Smoky Mountain Setup. Пола Грейвс

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СКАЧАТЬ did tell someone,” he said quietly, lowering the shotgun to the floor, still within his reach. “I told my SAC at the Johnson City RA that I had information the FBI needed to know about the Blue Ridge Infantry. And the next thing I knew, I was being bludgeoned and hauled to some backwoods hellhole and beaten to within an inch of my life.”

      For a second she pictured what he was saying, imagined him tied up and pummeled by the vicious hillbillies who comprised the mountain militia known as the Blue Ridge Infantry, and nausea burned in her gut. She knew from her own investigations that the hard-eyed men who ran the so-called militia as a criminal organization were capable of great cruelty. If they’d ever lived by a code of honor, those days were long past.

      Money and power drove them. In these hills these days, money and power too often came from drugs, guns and extortion.

      “You told your SAC?” She repeated his earlier statement, trying to remember the name of the Johnson City resident agency’s Special Agent in Charge. “Pete Chang, right?”

      He nodded. “I didn’t think he was corrupt. He’s a brownnoser, yeah, so maybe he told the wrong person the wrong thing. I don’t know.”

      “You’ve been a prisoner all this time?” she asked, looking him over with a critical eye. “Take off your coat.”

      He looked down at the heavy wool coat he was still wearing, a frown carving lines in his cheeks. “I wasn’t a prisoner the whole time,” he said gruffly as he unbuttoned the coat and shrugged it off. Beneath, he still wore a couple of layers of clothes—a long-sleeved shirt beneath a thick sweater—but while he looked leaner than she remembered, he definitely didn’t look as if he’d been starved for nearly a year.

      “Then why didn’t you go to the FBI once you were free?”

      “I just told you that the last time I told anyone with the FBI what I was doing, I ended up a prisoner of the Blue Ridge Infantry.” He pushed the sleeves of his shirt and sweater up to his elbows, revealing what they’d hidden until now—white ligature scars around both wrists.

      Olivia swallowed a gasp. It was stupid to react so sharply to the scars—in the pantheon of injuries she’d seen inflicted in this ongoing war between the Blue Ridge Infantry and the good guys, the marks on Landry’s wrists barely registered.

      It was what they represented—the loss of freedom, the indignity of captivity—that made her heart pound with sudden dread.

      Or they could be a trick, she reminded herself sternly as she felt her resistance begin to falter. He could have inflicted the marks on himself to fool people into believing his story.

      The fact remained, he’d just stood here minutes ago and admitted he’d been working with the Blue Ridge Infantry. And nobody who worked with the Blue Ridge Infantry was ever up to any good.

      “What are you thinking?” Landry spoke in a low, silky voice so familiar it seemed to burrow into her head and take up residence, like a traveler finally reaching home after a long absence.

      She fought against that sensation and gripped the edge of the desk more tightly. “That’s really none of your business.”

      “You’re not curious?” he asked, his eyes narrowing as he took a step closer to her. “You don’t want to hear all the details?”

      She held his gaze but didn’t speak.

      “Or maybe you really don’t give a damn anymore.” He spoke the words casually, but she’d known him long enough to recognize the thread of hurt that underlay his comment.

      “You’re the one who left,” she said.

      “Are you sure I was the one?” He took another step toward her, and she tried to back away. But the wall stopped her.

      “You packed your things and left.”

      “You’d already left. Maybe not your body, but the rest of you—the part of you that really mattered—” He stopped his forward advancement, looking down at the rough planks of the cabin floor beneath his damp boots. “Doesn’t change the outcome, does it? We both walked away and didn’t look back, right?”

      “Why did you come here?” she asked again, not because she believed he’d answer her any more truthfully than before, but because it was better than thinking about just how many times over the past two years, with how much regret, she’d looked back on the life she and Landry had once shared.

      “Because I thought—” He looked up at her, pinning her to the wall with the intensity of his green-eyed gaze. “It doesn’t matter what I thought, does it? You’ve made up your mind about me. I get it.” He turned away, heading for the door.

      She hurried forward and picked up the shotgun. “I didn’t say you could leave.”

      He turned to look at her. “You’re going to shoot me to stop me?”

      “If I have to.” She sounded sincere enough, even to her own skeptical ears. But her heart wasn’t nearly as sure.

      She’d loved him once, as much as she’d ever loved anyone in her whole life. Hell, maybe she still did.

      If he tried to leave, would she really pull the trigger to stop him from fleeing?

      “You won’t shoot me,” he said softly. “At least, that’s what I want to keep believing. So I won’t put you in that position.”

      “You’ll turn yourself in?”

      He frowned. “I’d rather not. At least, not yet. There’s a lot I still need to tell you before you’ll understand exactly what we’re up against and why.”

      “What we’re up against?”

      He nodded. “I have to assume someone at that bank in Barrowville will remember the name Cade Landry. And why it’s so memorable. They’ll call the authorities to report my visit to the bank. And like you said, it won’t take long for them to connect us. We were partners, Olivia.” He moved toward her, walking with slow, sure deliberation. “Lovers.”

      His voice lowered to a sensual rumble, bringing back a flood of memories she’d spent two years trying to excise from her brain. “Don’t.”

      “It’s too late to undo it, Livvie. I took a risk coming here, and maybe I shouldn’t have.” He came to a stop just a few inches from where she stood, and she made herself remain in place, though the pounding pulse in her ears seemed to plead for her to run as far and as fast as she could.

      Losing him once had nearly unraveled her. If she let him back into her heart—into her bed—again...

      “I said I was working with the Blue Ridge Infantry, and that’s the truth. But it’s only part of it.” His hand came up slowly until his fingertips brushed her jawline, sending a shiver of sexual awareness jolting through her. “Did you know they were targeting The Gates?”

      She swallowed with difficulty. “Of course. We’ve been trying to bring them down since Quinn first opened the doors of The Gates.”

      “I’m not on their side, Olivia. That’s not what I meant by working with them—” He stopped midsentence, his head coming up suddenly. СКАЧАТЬ