Borrowing Alex Read online

  Head scarcely moving, he surveyed the interior of the van. Black garbage bags coated the back windows, and the rear seats had been removed, increasing cargo space. Thick carpeting padded the old metal chair anchors. Lucky thing or painful gouges would decorate his back by now.

  Near his feet, a Mexican Chihuahua—the yappy Bernie, no doubt—sat chewing a large red kerchief, a.k.a. the blindfold. The sort of thing kids playing cowboy wore around their necks.

  To the side, a roomy pet carrier jailed a chocolate-faced, sapphire-eyed Siamese cat. Rusty.

  Ribs aching, Alex shifted. A deep woof boomed behind him.

  Channeling his inner ninja, he silently rolled over. Rheumy brown eyes gazed at him from the russet-masked face of a senior-citizen Saint Bernard.

  “Santos?” he whispered.

  The dog’s huge head tipped. “Woof?”

  Unbelievable. Any normal person would have called the Saint Bernard “Bernie” and retained the Spanish “Santos” for the miniature jumping bean currently on a chewing break—but not Royce Carmichael’s fiancée.

  If Nikki had hatched tonight’s scheme with the same lack of logic she employed naming animals, Alex was in serious trouble.

  At least Santos possessed a calm nature, a certain old-dog dignity that balanced Bernie’s canine ADD. And Nikki’s wackiness.

  Well, maybe not the latter.

  Digging his heels into the carpeting, Alex arched his back and twisted his neck to gain sight of his captor. Her slim hands gripped the steering wheel, her engagement ring glittering in the pale afternoon light. Her profile showcased the porcelain skin he yearned to touch each time he saw her. Today, despite the circumstances, proved no exception.

  Sap. He hadn’t had a date in so long it appeared he was in danger of developing the hots for his abductor. An engaged abductor, no less. His old buddy’s fiancée.

  In other words, hands off.

  Royce and Nikki might not live by conventional morals, but he did.

  The van slowed as they approached a red light—the perfect escape opportunity. If he didn’t break free now, he could be stuck in this maniac menagerie for hours.

  He couldn’t rouse Nikki’s suspicions, though. He had to play this right.

  Breathing in and out through his nose, he lay quiet until the van came to a complete stop. Seattle was famous for congested traffic. In all likelihood, a thick snake of vehicles trailed behind them.

  He kicked his bound feet against the van doors. Bucking up and down, he yelled, “Help! Somebody help me! I’m being kidnapped!”

  Nikki screeched. “Alex, stop that! You’re giving me a heart attack!”

  Bernie seconded her motion. The dog raced back and forth across Alex’s chest, barking. The cat squalled, and Santos’s hefty paw batted Alex’s shoulder. “Woof?”

  “Alex, I’m warning you!” Radio static blasted the van. A warped medley of DJ chatter and loud music streamed from the speakers until Nikki located a station. A woman’s voice belted out the pain of betrayal, the power notes drowning Bernie’s barks—and Alex’s banging.

  Nikki sang along, her voice too cheerful for his liking.

  “I love this song! Best of all, no one can hear you now. To the cars around us, I’m just lost in my music. So you might as well relax.”

  The van tore out of the intersection. Chest heaving, Alex stopped kicking.

  Damn it, she was right. Besides, he needed to gather his reserves before they reached another stop.

  His face burned with exertion, and his hands throbbed from grinding into the carpet. At some point, the pillowcase had shaken off. Bernie sat nearby, chewing the stupid thing. Behind the tiny dog, groceries overflowed two cardboard boxes.

  Alex blinked. How long did Nikki plan to keep him?

  “Where are you taking me?” he bellowed.

  “To my summer place. That’s all I can say for now, so please don’t ask again or try to trick me. I’m sorry, Alex. I realize this is inconvenient for you, but I didn’t know what else to do.”

  Her voice swelled with tears, and his chest tightened. He’d heard of Stockholm Syndrome, but this was ridiculous. No man in his right mind would sympathize with his abductor this early in the kidnapping game—if at all. The rat race of the spring semester must have addled his brain.

  He latched onto the meager information she’d released. They were heading to her summer place. Translation: a rich chick’s haven.

  Royce should know the location. He’d likely visited the place a dozen times.

