"Does our driver see him?"
"What does he think this is, the Indy Five Hundred?"
Curious as to what had captured their attention, Jenny peered through the window. She saw nothing but her own reflection in the glass and a stygian blackness beyond it. Then she saw the sports car skid alongside the bus, coming dangerously close to the oversized wheels.
"A madman for sure," Jenny heard someone mutter just as her eyes went wide and her mouth went slack with recognition.
"Oh, no," she breathed.
Suddenly the bus gave a lurch as the driver applied the brakes and steered it to the shoulder of the highway. "Ladies and gentlemen," he said into the microphone mounted near the steering wheel, "I'm sorry for this delay, but I'm making an unscheduled stop. This is obviously a drunk driver who's intent on running us off the road. I'll try to reason with him before he kills us all. Stay calm. We'll be on our way again shortly."
Several passengers leaned forward in their seats to see better. Jenny scrunched down in hers, her heart pounding. The driver pushed open the automatic door of the bus and made to leave his chair. Before he could, however, the "madman" bounded inside.
"Please, mister," the driver pleaded, obviously concerned for the safety of his passengers. He patted the air in front of him with raised hands. "We're just innocent folks and—"
"Relax. I'm not a robber. I'm not going to hurt anybody. I'm just going to relieve you of one of your passengers."
Cage's eyes were busily scanning the passengers. Jenny sat quiet and still in her seat. He began making his way down the aisle. "Sorry for this inconvenience," he said in friendly fashion to the passengers, who eyed him warily. "This will only take a minute, I promise." When he spotted his quarry, he stopped in the aisle and sighed with relief. "Get your things, Jenny. You're coming back with me."
"No, I'm not, Cage. I explained it all to you in a letter. I mailed it just before I left. You shouldn't have come after me."
"Well, I did, and I didn't make the trip for nothing. Now come on."
"No."
They had everyone's attention.
Aggravated with her the way a parent is with a lost child when he's found, he put his hands on his hips. "All right. If you want to air the dirty laundry in front of all these nice people, it's fine with me, but you'd better think about it before we get down to the juicy details."
Jenny's eyes skittered around the other passengers, who were looking at her with open curiosity. "What'd she do, mama?" a little girl piped up. "Was it bad?"
"What's it going to be, Jenny?"
"You don't have to go anywhere with him, miss," the driver said gallantly from behind Cage. It wasn't going to be said that he had let a wife-beater haul his hapless victim off his bus.
Jenny looked at Cage. His jaw was set. His eyes were glowing like yellow flame. He seemed as immovable as the Rock of Gibraltar. He wouldn't relent, and she didn't want to be held responsible for a brawl aboard a Greyhound bus.
"Oh, all right. I'll go." She edged into the aisle after retrieving her small suitcase. "I have another bag in the luggage compartment," she told the driver softly, aware that every eye in the bus was focused on her.
The three of them stepped outside and the driver opened the luggage compartment beneath the bus. As he handed over her suitcase, he asked, "You're sure you want to go with him? He's not going to hurt you, is he?"
She smiled at him reassuringly. "No, no. It's nothing like that. He's not going to hurt me."
After shooting Cage a fulminating look and mumbling something about maniacal speedsters, he climbed back aboard his bus. A moment later it lumbered onto the highway, its passengers craning their necks in the windows to see the two people left behind.
Stiffly Jenny turned to face Cage. She dropped her suitcases with an emphatic plop. "Well, that was quite a stunt, Mr. Hendren. Just what did you expect to gain by it?"
"Just what I did. To get you off that bus and stop you from running away like a scared rabbit."
"Well, maybe that's what I am," she cried, giving vent to the tears that had been welling up since the scene in the parsonage.
"What did you have in mind, Jenny? Running to Dallas and having an abortion?"
Her hands knotted into fists. "That's a despicable thing to even suggest."
"What then? What was your intention? Were you going to have the baby and give it away?"
"No!"