Fugitive. Shirlee McCoy

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      “You don’t have to help me, Laney. It would be better if you didn’t,” he said gently because he wanted her to take the out he was offering, to run before anyone knew that they’d ever been together.

      “You never told me why.” She grabbed a drill from a tool chest, patted a worktable. “Put your hands here.”

      “Why what?” he asked, placing his hands palm down on smooth wood.

      “Why it’s so dangerous for us to be together. Why you think someone other than the police is after you.” She aimed the drill straight into the cuff lock, her hands steady. If she was nervous, it didn’t show, and he couldn’t help thinking how different she was from the scared and anxious girl he used to know.

      “The police cruiser that was taking me to state prison was run off the road. The driver was shot and killed. Another officer was wounded. Whoever was responsible took a shot at me.”

      “Why would someone help you escape and then kill you?”

      “That’s a good question, and I don’t have an answer.” But he would. All he needed was time and a place to hunker down and plan.

      “Why were you on your way to state prison?” The drill whined and protested, a few sparks flying as she pressed down.

      “I was convicted of trafficking in illegal narcotics.”

      “Were you guilty?” Laney asked—because she had to know and because she couldn’t believe that the teenager who had been so adamantly opposed to drugs had turned into a man who sold them.

      “No.” Logan’s answer was short, his hands pressed hard to the table that William had fashioned out of thick oak slabs. Laney had been there with him the weekend he’d finished it. She had smiled as he’d caressed the golden wood and imagined out loud all of the things he could create on it.

      The thought of selling his cabin and shop and everything in them made her stomach churn.

      Her hand slipped, the drill sliding from the lock and digging into the wood.

      “Careful.” Logan grabbed her hand, holding it steady for a moment.

      “Sorry.” She pressed the drill in again and focused her attention on forcing the lock open. It took three tries, but the lock finally popped. Not a pretty job, but done. “You’re free.”

      “Thanks.” Logan slid out of the cuffs, rubbing the raw red welts on his wrists. He was still shivering, but he had some color in his face.

      Good.

      Not so good that she’d just freed a convict from handcuffs. She might believe Logan’s story, but a jury hadn’t.

      “We should go back to the cabin.” She put the drill back exactly where William had always kept it, then ran her finger over the ding it had made in the table.

      For some reason, tears burned behind her eyes.

      Not grief. She’d cried a million tears in the weeks after William died. Maybe it was just sadness over all the dreams she’d never live with him.

      “You okay?” Logan lifted her hand from the wood and ran his thumb across her knuckles. Even hurt and cold, he seemed larger than life, his dark blue gaze so intense that she had to look away.

      “Fine. I just think we should get back and start planning how we’re going to get off the mountain.”

      “We’re not going to get me off. I’m going to do it. You’re going to pretend that you never saw me.” He tugged her outside and back into the cabin, slamming the door against the bitter cold. The fire had nearly died, and Laney shrugged out of her coat, shivering a little as she piled logs on the embers and stoked them to life.

      Logan didn’t speak as he grabbed the pile of clothes she’d pulled out for him. He didn’t say a word as he walked into the small bathroom and closed the door.

      She wondered if he’d return, or if he’d climb out the bathroom window and disappear into the storm.

      Would she go after him if he did?

      She’d been raised to follow the rules, to strive for perfection. Nothing short of that had ever been acceptable. As an adult, she’d tried to move past the need for flawless living. She’d tried to concentrate on what God wanted from her rather than what people wanted. She’d let her hair be messy sometimes, allowed herself to dress in jeans and sweaters.

      Still, she’d never skirted the law, and in helping Logan she’d done more than that. She’d broken it.

      The bathroom door opened, and he walked out, William’s flannel shirt hanging open over a black T-shirt. His faded jeans hung low on Logan’s leaner hips. William had been shorter, a little broader and a lot older. On him, the clothes had looked comfortable and easy.

      On Logan...

      She frowned, pouring still-warm water into a mug. “Warmer?”

      “Much. And, now that I am, I really need you to leave. If this is the only cabin on the mountain—”

      “It is.”

      “Then eventually someone is going to show up here looking for me. I don’t want you here when it happens.”

      “If I leave, how will you get off the mountain?”

      “I’ll manage.”

      “You can’t walk out. It’s too far.”

      “Like I said, I’ll manage. Did your husband keep a handgun around?”

      “In the lockbox on the top shelf of the closet,” she responded and then wished she hadn’t. She’d already broken the law. She was breaking it again by providing a felon with a firearm.

      He grabbed the box and set it on the satiny wood of the little table William had crafted on their last visit to the cabin together.

      “Do you know the combination?”

      “Why do you need a gun?” she asked, unable to look away as Logan fiddled with the combination lock. With his dark hair almost dry and his chin shadowed with the beginning of a beard, he looked tough and dangerous.

      “I’m not planning to kill a cop with it, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

      “I’m thinking that helping you get out of those cuffs was one thing. Giving you a weapon is something else. Unless you have a really good reason for wanting it, it’s probably better that it stays locked up.”

      “It’s not a weapon—it’s a firearm. And I’m only planning to use it for protection.” He looked up from the box, his eyes blazing. Familiar eyes, and she couldn’t deny them, couldn’t turn away from the truth she saw there. She rattled off the combination, and he lifted the pistol, checking to see if it was loaded and then grabbing the ammunition that William had locked up with it.

      “I’d better go,” she said because looking at him wearing William’s clothes and carrying William’s firearm made СКАЧАТЬ