  And hadn’t she said the purpose of her plan was to get Royce to chase after her? Or something equally cockeyed.

  Alex had to remain optimistic.

  Turning on his side, he glimpsed her reflection in the rearview mirror. With her blue eyes fever-bright and her blond curls bobbing, she looked like a cross between the vintage kewpie dolls his mother collected and a toy poodle on amphetamines. He couldn’t afford to upset her further, or she might go completely wiggy, careen off the road, and kill them all.

  “Royce keeps postponing setting the wedding date,” she said, voice squeaking. “We’re seeing less of each other lately, and I’m getting worried.”

  Alex shook his head. Naturally, Royce was avoiding the actual marriage. The engagement was a sham, a façade of respectability behind which Alex’s old friend could conquer his career goals while Nikki partied hearty.

  Didn’t she realize that?

  He frowned.

  She continued, “I left a note at my place saying you and I might hook up. We have a date tonight—Royce and me, not you and me. When he arrives, I won’t be there.”

  “You said we’re hooking up?” She was insane!

  As if in her defense, Santos woofed and nudged Alex’s shirtsleeve. Wet dog nose chilled his shoulder.

  “I haven’t told him yet,” Nikki said beneath the radio. “The note...” She cleared her throat. “The note will tell him.”

  She’d left a freaking note?

  Alex couldn’t believe this—didn’t want to. Either Nikki St. James had totally lost it or she wasn’t anywhere near the sex-obsessed party girl Royce had described.

  “I take it this note also mentions where we’re going,” he muttered.

  “Not really. But Royce will figure it out. The note says we’re planning on exploring our attraction at my special place. Royce understands that’s my gran—uh, my summer house. If by chance he doesn’t put it all together, I’ll know he... doesn’t love me anymore.” She choked out a sob.

  Alex’s chest pinched. Had Royce led her on? He didn’t want to believe his former college roommate capable of such blatant manipulation, but Royce’s history with women worked against him. Unless, in typical ditz fashion, Nikki had crossed her wires—and now Alex suffered for it.

  For the sake of wrongly maligned males everywhere, he latched onto the latter.

  “But Royce does love me,” Nikki said. “He has to. When he reads the note, he’ll immediately realize where we’ve gone. He’ll understand how badly he’s neglected our relationship and how much he needs me. Then he’ll come rescue me from your evil clutches.” She flicked a glance in the rearview. Her dimples flashed. “Anyway, that’s the plan.” Flipping on the blinkers, she announced, “I-5, here I come.”

  “The freeway? We’re not heading out of town, are we? Nikki, that’s kidnapping beyond city limits!”

  The radio blared louder. “Sorry, I can’t hear you!”

  “Damn it.” Alex strained against the duct tape. Bernie, dragging the pillowcase, trotted over. The tiny mutt growled, and the pillowcase fell, covering Alex’s face again. Santos barked and plopped two huge paws onto his stomach. The dog’s boulder-sized head collapsed onto Alex’s chest, pinning him.

  His lungs squeezed beneath the Saint Bernard’s significant bulk. However, Santos, evidently as immovable as the Rock of Gibraltar, snuggled his hairy head into the crook of Alex’s neck. The beast panted.

  Dead-cat-for-lunch breath drifted.


  Alex moaned. He couldn’t move. He couldn’t see. His ribs ached, and he could barely breathe.

  And Nikki thought Royce should rescue her?

  Alex knew better.

  He was the one who needed rescuing.

  Four harrowing hours later, Nikki pulled up to the rustic summer cabin she’d inherited from her grandparents along with the van. The drive to Washington’s Olympic Peninsula ordinarily took half as long. However, needing to disorient Alex, she’d bypassed the ferries in favor of trekking down the freeway and then up Highway 101.

  The tactic had better work. Between the man’s complaining and his unanticipated knack for bringing out the worst in her animals, her nerves rode a frazzled edge.

  Relaxing in her seat as the van idled, she drank in the view. The last tangerine smears of sunset traced the sky above the forested hills and reflected off the glassy surface of Lake Eden. The old dock she’d learned to dive from needed a few boards replaced, but remained intact.

