“It’s about space cowboys,” he says. “They were always getting into scrapes.”
“What does the Crybaby do?”
“In the show it makes a fake distress call,” Jax says. “But Sam’s Crybaby actually jettisons our car identification, so they follow it instead of us.”
“Your Vigilante friends seem easy to fool,” I say.
“The person fooling them is a Vigilante himself,” Jax says. He shifts in the seat, adjusting my position on his lap. “The best there is.”
“Will I get to meet him?” I ask. I hold my breath for the answer.
“Not unless you want to cost him his job,” he says.
That told me nothing. I decide it’s probably time to move to my side, even though I don’t want to. I lunge clumsily over to the other seat.
“You feeling all right?” Jax asks.
“A little cold, maybe.” Truth be told, I might be a little nauseated from his crazy driving. But I’m not going to tell him that. If I complain the littlest bit, he might ditch me.
I glance down, grimacing at my pale legs sticking out of the wet red dress, ending in the once-white, now-muddy shoes. I pull the skirt down, embarrassed now at how I hiked it up to straddle Jax and keep him fromleaving me in the woods.
“So this Sam person who made the Crybaby, is he the one who gave you the case of tech tools?” I ask.
He glances over at me. “You have a good memory for details,” he says.
I warm over with the compliment, then shiver. I’m starting to feel considerably worse. “Your car doesn’t have a blow-dry setting, does it?”
It’s not a serious question, but Jax taps a button on the dash.
“This will work,” he says.
Hot air blows hard on my face. I turn my head, trying to get my hair less dripping wet. Our leap into a river means I look like a drowned rat.
Despite all its fancy tech, this car still has a normal pull-down visor, presumably with a mirror on the back side. I lower it to assess my appearance. Probably Jax isn’t terribly attracted to wet, shivering, bad-haired women.
I’m surprised to see what appears to be an ordinary mirror compartment and light. I slide the panel to reveal the mirror, then blink as a green light scans my face.
“Female companion,” a voice says, and dims the bulb to a more flattering brightness.
I laugh. “Really? All your important getaway gadgets, and the only thing your mirror does is make me feel better about myself?”
“You might want to close that within thirty seconds,” Jax says casually.
I snap my focus back to the mirror. I see a tiny red light blinking in the corner. Is it a weapon? Something to incapacitate a passenger? Or kill them?
My fingers fly to shove the panel back in place.
Jax laughs. “I was just kidding.”
I hunker down in my seat. “I can’t trust you for anything.”
“Seeing as I tied you up before we even met properly, I’d say that is a fair assessment of our relationship.”
I pull at the wet dress, still sticking to my skin. I’m not sure where we stand now. Jax finally seems to recognize that I’m not his enemy. His manner is light and easy compared to the rage he shot at me when he thought I’d killed his friend.
Like I could do anything like that.
I swallow hard, thinking of that searing kiss. But the sick feeling persists. I can’t banish it even with those hot memories.
