The Professional Bride: Billionaire Marriage Brokers Book Three, page 17
“No, I do not kill people. I deal in secrets. Is your head okay?”
“It’s fine.” I rubbed my new bump. “So secrets. Like if-I-told-you-I’d-have-to-kill-you kind of secrets?” The back windshield grew two more orange-sized webs as bullets hit their mark. I cringed.
Jason gritted his teeth. “Yeah, something like that.” He slammed the gas to the floor and the car jumped through a red light and soared up the I-15 on-ramp.
I turned in my seat in time to see a delivery truck slam into the first SUV, blocking the intersection.
The inside of the car was eerily quiet after all the noise created by barely escaping with our lives, the sound of my erratic breathing bouncing off the walls. I gulped air, unable to expand my lungs. Jason reached over and undid my strangling seatbelt. I gasped with relief.
My whole body shook and I was pretty sure I was going into some kind of shock. One time, when I was fifteen, a guy let me drive his pickup and I crashed into the only boulder within 300 yards. I went into shock and he had me put my head between my knees, so I wouldn’t pass out. Doubling over, I rocked a little and Jason rubbed circles on my back with his palm.
I’d always been quick on the draw, but this one threw me for a loop. Jason was a spy. I eyed him with caution, not sure how much of the Jason I knew and loved was real and how much of him was made up.
“Is Jason your real name? What did the guy with the sun glasses yell? Michael? Mitchell? Marshall! That was it. Is your name Marshall?”
He cringed. “That’s classified information.”
I sat up with a start, twisting my ring. The car didn’t swirl and I was pretty sure the initial breathing problem was more from the seatbelt than it was from being bushwhacked. “Was it all a lie? Do you even love me?” I pulled myself as far away as possible trying to become one with the door. “What are you going to do with me?” I asked my now intimate stranger.
He grabbed my shaking hand. “I really love you and I’m going to marry you, if you’ll still have me.”
Awkward pause.
Was this real? I had no idea how to determine if a spy was telling the truth. I didn’t even know his name! The thought that he could be using me for some kind of cover hurt, but I loved him so much I wasn’t sure I could turn him away. I needed time to think. “I just got shot at and my head hurts.” I rubbed the sore spot again.
“Sorry, Allyssa.” He let go of my hand. “I wasn’t planning on telling you all this, but things just changed.”
“So you were just going to lie to me about what you do, what you are – forever?”
“Not exactly … I had a plan, okay?”
I folded my arms. “Let’s hear it.”
“Not here. I need to get you someplace where I know you’re safe.” He lifted one corner of his mouth in the lopsided, adorable, totally kissable smile that I loved so much. “You handled the whole shooting thing pretty well. No swearing, screaming, crying, or bargaining with God.”
I lifted my hand. “Farm girl. Guns are a given.”
Jason smiled and left me to my thoughts. The silence filled with questions I wasn’t sure how to ask, and answers he wasn’t jumping forward with. I stared out the now polka-dotted bullet-proof glass as the scenery along I-15 blurred by as we sped south.
I said a quick prayer for safety and felt peace in my heart. I looked over at Jason, his turquoise-blue eyes stared down the freeway like a gun slinger ready to yell, “Draw!” His head cocked to one side in his thinking pose. Both of his hands maintained three and nine o’clock positions on the wheel, his knuckles white as though another car could appear at any moment and try to run us off the road. I’d never noticed it, but he drove like that a lot. He also kept his eyes moving. I thought he’d just taken his driver’s ed teacher seriously when he told Jason to always check his mirrors, but apparently there was more to his habits than I ever could have imagined.
There had to be other clues I’d missed along the way. Like the way he kept a wall to his back when possible. At restaurants, he always wanted to sit facing the room and at the office holiday party, he’d circulated the exterior of the crowd, but never ventured into the center.
I eyed him warily. If nothing else, I felt an absence of threat or danger in his presence. Still …
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“To my safe house. I’ll call in to report, we can eat, and we can both sleep.” He looked me up and down as though I would fall over at any moment. Little did he know, us farm girls were a lot tougher than that.
I slouched against the door letting the new-car smell soothe my system. Sure, I hadn’t freaked out when the guns were blazing, not only had I taken hunter safety when I was eight, I could outshoot my brothers any day of the week. Now that the smoke had cleared, the idea that those guns had been pointing at me, left me altogether flustered and as empty as a water bucket in July. All I wanted to do was go home and take a warm bath.
“You should put your seatbelt back on,” said Jason, a note of warning in his voice.
I reached for the buckle. Jason definitely had a plan. I could tell by the calculating look in his eye. The look wasn’t pointed at me – it was just there under the layer of concern, when he touched my goose egg.
No matter how great a lavender scented bath sounded at the moment, I wasn’t about to argue with the man who had risked my life and then saved it in the same ten minutes.
To continue the adventure with Allyssa and Jason, click here.
About the Author
Lucy McConnell has always been a reader and a writer. Once caught up in a story, she disappears into a cave until the first draft is done. She writes fantasy, clean romance, Christian romance, historical fiction, and cookbooks (under the name Christina Dymock.) Her Christmas romance, Blue Christmas, was a top seller in seven Amazon categories on its own and in thirteen as part of the Christmas in Snow Valley Anthology.
When she’s not writing, you can find her volunteering at the elementary school or church; shuttling kids to baseball, soccer, basketball, or football, depending on the time of year; skiing with her family; wakeboarding; cycling; baking; cooking; or curled up with a good book.
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Or, you can visit her website at:
http://lucymcconnell.wordpress.com/
McConnell, Lucy, The Professional Bride: Billionaire Marriage Brokers Book Three
