Smoky Ridge Curse. Paula Graves

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СКАЧАТЬ had any left for him. So far she’d seemed more cautious than worried.

      “I didn’t want to drag you into this mess.”

      “I was already in it.”

      They were off the mountain now, and the sleet had turned to rain, angling down from the sky in silver streaks reflecting the Camaro’s headlights. The steady swish of the windshield wipers and the comforting warmth of the car’s heater conspired to lull him to sleep, but he struggled to keep his eyes open.

      They weren’t safe yet.

      She parked the Camaro in front of a small bungalow nestled in the woods on a dead-end road. The houses they’d passed moments earlier were no longer in view, leaving her house isolated from the rest of the world, surrounded by woods and mountains as far as the eye could see.

      “Long way from Georgetown,” he murmured.

      She turned in the seat to look at him. “You have no idea.”

      He let her help him out of the car, forced to lean on her more than he’d anticipated. She wrapped her arm around his waist, careful not to touch his gunshot wound, and eased him up the shallow set of stairs to the wraparound porch.

      “I’m sorry,” he murmured when she settled him on a brown leather sofa in the front room.

      “Don’t apologize unless you draw blood,” she muttered, parroting back a saying he’d taught her a long time ago. She grimaced as she took a closer look at his bullet wound. “Gonna have an ugly scar.”

      “Won’t be my first.” He gritted his teeth as she plucked the fabric of his shirt away from the wound. “Got any painkillers?”

      “Just the over-the-counter type. Want a bullet to bite?”

      “I see your bedside manner hasn’t changed.”

      Her dark brows arched, and he realized with dismay the double-edged nature of his quip.

      “This is going to hurt like hell.” After digging in a nearby drawer, she returned with a soft-sided first-aid kit. “Be right back—I need more supplies.”

      She detoured long enough to lock the front door and disappeared into another room. Brand let his gaze drift across the front room, curious whether he’d be able to find anything he recognized of the woman he’d once believed could rise all the way to the top of the FBI.

      There were few decorations—an empty umbrella stand near the door, an old Smoky Mountains tourist poster in a cheap metal frame hanging over the fireplace mantel. The sofa and a pair of matching leather armchairs looked comfortably broken in, but the plain oak coffee table between them looked new, chosen for utility over beauty. The floors were hardwood, softened by a brown woven rug that matched the sofas. The built-in bookcases on either side of the fireplace were only half-filled, mostly with thrillers, classics and nonfiction.

      Delilah came back into the living room carrying a bucket full of soapy water and a handful of washcloths. “Sure you don’t want that bullet to bite?”

      “How long have you been living here?”

      “Counting today? Two days.”

      That explained the scarcity of personal effects, he supposed. At least he hoped it did. Because right now, if he had to profile her based on her home environment, he’d be leaning toward a diagnosis of antisocial personality disorder. And that definitely wasn’t the Delilah Hammond he remembered.

      “You look good,” he ventured as she sat on the coffee table and dipped one of the washcloths into the bucket of suds.

      One side of her mouth quirked. “Flattery won’t make me hurt you any less.”

      “I was just commenting.”

      She slanted a look at him. “You look like hell.”

      He laughed, stopping immediately when his injured muscles protested. “I still clean up pretty well, I promise.”

      Ten minutes of agony later, she smoothed down the last strip of tape over his fresh bandage and sat back, looking at him with dark, unfathomable eyes. “I hate to tell you this, but I’ll have to change that bandage first thing in the morning. But it won’t take as long or hurt as much, I don’t think.”

      “Why weren’t you surprised?” He sounded weaker than he expected, his voice thready and strained.

      “By you showing up in the woods behind my mama’s house?”

      He nodded.

      “I’ve been waiting for you to show up here in Bitterwood ever since I heard you went AWOL.”

      “How’d you know I’d come here?”

      “The last case you were working started here. Where else would you go?” She shrugged as if the answer was too obvious to require explanation. “I am a little curious about why you went to my mama’s house, though.”

      “That was the number the receptionist at Cooper Security gave me. She said you didn’t have a home phone yet, but you’d given them that number if anyone needed to contact you. I got the address through the phone number.”

      “I see.” A fleeting emotion glimmered in her eyes.

      “You knew I’d call looking for you. Didn’t you?”

      She looked down at the bucket. “I’d better go get this cleaned up. You still hungry?”

      The thought of food made him queasy. “I’m good for now. But you didn’t get to eat, so you go ahead.”

      She disappeared from the living room for a few minutes, returning with a blanket and a pillow. “I have just the one bedroom, so it’s up to you. You want to stay here on the sofa or try getting up and going to the bedroom?”

      He was tempted to come back with a little teasing innuendo but quelled the urge. “I’m good here. Not in the mood for moving around at the moment.”

      “You didn’t get a look at the person who shot you?”

      “Blind ambush. I was too busy running for my life.”

      “So it might not have been this Cortland person.”

      “Oh, he wouldn’t do his own dirty work. That’s not his style.”

      She sat on the coffee table and leaned toward him, her elbows resting on her knees. She wasn’t wearing a stitch of makeup, and she smelled like soapy water and disinfectant, but if he hadn’t been laid up with a gunshot wound, he’d have done his damnedest to get back into her bed. Because she was still the most beautiful, exciting, interesting woman he knew.

      Time apart hadn’t done a damned thing to change that fact.

      “Where did the shooting happen?” she asked.

      “In Virginia. I’d stopped for coffee at a doughnut shop in Bristol. I came out of the shop heading for my car and got hit out of nowhere.”

      “You СКАЧАТЬ