Crossfire Christmas. Julie Miller

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СКАЧАТЬ on one knee in the snow. “I don’t have much time. I can’t afford to let the police get here before I’m gone—and you’re my only way out of here, Peewee. I need you to grab my bag and get me to your car, then take me someplace where you can patch me up.”

      “Peewee?” She sat up as soon as she was free. A second later she was scooting away, climbing to her feet and brushing the snow off the clinging wet cotton of her pink pant legs. “I should just leave you here to freeze to death.”

      “Can you outrun a bullet?” If she tried, he’d have to let her go. But he was hoping he still had that big-and-mean-and-on-his-last-nerve look going for him to convince her to cooperate.

      Apparently, he did.

      Although that defiant spark never left her dark eyes, she lifted her gaze from the gun up to his, nodding her acquiescence. “Now that you’ve conveniently gotten us both soaked to the skin, we’re at risk for hypothermia if we stay out here much longer. And I’m not dying for the likes of you.”

      She stumbled down the hill, kicking her way through knee-deep snow with every step. Man, she was a little spitfire. Maybe not as afraid of him as she should be, and definitely not the teenager he’d first thought her to be. She stood over his go bag, breathing deeply, rubbing her bare hand inside her gloved one, no doubt feeling the cold and damp, especially after that tumble in the snow.

      Or maybe she was contemplating another avenue of escape.

      Nash shifted the angle of the gun toward her. “Pick it up and don’t try to run again,” he warned. With an answering glare, she hoisted the heavy bag onto her shoulder. It was almost as big as she was. But other than a Spanish curse beneath her breath, she trudged up the hill without further protest or complaint.

      Nash, however, struggled to find his footing. His leg ached but felt solid enough. It was more a case of finding his balance and catching his breath. He lurched to his feet, swaying with the first step. White spots swam before his eyes, but it was more than the snow swirling past.

      The nurse was several steps ahead of him when she dropped the bag into a drift at the shoulder of the road and turned.

      Nash willed the light-headedness to go away and raised the gun toward her. But his left arm hung at his side and his right was getting weaker. “I said—”

      “I don’t think I can carry you both,” she groused, marching back down the hill.

      He almost laughed at the idea of this little bundle of sass thinking she was going to carry him. But she moved to his right side, wound her arm behind his waist and urged him to put his arm around her shoulders. “Lean on me,” she ordered.

      Nash hesitated. She fit right beneath his arm, the perfect height for the crutch he apparently needed. And yeah, it put the crown of that silky dark hair that had fallen out of its ponytail and gotten dotted with snow right beneath his chin. He tightened his grip around the gun that rested on her shoulder when she grabbed his wrist and butted her hip up against his. Was this cozying-up tactic some kind of trick to get the weapon away from him?

      “Come on, tough guy.” She latched her fingers around his belt and tugged. “You can get fresh with me in the snow and threaten me with a gun all you want. But if you really want my help, you’ll put your weight on me and move your feet.” She flashed her dark eyes up to him before urging him forward with a jerk at his waist and a grunt of effort. “In about two minutes, my extremities are going to be so numb I won’t be able to do anything for either of us—even if you do shoot. So move.”

      He couldn’t have been rescued by some meek, mousy thing who’d do what he said without the attitude? He tapped the butt of the gun against her shoulder. “That’s pretty bold talk for a woman who’s got no advantage.”

      “Uh-huh. I’m not the one bleeding to death. Your color’s awful. Your skin is cold to the touch. I don’t want your dead body on my conscience.” She tugged again, forcing him to take a step. “How long have you been losing blood?”

      “The leg’s just a graze,” he informed her, bracing more of his weight on her shoulders to limp another step up the hill. “I stanched the hole in my chest,” he ground out as his right boot slipped and he came down hard on his injured leg.

      “Nice dodge,” she chided. “That means longer than you want to admit.” She yanked back on his belt to keep him from falling. “So if you won’t tell me about your injuries, then tell me what the other guy looks like.”

      The exertion of climbing the hill and keeping his wits about him left Nash gasping for breath. But he kept moving. “You don’t want to know.”

      Three steps. Four. They’d reached the tracks in the snow where he’d plowed through the drift on the shoulder of the road. “Is he kidnapping some poor unlucky Good Samaritan, too?”

      “Nope. They aren’t doing anything right now.”

      “They?” She was breathing as hard as he was when she stopped beside the car and tipped her face up to his. “Wait a minute. Are they...? Did you...?”

      “Yeah, darlin’. I killed all three of them.”

      “Killed—?”

      “I preferred them in the morgue instead of me.”

      Her cheeks blanched as she opened the passenger door. “You murdered three men?”

      No jury would call what he’d done anything but self-defense. But she didn’t have to know that those hired guns had come to the warehouse to murder him. And Tommy. Remembering the young man dead on the warehouse floor created a different kind of pain in Nash’s chest. He should have dragged the body to his truck, made sure Agent Delvecchio got the proper burial he deserved, instead of letting him lie alongside his own killers on a cold concrete floor. Losing Tommy had been like losing a kid brother. One by one, Graciela and his thugs were taking out the closest thing he had to family. There had to be justice. They had to pay.

      Nah. He wouldn’t feel remorse about taking advantage of this woman’s nursing skills or scaring her into the no-questions-asked cooperation he needed. Even if he wound up dead at the end of all this, he was going to make sure the traitor was exposed and no one else on his team died.

      “You gonna stop giving me trouble now, Peewee?” He looked down at her and saw the bravado or anger or whatever had fueled her defiance these past few minutes disappear. Now she was finally truly afraid of him. Ignoring a deep stab of guilt and reminding himself of the necessity for haste and maintaining anonymity—for her sake as well as his—he lowered himself into the seat of her midsize car. He pointed the gun over the crest of the hill. “Now the bag. Put it in the back.”

      With a nod, she hurried to obey his orders. Fisting the gun in his lap, Nash risked tipping his head back against the headrest and closing his eyes for a few seconds. The heat inside the car was a drugging mix of pain and relief. The thawing nerve endings around his wounds and frozen toes stung like hundreds of needles piercing his skin. Yet drawing warm air into his lungs after so many hours exposed to the elements seemed to ease the constriction in his chest. Maybe it was the influx of oxygen into his system, or maybe these were the last moments of his life seeping away, and all he wanted to do was sleep.

      This was humiliating, to be so helpless, so dependent on a frightened woman for survival. And while he might be more comfortable giving orders to his men or smack-talking his way with the bad guys, he’d sweet-talked a woman or two СКАЧАТЬ