Free Breaking the Rules by Barbara Samuel, Ruth Wind Page A

you, someone else who’s a little bit faster on the uptake might recognize you, too. Just sit tight. I’ll get us something to eat.”
    In his voice was the same careful tone he’d used with her all day. This time, Mattie found it annoying. “I’m not going to break, Zeke.”
    His grin was swift and dazzling. Mattie blinked.
    “I knew you’d snap out of it,” he said. Setting the helmet on the seat in front of her, he asked, “They make great hamburgers here. You want one?”
    “Sure. With cheese.” She pursed her lips and pointed toward the faded sign on the door. “And one of those super-duper chocolate malts, too.”
    He continued grinning at her as if she’d done something extraordinary. “No problem. I’ll be right back. Keep your helmet on.”
    She watched him, moving with loose-limbed grace on long legs, and thought of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Strider. It would be a good nickname for him.
    The thought made her grin. Strider had been quite a hero, after all. She doubted Zeke thought he’d done anything heroic today, but he had.
    He’d saved her life.

Chapter 6
    C arrying bags of food into a little motel on top of a hill, Mattie and Zeke sprawled on the two double beds in the room. “Your malt,
madame
,” Zeke said. “Your cheeseburger. Fries.” He reached deeper into the bag. “Ketchup, pickles, salt.”
    Mattie grinned. “What a guy. But that would be
mademoiselle
, not
madame
.”
    “Give it back, then.”
    “You’d have to kill me first,” she said. “I’m about to starve.” She bit into the thick, greasy burger. Heaven.
    “Me, too. Riding in the open air will definitely give you an appetite.”
    Her head, after wearing the helmet all day, felt extraordinarily light. “My head feels like it did after I cut my hair.”
    Zeke looked up, raising an eyebrow. “That was why I couldn’t figure out who you were—your hair. On TV, they showed a picture of you with it long. Real long.”
    “TV?”
    “Yep. You were a featured story on that mysteries program a week or two ago.” He dipped fries in ketchup, lovingly. “That’s what was driving me so crazy. I
knew
I’d seen your face and that it was important. It was on television.”
    Her heart squeezed. “You’re kidding.”
    “Wish I was. That’s why you have to keep yourself scarce. The police in Kansas City have a reward out for any information leading to the arrest and conviction of some guy in Kansas City. You’re wanted for questioning in connection with the murder of three men in a trucking warehouse.”
    Mattie felt faint. The reward was no doubt for Brian. “I wonder how they knew to look for me.” An image of the night that had sent her running tried to surface, but Mattie wasn’t ready for it yet. “How much is the reward?”
    “Twenty-five thousand dollars.” Zeke squeezed another ketchup packet onto the hamburger wrapper he was using as a plate. “He’s a big-time bad boy.”
    Mattie closed her eyes. “He’ll kill me if I go back there.”
    “Who is he, Mattie?” Zeke waited, hamburger in hand, for her answer. “He described your hair, too.”
    “It was the only thing that stood out about me.” A tinge of bitterness ached in her. Now Brian would know her hair was gone. Cutting it had all been for nothing. Putting her hamburger aside, she wiped her fingers on a paper napkin and opened her heavy leather purse. At the bottom, coiled like a silky snake, was her braid. She pulled it out.
    It unfurled from her hand to swing between them, a golden brown rope nearly three feet long. “It might be kind of sick to keep it,” she said, “but I couldn’t bring myself to throw it away.”
    Without speaking, Zeke touched it with one long finger. An odd expression crossed his face. He looked up. “You must have been really scared, to cut off that much hair.”
    “I was. I am.” She coiled the braid around her wrist, remembering the feel of it swishing over her back, brushing her hips. Cloaking her. “But I didn’t