Christmas Countdown. Jan Hambright

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СКАЧАТЬ in each stall as he made his way to the back of the stable and stopped just short of the exit. Looking to the left, his stare fell on the ladder leading up into the rear loft. Traces of sawdust were deposited on the first five wooden rungs.

      It was possible someone had climbed into the back loft for a bale of alfalfa, but he knew for a fact the grass hay in the front loft was being used to feed Navigator right now. Still, he couldn’t rule out the chance that Emma had used the ladder.

      Mac grabbed the handle on the massive rear door, slid it shut and put the pin in the latch. For now he was content that his Navigator was safe and asleep in his stall.

      EMMA WATCHED MAC TIGHTEN the last bracket on the series of motion-activated lights they had installed at the front and back entry points to the barn. If so much as a stray cat roamed near the entrance, it would be put in the spotlight where Mac could take action.

      She let out a long sigh as she stepped back from the base of the ladder he stood on and watched him descend. She liked having him at Firehill. Liked the way he made her feel. The way he deflated the bubble of uncertainty that floated worry in her mind. “The locksmith will be here tomorrow to put a keypad on the stall door.”

      “Good.” He held the screwdriver out to her and she took it, their fingertips brushing in the handoff.

      Heat pulsed up her arm and she pulled back before staring up into his face at the knowing smile on his lips.

      “Last night, after you left, I searched the stable and found sawdust on the rungs leading up to the rear loft. Any chance you climbed up there yesterday?”

      “No. I haven’t been up there since they delivered the alfalfa in October. I don’t even plan on feeding it until January.”

      “I’ve got a sneaking hunch the thugs who jumped me last night may have been hiding up there.”

      Emma shuddered, unable to fight the uneasiness the creepy revelation generated in her body. There were too many places to hide at Firehill, and they could spend an aeon trying to search every one of them.

      “Relax. I’ll keep the back door locked up from now on.” He grinned at her from under the brim of the brown felt fedora he’d found in the tack room. In fact, it had been hanging in there for as long as she could remember.

      “Any more chores?” he asked.

      She wanted to roll her eyes and play coy, but it wasn’t in her DNA. “As a matter of fact, it’s time to put up the Christmas lights around the eaves of the main house. I could really use your help.”

      His smile faded and hesitation hardened his features. “That’s not in my job description.”

      “Have you got something against Christmas?”

      He looked away, focusing on something just over her head before he again met her gaze. “It wasn’t the happiest time of the year for me growing up.”

      “I’m sorry.” A mixture of sadness and curiosity congealed in her veins.

      “Okay. Well, just think of it as adding colored security lighting.”

      He lifted his eyebrows in amusement. “You don’t like scrambling up tall ladders, do you?”

      “Not so much. Come on. I have the light strands untangled and laid out on the back step.” She headed for the main house, hearing the aluminum rails of the ladder clank together behind her. “We can have it done before dark.”

      Just because she loved Christmas and the sweet memories it evoked for her didn’t mean that everyone did. She could respect that. Still, she wondered what event in the young life of the battle-scarred bodyguard had given birth to his hostility.

      Mac felled the closed ladder, hooked it with his arm and followed her. He remembered the Christmas lights being on at the Clareborn house that December evening when he and his father had driven down the lane to Firehill with their beat-up horse trailer hitched to his dad’s Ford pickup, and their last best hope of a horse, Smooth Sailing, in the back. Of unloading the colt in front of the Clareborn barn.

      His life had gone downhill from there.

      Tension knotted the muscles between his shoulder blades as he willed the memory to expire and leaned the ladder up against the back of the house.

      Emma put several coils of lights on her arm. “The hooks are still in place, and the extension cord plug-in is right there.” She pointed to the receptacle and unwound a section of the colored lights, then handed him the plug.

      Mac took it and climbed up the ladder, dragging the strand with him as Emma uncoiled it from her arm.

      By the time they reached the midsection of the house, they had their tandem working system in sync, and he was beginning to get in the mood that went with the physical labor of decorating. It helped, too, that Emma smiled up at him every time she started another row of lights.

      Putting another plug into the end of a strand, she reeled off a length of the brightly colored lights, and handed them to him.

      Mac took them and started back up the ladder, one hand on the rung, the other grasping the strand.

      The initial sound of a single bulb popping just above his head was inconsequential.

      Pop! The spray of shattering glass riveted his attention on the bullet hole drilled into the siding on the house.

      The next shot splintered the wood a foot above Emma’s head.

      “Get down!” He lunged for her, kicking away from the ladder and forcing it in the opposite direction.

      It scraped down the side of the house and clanked onto the grass.

      Snagging her with his left arm, he pulled her to the ground in a tangle of Christmas lights and cord.

      Covering her body with his own, he scanned the dense bank of trees and brush a hundred yards from the side of the house, spotting the shape of someone buried deep in the protective foliage.

      He drew his weapon, but he didn’t have a clear shot. “Do you have your cell?”

      “No.” His was sitting on the counter in the tack room. Another bullet drilled into the siding halfway between the ground and the overhead eave.

      They were pinned down.

      Emma struggled to make sense of the situation as she sucked a couple of breaths into her lungs, feeling the weight of Mac’s body pressing her into the grass.

      Someone was taking shots at them? Someone wanted them dead? Fear pushed chills through her body. She closed her eyes, listening to the whisper of Mac’s breath against her hair. Honing in on the sound to prevent herself from being caught up in the wave of panic swelling inside of her.

      Mac would keep her safe, he would protect her, with his life if necessary.

      “I’m going to return fire as a diversion. When I do, I want you to stay low and head for the back door. Get inside and call 911.”

      “Okay.” She felt his weight shift off her. She scrambled out from underneath him, hearing the decisive crack of gunfire behind СКАЧАТЬ