When I finished, I pulled on a T-shirt Clyde had given me from his own things, and reluctantly pulled my red panties with the black skulls back on again. I was back where I’d started from, with only the clothes on my back—the clothes that were now in a heap on the bathroom floor. Actually, I was worse off than when I’d started. I didn’t have a single, solitary dime in my pocket. Amazingly enough, though, the idea didn’t scare me one bit. Finn was with me. And right now, he was the only thing I really wanted anyway.

I stumbled into the little bedroom off the bath and crawled into the double bed. Finn was already there. He’d been quicker than me, using the bathroom on the ground floor, and he pulled me close and wrapped me up without comment. I could have easily been convinced to do a whole lot more than sleep, but sleep was all we did there in his father’s room, in his father’s bed, saving our words for later, letting the things that needed to be said slide over the side of the mattress and onto the floor, like extra pillows, waiting for the morning when we would be forced to pick them up again.

Chapter Twelve

NEW DEVELOPMENTS IN the possible kidnapping case of country singer Bonnie Rae Shelby. Sources close to the family say there has been a ransom demand for her safe return. The FBI has been consulted on the case, and authorities have not confirmed an amount or even that there was a demand made, but again, sources close to the family have confirmed that a ransom demand has been made.

THEY SLEPT LIKE the dead, and when Finn woke and stared blearily at the bedside clock it said 10:30. He hadn’t slept so late or so deeply since he was a teenager. Maybe it was the feel of the girl in his arms, the smell of soft skin and clean hair tickling his nose. He buried his face deeper into the fragrant strands and tried to go back to sleep, not yet wanting to be conscious, because consciousness brought heightened awareness, and he was already far too aware of the slim thigh thrown over his and the arms wrapped around his torso. Bonnie tucked her head when she slept, burrowing in, and he could feel her breath tickling his naked chest. He hadn’t donned a shirt the night before because he’d only had one clean shirt left, and Bonnie was wearing it. She’d seen the tattoos. It wasn’t like he had anything left to hide.

He had thought that once Bonnie got her ID and credit cards, the two of them could go their separate ways. But it was too late for that now. Too much had happened, and even if Finn wanted to let her go, which he didn’t, they were inextricably tied, and he was as afraid for her as he was for himself. She obviously wasn’t afraid, so he had to be. The girl was trouble, but she was also in trouble, and Finn knew he couldn’t walk away. Maybe it was Bonnie’s penchant for disaster. She’d apparently used up every bit of luck she was ever going to get in this life on the lottery of superstardom, because she was an accident waiting to happen. Everywhere they turned, everything she touched seemed to go south in a hurry. And yet he was here, beside her, trying to figure out what to do, what was best for her, and whether or not she’d be the death of him . . . or worse, be the reason he lost his freedom again.

But consciousness reawakened the nagging worry that last night’s fiasco was a bigger deal than just an impounded vehicle and hefty fees. If the police were actually looking for him, then he wouldn’t be getting his Blazer back. Every tow company called in license plate and VIN numbers when they towed a vehicle. He knew that much. The cops could be crawling all over his Blazer at that very moment for all he knew. And Bonnie’s bags were inside. The noose kept tightening around his neck. It wouldn’t take much for them to discover his dad lived in the area. And then they would come calling.

The thought had him untangling his limbs from Bonnie’s and sliding from the bed. He pulled on his jeans and headed down the stairs, eager for coffee and needing reassurance that a SWAT team wasn’t, at that very second, assembling outside the house. He yanked the front door open and found himself face to face with a giant with a raised fist. Apparently, the man had been about to knock. That, or Finn was about to get popped between the eyes.

The man was huge, not fat so much as wide. His skin glistened it was so black, the whites of his eyes the only color in his face, and Finn only saw the whites of his eyes when the man shoved the black Ray-Bans up on his forehead and glared with a cold, flat, venom that made Finn quickly readjust his opinion of the neighborhood his dad was living in. This guy wasn’t a door-to-door salesman, and he wasn’t a cop. He didn’t know what he was—but he was scary. The huge, sharply-dressed black man looked a little too old to be a student and too slick to be in a gang, although the big diamonds in his ears did shout drug dealer, in Finn’s opinion.

“Are you Finn Clyde?” the voice was higher-pitched than Finn would have expected, coming from the chest cavity of the bear-sized man on his father’s front porch. As soon as the comparison with the bear crossed his mind, Finn knew who the man was.

“Are you Bear?”

“I am. And you better move your white trash ass aside and get Bonnie in front of me real fast or you will find out why my mama named me Bear. It ain’t ’cause I’m cuddly.”

Finn figured he deserved the white trash assessment, standing there with his bare chest marked with offensive tattoos and his blond hair loose around his shoulders, so he let the comment slide and stepped aside.

“Come in.”

Finn stepped back, and Bear stepped forward into the small living room, filling the space with malevolence, his eyes taking in everything at once.