The Christmas Clue. Delores Fossen

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СКАЧАТЬ can’t recover the evidence on my own,” she said, her voice a little quavery now. More than quavery. Feminine. Not good. That quavery feminine voice teased his protective instincts while her semibare midriff teased a part of him that needed no such teasing. “And if I do nothing, I have to stay on the run. Not exactly how I want to spend the rest of my life.”

      He made a grunt of agreement and forced his attention away from that snug sweater. “You know the old saying about being between a rock and a hard place. Guess that’s where you are right now.”

      She made a mimicking grunt of agreement, and while the sound was still reverberating in her throat, she pulled her right hand from behind her. Not slowly, either. She was fast. Damn fast. And her hand wasn’t empty, either.

      She aimed a gun—a real gun—right at him. “I always carry backup,” she let him know.

      “Hell,” he mumbled, and he silently chastised himself with some much-stronger profanity. How had he let the situation come to this?

      Oh, wait.

      He knew what had caused his lapse in judgment. It was her nipple-showing sweater and that quavery voice. He’d stupidly let them distract him, and now that stupidity might have some serious consequences.

      Matt glanced at her and then took a better look at her weapon. He instantly recognized the model. A Kahr PM9. A trim 9 mm with a tiny three-inch barrel. Heck, the whole gun was only five inches long, so no wonder he hadn’t noticed it in what was no doubt a slide holster tucked in the back waist of her jeans. But Matt knew this was a case where size truly didn’t matter. It was a combat weapon and just as deadly as any gun in the wrong hands could be.

      “This is a mistake,” he insisted. Not his best attempt at reasoning, but Matt was still berating himself for allowing the situation to escalate into this.

      “A mistake? I don’t think so. I have a different saying for you—a woman’s place is behind the trigger. Guess that’s where I am right now.”

      Man, she was as good with the wise comebacks as she was at distracting him. Too bad he’d have to be the one to make sure she was arrested. And it was really too bad that he didn’t like having to do that. It was his job to protect and defend, he reminded himself. But a part of him, a very small part of him, wouldn’t have minded if Cass Harrison had somehow been able to find evidence to clear her name. Especially since that would send Dominic to jail for the rest of his life.

      “So, what now?” Matt asked her. “I’m your hostage?”

      She nodded. “Temporarily. Take off your pants.”

      He lifted an eyebrow. “You’re going to sexually assault me?”

      That earned him one of those glares and a nasty little huff. “You wish. I’ll use them to tie you up. I don’t especially want to go rifling around your place to find something to restrain you.”

      Oh, so she did have a plan.

      Such that it was.

      Matt unzipped his pants, all the while looking for the opportunity to disarm her. It wouldn’t take much. Just a split-second distraction, and then he could launch himself at her. A tackle of sorts. And then he would call the authorities. Her time was up.

      Stripped down to his shirt and boxer briefs, he extended his arm in front of him and dropped his pants on the kitchen floor.

      In the three feet of space that separated them.

      She scowled, probably because she knew it would be a major mistake to try to reach down and pick them up. Instead, she kept her gaze fastened on him and used her foot to drag the pants closer to her. She didn’t stop there. Cass began to back up, moving farther away from him.

      The sound of the phone ringing sliced through the room. It was exactly the distraction he’d been waiting for. She automatically glanced at the phone mounted to the wall, and that glance cost her.

      Matt launched himself at her.

      She didn’t fire. In fact, she didn’t even attempt to shoot him. She turned, as if to run, but Matt latched on to her shoulder. His full weight slammed into her, and the momentum sent them both crashing to the floor. They landed between a pair of bar stools.

      Somewhere amid the sounds of the struggle, he heard his answering machine kick it. “It’s Matt. Leave a message.”

      Matt relied on his training. He turned, maneuvered and adjusted until he had her pinned down, and then he wrenched the small gun from her hand. Because her knee could quickly become a painful weapon, he literally pressed her entire body against the floor so she couldn’t move.

      “Matt, are you there?” Agent Ronald McKenzie said into the answering machine. It was a call that Matt would have liked to answer, but there was no way he would let go of Cass now that he’d subdued her. Well, sort of.

      He might have gotten her physically restrained, but she was hurling eye daggers at him and was mumbling some rather creative profanity through bursts of labored breath. It was obvious she wouldn’t give up and was probably already looking for another way to escape.

      “I checked on our friend for you,” he heard Ronald say. “I found something.”

      Matt couldn’t help it. That comment captured his complete attention. It obviously captured Cass’s, too, because she stilled, her body practically going limp, and her gaze drifted in the direction of the phone.

      “Just asking the question seemed to make a few people uncomfortable,” Ronald explained, his voice noticeably laced with anxiety. “Still, I asked, and here’s the answer I got—it appears that six months ago Dominic Cordova did indeed adopt a baby. He named the girl Molly.”

      Matt felt as if someone had slugged him.

      Oh, man.

      All he could do was lie there while Ronald continued.

      “I hope I’m wrong, but I doubt it, so here goes. The adoption might not have been aboveboard. It’s all tied to that illegal adoption ring that the San Antonio PD recently broke up. And if you’re thinking this kid belongs to Vanessa, you’re right. The timing is dead-on. Vanessa did have a baby, and Dominic’s adopted child was born in the very hospital and at the very minute that Vanessa gave birth. But here’s the clincher, and believe me, it’s not a clincher you’re going to like.”

      Matt looked down at Cass at the exact moment she looked up at him. He tried to brace himself for whatever Ronald was about to say, and judging from the sympathetic look that passed through Cass’s eyes, he was about to get some very shocking news.

      “According to my source, Vanessa didn’t get involved with another man after you.” Ronald paused several snail-crawling moments. “If I were a betting man, I’d say yes, Dominic Cordova has your daughter.”

      Chapter Three

      “Well?” Cass challenged. “Do you finally realize I’m telling the truth?” But she dropped the snarky attitude when Matt groaned, rolled off her and landed on his back on the floor.

      “I can’t believe this,” he said. And he kept repeating it, punctuating it with some profanity.

      Cass СКАЧАТЬ