Perilous Christmas Reunion. Laurie Alice Eakes

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      She faced a man with one arm clamped to his side and his other hand flattened to the wound on his head, as he rocked with silent laughter.

      “I’m glad I amuse you.” Burdened with the knowledge she had just made a fool of herself, she trudged back to the kitchen and found another clean cloth. “Your head is bleeding again. Let me clean it up and get a bandage on it.” The running water masked anything he might have said. By the time the cloth was wet and she returned to the living room, Chris had stopped laughing. The light had left his eyes, and his jaw, solid and square, was set in renewed anger, or maybe just pain—set enough so he didn’t seem inclined to speak.

      Lauren took a deep breath. “I apologize for losing my temper. I simply—” She broke off, not willing to diminish the apology with excuses about how much she hated false accusations. “Please forgive me. My temper is my thorn in my flesh.”

      “I know.” Their eyes met again. From only two feet away, the impact struck Lauren like a physical blow to her chest, to her heart.

      He had always laughed at her temper, those infrequent outbursts after she was pushed too far. At least he had laughed until the last time when she had sent him away in a flood of outrage, a spate of words designed to drown any affection he felt for her.

      She held up the wet cloth like a shield. “Let me cleanse that wound for you. Do you think it was from a bullet too?”

      “A log struck me. I doubt I’d be awake if it had been a gunshot wound.”

      “I suppose not.” She brushed aside his hair, cut short no doubt for his job, but so thick it tended to wave anyway, so dark a brown it was nearly black, far darker than her own burnished chestnut. “It’s not deep. I don’t think you’ll need stitches.”

      “That’s fortunate, since we can’t seem to get an ambulance or sheriff here.” He held up the useless sat phone.

      “I could have stitched it.”

      “Without anesthesia? No thanks.” He shuddered.

      “You mean the big bad deputy marshal can’t take a little pain?” She meant the words to be teasing; they sounded snarky.

      In truth, they were mean. He must be in serious pain from the blow to his back, vest or not, but hadn’t complained about it. His head must hurt, as well. Again, he hadn’t complained.

      “I’m sorry,” she said.

      “No need to apologize for that.”

      “Which means I need to apologize for something else.” She affixed a couple of butterfly bandages to the wound, covered them with a larger adhesive-edged pad and stepped back to inspect her work. “It’ll do.”

      “Thank you.” He gave her a half smile. “Now that I’m patched up, let’s go back to talking about your brother.”

      She stiffened. “I do not need to apologize for helping my brother. I did nothing but go to him when he fell at the bottom of the steps, to offer him aid if he was seriously injured. He wasn’t hurt that badly, apparently.”

      “That’s all?” Chris’s gaze burned into hers.

      “Yes, that’s—” Her hand dropped to the pocket of her jeans.

      In all the terror of being shot at, not to mention the shock of seeing Chris after five years, she had forgotten about the flash drive Ryan had pressed into her hand.

      Lauren paled, emphasizing the depths of her wide, dark eyes. Chris regretted his harshness, yet she needed to see the consequences of helping her brother evade the law. He might not be able to love a woman who could not support his chosen profession, but he remembered enough of his former affection for her to want to keep her free to live her life as she wished to.

      “What is it?” Chris demanded.

      “I...don’t know. Maybe nothing.” She pulled something from her pocket and held it out to him.

      The dull black plastic of a flash drive lay stark against her pale skin.

      “What is it?” Chris repeated.

      “Ryan gave it to me before he got up and started running again, right before the shooting.”

      “And when were you going to tell me?”

      “As soon as I remembered it.”

      Chris arched one brow in skeptical inquiry.

      “I was a little distracted over being shot at.” She spoke through gritted teeth. “I have no idea what’s on it. I have no idea why he gave it to me, but you probably have more use for it than I do.”

      “I probably do.” Chris started to reach for it, thought of fingerprints and snatched a piece of gauze from the first-aid kit.

      “It already has my fingerprints on it, and Ryan was wearing gloves,” Lauren pointed out.

      “I don’t need to add my fingerprints to what might be there.” Chris wrapped the flash drive in gauze and slipped it into his pocket.

      “Should I get my computer so you can see what’s on it?” Lauren asked.

      Chris studied her face for a moment, trying to look beyond the distraction of her beauty to discover if she was being sincerely cooperative or playing some kind of game. He couldn’t forget his missing service weapon, nor the fact that Ryan had come straight to her, as Chris had suspected he would. He couldn’t forget that Lauren had put her criminal family before him five years earlier.

      With her final words—I love you too much to let my family drag down your new career, but I can’t give up the only family I have—ringing in his ears, Chris made a decision.

      “I’d rather give it to the nearest US marshal’s office to look at.”

      “Even if it holds a key to where Ryan has gone?”

      “Good point, but I can wait until I get my own laptop out of my SUV. It’s parked along the highway.”

      Lauren gave him an exasperated glance. “My computer is about five feet from you. You’re welcome to use it.”

      And have some special encryption erase the drive the instant he inserted it?

      “You.” She flung up her hands. “Do you think I’ll destroy the data on that thing by some technical sleight of hand?”

      “You are a computer whiz, aren’t you? The successful computer-security entrepreneur?”

      “I am,” she said without conceit, “and I am also a law-abiding citizen with some compassion. Since you’re hungry, I can make us some dinner.”

      Chris’s eyes widened. “You read minds?”

      “I hear growling stomachs—yours and mine. Come sit at the breakfast bar while I cook.”

      Chris tried to rise. Pain shot through his back, and a groan slipped from his lips before he could suppress СКАЧАТЬ