a snack.
Warmth pressed against his back and he realized Everly was right behind him now. Her breath stirred the tiny hairs on the nape of his neck and Cam suppressed a shiver of unexpected delight. That spot had always been a pleasure zone for him. He shook off the inappropriate feelings and scowled as two men got out of the sedan and walked up to the pizza shop’s door. They looked like rejects from a Blue’s Brothers movie—all black suits and ties and menacing attitudes. Hardly part of the local farming community prevalent in this rural part of Virginia. “Looks like we got company.”
“Thanks, Captain Obvious,” Everly said over his shoulder.
He gave her a flat stare and she had the decency to look ashamed.
“Sorry.” She gave a slight shrug. “Sarcasm’s my go-to when I get stressed.”
“No?” Cam did his best to look and sound aghast, dishing it right back to her.
She grinned and he felt the tight knot of tension in his gut uncoil slightly. They were stuck together right now, for better or worse. Might as well make the best of a difficult situation.
“You recognize either one of them?” he asked, pressing back against the wall to allow her to sidle past him. She stayed close, her soft curves sliding against him again and conjuring the same zings of awareness as before. His blood pumped loud in his ears, drowning out the roar of crickets and everything but the woman who stood so close he could smell her flowery shampoo.
Everly leaned around the corner a bit more to see inside the shop’s front windows then turned back quickly, knocking into him. Cam put a hand on her hip to keep his balance. The heat of her skin tingled against his fingertips. “I think they saw me.”
“What?” Cam frowned. “Nah. It’s pitch black out here and we’re in the shadows. I doubt—”
The sound of the bells jingling on the front doors warned of approaching danger.
“Shit.” Cam inched back along the side wall of the building, tugging Everly along with him, until his rear hit the dumpster in the corner. Nowhere else to go and he’d be damned if he’d leave the Aeon here unprotected anyway. He’d worked too fucking hard to get it, to get this solo mission, and he wasn’t about to fail now. “Did you recognize either of those goons?”