Page 10 of The Biker's Brother

Brandon glanced at her, deciding that maybe he should reserve judgment before shoving her in the bitch cubby. Maybe the nice person had temporarily gone into hiding, a self-protective mechanism kind of thing.

“When this is all over, I’ll be glad to call you Cami,” he replied just as softly. “But for the next two weeks you’re going to have to pretend to be somebody else.”

After a slight hesitation, she nodded without looking up.

“Come on,” he said. “When you were little, wasn’t there some other name you wished your parents had given you?”

“Rose White.” He thought he saw a ghost of a smile, but she didn’t look up. “It’s from a fairy tale. I really wanted to be the sister, Rose Red, but it didn’t seem to fit.”

“Rose White it is then. Most people aren’t going to know it’s from a fairy tale. They’ll just think your first name is Rose and your last name is White.”

“Okay.”

“Nice to meet you, Rose,” Brand said.

She turned toward him as if she was seeing him for the first time. Judging from the way she looked him over, she was. Her eyes lingered on the masculine angularity of his face, the offbeat haircut, the inked curls at the wrist and neck of his long teal blue tee that suggested a tat sleeve. She concluded that he was a working class, motorcycle-riding player with whom she had absolutely nothing in common. Except good manners. Possibly.

“Nice to meet you, Brandon.”

He glanced down at the atlas.

“We’re going to West Virginia.” He pointed to a spot on the atlas that lay open across her lap. “Find us the most direct route by way of Harpers Ferry and keep us off the interstates.”

“Off the interstates. Isn’t that going to take a really long time?”

“It’s not a race. It’s the hide part of hide and seek.”

She stared at his profile. “What exactly is the plan?”

“I’m taking you to our safe house in Austin. It’ll be home until the judge has signed off on your proceeding. My job is to make sure you get there alive.”

“Okay.”

He turned on the radio and found a classic rock station.

“Just kill me now,” she mumbled.

“What was that?”

She looked straight at him.

“The radio.” She pretended to have to scream over the music. “You’re not going to make me listen to that. Are you?”

He cocked his head as he stared at the road ahead.

“I’m nothing if not fair. What kind of music do you like?”

“Well, for starters, I like music that was recorded this century.”

He took his eyes off the road just long enough to be sure she caught the glare he gave her.

“You want to do a passive aggressive dance around what you want? Or do you want to just tell me straight up?”

She pressed her lips together, narrowed her eyes, and decided she’d underestimated Brandon. She didn’t think thugs had descriptions like ‘passive aggressive’ easily tripping off their tongues.

“Country,” she said decidedly.

He gaped. “That is utterly impossible. A girl like you does not listen to country music.”