He stepped away from the carriage.
Misty was fanning herself. Meaghan and Marcus were holding hands, at once terrified and delighted.
“This is all from that book,” Josie said. “The tawdry romance, you know? The Highwayman Came Riding. There was a Lady Fontaine—that’s you!—riding in a carriage. And here I am…”
Where am I?
Josie felt strangely calm. She’d heard that this was what it was like to drown. First you panicked and fought the water, but just before losing consciousness, everything became eerily peaceful. Josie’s head felt light as a bubble, and she looked around in wonder, drowning and marveling at the sensation.
“Hey, is it weird that you three all have M-names? Like, what are the odds, right?” She held her hand in front of her face. “It sure looks like my hand, but it can’t be real, because … I think I’m in a book. Isn’t that strange?”
A voice outside the carriage shouted, “En avant!”
A bandit grabbed Josie around her waist, hoisted her over his shoulder, and ran off.
CHAPTER 5
Josie squirmed and kicked but could not dislodge herself from the bandit’s shoulder. Blond dreadlocks escaped from under his hat. Hadn’t she seen someone with blond dreadlocks recently?
The bandit lowered her to her feet. They were in a forest clearing. Tree houses nestled up high in the canopy, with dangling ropes providing the only way up. The visible sky was deepening into night, though it had been morning in Montana only a few minutes ago. In the dimness, the orange campfires were excruciatingly bright.
A couple dozen bandits milled around the fires, gnawing on turkey legs and hunks of bread and laughing. Both men and women, they were dressed in cheap clothing worn to rags, topped with fine garments likely liberated from wealthy victims.
I’m in the book, Josie thought again, dizzy with the idea.
Her kidnapper tipped his hat politely as he walked away. Blond dreadlocks, she noticed again. Like one of those college students playing Frisbee in the park! She scanned the bandits, and all their faces looked familiar, as if she’d just seen them in the park or the bookstore. Two bandit women strolled past, wearing ladies’ fine gowns with mud-splattered boots, their long blond hair full of thin braids and snarls, decorated with jeweled pins. The Trophy Wives.
“… and then she said, he hasn’t robbed a carriage all week.”
“Uh-oh,” said the second.
“Uh, yeah,” said the first.
“Justin?” Josie wandered through the camp, feeling as strange and unmoored as if her head had turned into dandelion fluff. If only she could find Justin …
She turned and recognized a tall woman in fitted breeches, a man’s coat so long it hung like a dress, and a feathered-and-flowered cap.
“I know you!” said Josie.
“All who ride these woods burdened with too much gold will know the Bandit King’s crew soon enough,” said Nina.
“You’re my best friend,” said Josie.
Nina patted Josie’s cheek and smiled. Nina would never trick her. Josie’s stomach sank with the certainty: This isn’t real. None of this is real.
Josie clung to Nina’s arm. “Stay with me. Please? I need a friend. I need you.”
Nina smiled politely. “Of course. Of course I’ll stay with you.”
“Always,” Josie said. She tried to let herself feel calm and safe and pretend this was real Nina.
“Beware!” said an old woman, suddenly in Josie’s face.
“Aah!” Josie yelled in surprise.
“Aah!” said Nina, a couple of seconds later. “Sorry, delayed reaction.”
The bandit woman was perhaps seventy, with a freckled face and silver hair, her eyebrows auburn. Josie wondered where her brain had come up with this unfamiliar woman’s face. Had she been in the bookstore or park and Josie hadn’t noticed?
The woman came even closer, her breath hot on Josie’s face. “They get you here and they never let you go! Never!”
Josie startled, bumping into a guy’s chest for the third time that day—if it was the same day. It was certainly the same guy. No red apron now—he was dressed in bandity tight pants and a pirate shirt—but he had that same too-handsome face and warm Mediterranean skin tone. He was even still wearing glasses, though they had thin wire frames now.
“You!” she said, stalling while she remembered his name. “Deo!”
“Don’t worry about Grandma Lovey.” Deo tilted his head in the direction of the older woman. “She’s just cranky. The Bandit King’s crew is not such a bad lot, and no one has ever stayed on with us who didn’t want to.”
Josie grabbed the front of his shirt.
“You’ve got to get me out of here. You sold me a book, and then the story swallowed me.”
“Book?”
“What if I got a brain injury when those books fell on my head and right now I’m unconscious in the back of an ambulance? Mia must be so scared! I promised I’d never leave her alone. I have to wake up!”
Deo put his hand to Josie’s forehead as if testing for fever. His fingers were surprisingly cool, and she felt her body lean into them. His touch seemed more tangible than the spongy forest ground beneath her feet.
“Don’t be scared,” he whispered. “I won’t let anyone hurt you.”
She was still clutching his shirt and was now aware of his hard, muscly chest. Probably hairless. Undoubtedly chiseled. Josie remembered she was in a tawdry romance and quickly let go.
Hey, she was in a romance. Was something about to happen? With her?
She looked up at Deo.
With her and him? The idea wasn’t unwelcome.
“Heyyy,” she said, feeling it out.
His smile was a little surprised, but he said “Hey” back, with great warmth.
“Hey,” said Nina, standing beside them, smiling innocently.
No, this was too weird. Josie stepped away and looked around again for that Bandit King with Justin’s face, finally spotting him walking Misty into camp.
“Please welcome the Lady Fontaine to our enlightened civilization!” he declared.
“Huzzah!” shouted the bandits.
Justin the Bandit King led Misty to a throne built from barrels and crates and draped with cloaks. He leaned in and whispered something in her ear. She flung the contents of a mug in his face. The entire camp gasped. Even the forest seemed to hold its breath.
The Bandit King tightened his hands into fists and marched away, storming right between Josie and Deo.
Josie stumbled backward. “Rude!” she was about to yell when he tore off his wet shirt.
“Oh, hello,” she said, confronted with his bare chest. “Okay, then.”
This Justin was looking incredibly fit. Maybe he’d joined a gym since she left Arizona … no. She had to remind herself again that this was a fake Justin. Real Justin was the exact same height as Josie. Other shorter-than-average guys Josie had known wore thick-soled shoes and threw hateful glances at anyone who mentioned their height. But Justin had never seemed to notice or mind, not even when she wore heels.
This taller, protein-enriched Justin threw down the wet shirt and riffled through stacked crates, finally pulling out a blousy white shirt. He shoved it over his head, leaving the front undone, his chest exposed. It was indeed hard, chiseled, and hairless, though his skin was a lot paler than the guy on the book’s cover.