  During her and Gillian’s summer visits with Gram and Gramps Sorensen, Nikki had grown to love this place. Now, the peaceful seclusion of the mountain lake drew her into its night-gathering embrace. With its narrow, dirt road approach and the blackberry vines overgrowing the back wall, the cabin provided an ideal choice for an intimate, romantic honeymoon.

  At least she thought so. Royce wasn’t convinced. Yet.

  Once her fiancé rescued her from making a fictional mistake with Alex, he’d change his mind about the cabin. He’d understand why she’d rather honeymoon here than the expensive all-inclusive resort he’d suggested. And he’d realize they both needed more out of marriage than a replication of her parents’ passionless union: her father doling out scraps of affection when it suited his professional reputation and her mother never demanding more than the veneer of maintaining appearances.

  “Are we there yet? Nikki, I’m dying back here!”

  Alex’s deep voice shattered her moment of peace. She switched off the engine, and the headlights faded. The old van rumbled to sleep.

  “Yes, we are.”

  “It’s about time. Let me out. And get this hairy mountain off my chest.”

  “One second.” She retrieved the tangled rope from the passenger seat. “Honestly, Alex, were you this much trouble for your mother as a child?”

  A snort bulleted from the back of the van. “My mother wasn’t in the habit of disguising me as King Tut and carting me around the countryside. Farm folks tend to stick a bit closer to home.”

  Nikki swiveled in her seat. Although garbage bags covered the rear windows, the last shreds of twilight coming through the windshield faintly illuminated Alex. The pillowcase pooled beside his head, and his rumpled brown hair lent him an attractive, non-professorial appeal.

  Santos slumbered on the poor guy’s chest, further tarnishing her impression of Alex the Intellectual. In the corner, Rusty peered through his cat carrier. Near the carrier, Bernie panted on his side, the red blindfold draped over one tiny front paw like a pupster security blanket. So cute!

  “A farm?” she asked. “Sounds heavenly. My grandfather on my mother’s side farmed near Poulsbo.” She named a community on the Kitsap Peninsula west of Seattle steeped in Norwegian-immigrant history. Aside from Gram and Gramps’s fishing trips to Lake Eden, the couple had rarely left the Poulsbo area until after Gramps retired.

  Nikki’s mother, on the other hand, had fled the farm for Seattle and Geoffrey St. James at eighteen. Despite Nikki’s pleas, her mother had declared a strict no-pets zone in the St. James household.

  “I love animals,” she murmured. “I can’t imagine a better childhood than growing up on a farm.”

  “Yeah? Well, I can’t imagine a worse demise than expiring in this portable zoo from inhaling noxious fumes. Are you going to dig me out from beneath Santa of the Smelly Breath or not?”

  The guy was grumpy. Considering his situation, she couldn’t blame him. She’d refused to leave any of her pets behind, though. Her two roommates had flown to Europe this morning, leaving their small rental house empty, and the veterinary office where she worked didn’t have much boarding space. She hadn’t felt right caging her perfectly healthy fellas in pens intended for animals recovering from surgery, especially after her boss had already given her a week off.

  “Oh, come on. Santos’s breath isn’t toxic swamp gas. I haven’t had a chance to brush his teeth in a couple of days, that’s all. He’s too old to put under anesthetic just for plaque removal.”

  Alex’s eyebrows snapped together. “What?”

  “Okay, okay.” She opened her door. The interior light flashed on. “I wasn’t planning to leave you in here all night. We’ll wait for Royce in the cabin.”

  “Gee, thanks.”

  She inhaled. “Alex, tonight could be a pleasant experience for you. Really, it’s your choice. Royce should arrive at my place any moment, which means he’ll find the note soon. If he leaves Seattle right away, he’ll get here in a matter of hours. If he waits until dawn to drive, he’ll reach us in the morning, tomorrow afternoon at the latest. Now, we—you and me—can either pass the time genially or waste it bickering. I don’t know about you, but I’d rather try to be friends. That means no more escape attempts and no snide remarks about Santos.”

  The not-so-mild-mannered college professor grated out a humorless laugh. “You actually believe you can keep me here against my will?”

  “If that’s how you want to be, I’ll make sure of it.”

  Grabbing a fresh roll of duct tape, she climbed out of the van. She slipped the roll over one wrist, then rewrapped the tangled rope and slung it onto her shoulder like a female Indiana Jones.

