Read Online Invisible by L.A. Remenicky - Free Book Online Page B

was out of the question. The car has a manual transmission and with my knee screwed up more than usual, there was no way I could work the clutch. Jax drove through the first night and all day yesterday, finally agreeing to stop the following evening after he almost fell asleep at the wheel just outside of Denver. It took about an hour to find a hotel that would take cash without a major credit card. At least, it was clean. By the time I took a shower, Jax was asleep face down on the bed, fully clothed. I removed his shoes and covered him up. He slept twelve hours without moving a muscle and then drove another twelve hours today. We took a zig-zag path west to try and stay off Keith’s radar.
    Tonight we found another cheap motel and stopped about an hour ago. I tried to sleep, but I had been napping off and on all day due to the pain pills. Since my knee seems better, I’m going to try to go without the medication and see how that works out.
    The next day was more of the same, driving all day and only stopping when we had to. We got to Las Vegas about six in the evening and Jax asked me if I was ready to stop for the day.
    “Sure. Do you think you can find a hotel that will take cash?”
    “Don’t worry about it. I’ve got it covered,” Jax said as he turned off the strip and pulled into the parking lot of a supermarket. “Wait here, I’ll just be a minute.” He got out of the car, jogged up to the door, and entered the store.
    Ten minutes later he was back with a couple of bags. “What’s all this?” I asked as he put them in the back seat.
    “It’s a surprise.”
    I turned and looked at him like he was nuts. A surprise? We don’t have time for a surprise. For the first time in days, he was grinning at me, watching the emotions run across my face while we sat at a red light.
    “It’ll be okay, Lainie. Trust me.”
    His eyes went back to the road, and the light turned green, pulling his attention away from me.
    About ten minutes later, we were driving through a high-end residential area—big houses with even bigger yards and gated fences. I was even more confused when he pulled in the drive of one of the huge homes and punched a code into the box in front of the gate. The gate opened, and we drove in as if we owned the place… parking at the back of the house.
    “What are we doing here, Jax?”
    I looked at the house, marveling at the size of it. The garage was bigger than the house I grew up in.
    “This place is ours for the night,” he said with the grin I loved.
    “What? You’re kidding. How did you manage this one?”
    “It belongs to Jim Bradley.”
    “The basketball player? How do you know him? Does he know we’re here? I’m worried that he’ll slip and tell someone we’re here by accident.”
    “Don’t worry, he doesn’t know we’re here. We played basketball together at Duke, and we kept in touch after he was drafted by the Pacers.” Getting out of the car, he pulled the grocery bags out of the back seat. I offered to carry them in so he could grab the suitcases, but he refused. He must have been afraid that I’d peek and ruin his surprise. Once at the back door, he punched in a code to unlock it. “Jim gave me the codes and told me I could use this place anytime I wanted. And no, he doesn’t know we’re here. He’s on an exhibition trip through Europe for the next month. No one will ever know we were here.”
    We walked through the massive back entrance and into the kitchen; it was huge. The kitchen was bigger than my whole apartment. Jax set the bags down on the counter and told me he had something to show me. He led me down the hall, and we walked through another door and out into a secluded yard with a pool and hot tub.
    “I hope Brent packed swimsuits for us; I really want to get in that hot tub.” I looked up at Jax and saw that smile again. Glancing down at my feet, I blushed from head to toe as I thought about the two of us alone in the hot tub.
    Jax laughed and showed