  Breathing in the fresh lake air, she strode toward the rear van doors. Her foot hit an exposed tree root, and she paused.

  What are you doing, Nikki?

  Ugh, just what she needed—her conscience chiming in.

  Clearly, Alex was unhappy with her plan. Amend that, he was downright hostile.

  Before tonight, she hadn’t heard him utter a single sarcastic word. And, at his apartment, once he’d assumed she’d nabbed him for a bachelor party, he’d cooperated like the good sport Royce recalled.

  An upstanding guy like Alex Hart deserved more than to have his Friday night plans derailed. Even if, as Royce often mentioned, Alex was so preoccupied with pursuing tenure that he possessed the social life of a slug. Maybe after she prepared him a nice dinner, he’d lighten up.

  Regardless of his attitude, she’d forge ahead. Her future with Royce depended on it.

  She trod on.

  Standing safely back from the van, she turned the key and opened a door a crack. “Remember, Alex, I can lead a horse to water and I can make him drink. So don’t test me. You’ll have a decent time tonight if it kills me.”

  “There’s a thought,” he muttered from behind Santos’s sweet head.

  Ha, ha. “In case you’re dreaming of tunneling out of here, you might want to keep in mind that you don’t know where we are. And I won’t tell you. In a few minutes, it will be black outside, and I believe there are coyotes lurking about.” She hadn’t spotted a coyote at Lake Eden in her life, but the tale sounded good enough to continue spinning. “Warthogs, rattlesnakes, poisonous centipedes—treacherous creatures abound. And don’t get me started on the Stinging Prickleberries or the Queen Newt’s Wort,” she fabricated. “That stuff will turn your whole leg black if you step on it.”

  “Then it’s a good thing I’m wearing shoes.”

  “Not anymore, you’re not.” She swung both doors wide, yanked off his loafers, and tossed them into the front.

  The professor’s crude response roused Bernie. The little dog’s head popped up, and he blinked. One pupster yawn, an adorable stretch, and a departing growl in Alex’s direction later, Bernie leapt out of the van and raced around Nikki’s heels, barking.

  “Bernie, take a tinkle.” She waved a hand. “Find a bush, boy. Hurry, hurry.”

  Compliant as a
lways, the dog raced off and relieved himself.

  Rusty—blue eyes narrow slits in the cat carrier—meowed.

  Nikki gripped Alex’s bound ankles. She straightened his legs and jostled them to alert Santos. “Wake up, Santos. Out of the van now, fella. You can do it, big boy. Time to get up.”

  Alex mumbled, “I think his muscles have atrophied. Mine have.”

  “Nonsense. Santos might be old, but he’s not decrepit. And you’re a... healthy specimen.”

  “You don’t say.”

  Nikki studied his large frame. Yes, she most assuredly did say. At about six-foot-one, Alex towered over Royce when the two men stood together. However, what Royce lacked in height, he made up for with his boyish charm and dark good looks.

  In contrast, Alex’s features veered toward the rugged. Not to-the-extreme, tobacco-spitting, tough-as-a-rangy-cowboy rugged, but rugged enough to suggest the tiller-of-the-earth background he’d mentioned.

  Paired with his casually sexy professor vibe, Alex Hart was an intriguing man.

  Intriguing, but not to her taste. Nope. Her heart belonged to one guy—Royce. Therefore, her libido also belonged to Royce.

  Not that he’d taken much advantage of her libido lately. Like going on over two months!

  But that was okay. She didn’t need sex. She wanted love.

  Her palms tingled from where they rested on Alex’s khakis. Her fingers itched with the urge to move upward. Her face burned. Why did she have her hands all over this man’s legs again?

  Oh yeah, Santos.

  She jostled Alex, and Santos’s head lifted. Yawning, the big dog plodded out of the van. Sniffing the ground, the Saint Bernard lumbered toward Bernie’s bush.

  Nikki tugged Alex’s legs—and dragged him less than three inches. Grunting, she tried again. Epic fail!

  She huffed out a breath. “Alex, you could help.”

  “How? That beast crushed my chest.”

  “Take it as a compliment. Santos must like you.” She didn’t seriously believe the old dog had hurt him. Not with Alex’s leanly muscled hot bod evident beneath his amber dress shirt open at the collar.