Covert Christmas Read Online Free Page A

her betrayal. But hurt? He’d cared enough to be hurt?
    A lump formed in her throat, forcing her to swallow hard. “It was a job. Just like every job you did for them.” In the beginning, it hadn’t even been that. A favor, Patrick had called it. A chance to repay the man who’d saved her, she’d thought. But after the Mulroneys’ first try at killing Josh, it had become a mess she couldn’t get out of.
    Because she had made her usual check-in that day. She’d told them where to find him. By the time she’d realized that Patrick and his brother weren’t merely protecting their business but trying to silence a witness against them, it had been too late. She’d been in it up to her pretty little neck, Sean Mulroney had pointed out.
    â€œAt least I didn’t screw with people,” Josh denied.
    She shook off the melancholy hovering around her. “No, you just stole from them. Scammed them out of everything they owned. Lied, cheated, set them up and let them fall.”
    â€œI never pretended—” A tinge of crimson crept into his cheeks as he broke off. Josh Saldana feeling guilty. Who had known he was capable?
    â€œTo be someone you weren’t? To feel something you didn’t?” She snorted. “Right. You were always pretending, Josh, always saying and doing the things to get what you wanted.”
    He stared at her a long time, his mouth thinned, then shook his head. “I never took anything they couldn’t afford to lose.”
    She stood up and tossed her soup container, spoon and coffee cup into the trash. “So you were a thief and a con man, butyou had standards.” She paused for effect, then quietly added, “Your parents must be so proud.”
    It was a low blow, based on things he’d told her in confidence. She’d thought at the time that he’d told her all his secrets, except for dealing with the Feds to get himself out of trouble. She’d had to learn that one from the newspapers.
    His face paled, and the veins in his neck tightened. He stood, too, and gathered his trash, then passed close to her. After dropping it into the stainless-steel can, he turned, mere inches away. His gaze met hers—no hiding the disdain now—and his lip curled into a sneer. “Go to hell, Natalia.”
    All her life it would have been a short trip, except for those few months in Chicago with him. All her life she’d figured there must be some reason she deserved such grief. A person couldn’t be as consistently down and out as she’d been without a reason, unless it—she—was God’s idea of a joke.
    But sometimes she saw a flicker of hope—when she’d fallen in love with Josh. When she’d gained acceptance and friendship from his brother, Joe. For just an instant when she’d recognized Josh in the yard this evening. Maybe there really was such a thing as Christmas miracles.
    Go to hell, Natalia.
    But not for her.
    She took a breath, ready for more questions, to be alone again, to give up the faintest flickers of hope that her life might change. “What else do you want to know?”
    Â 
    As if she’d answered that question adequately.
    Josh stifled a snort as he stared at her. She’d aged more than the last three years could account for. Guilt, he hoped. After what she’d done, she didn’t deserve to go on with her life as if nothing had happened.
    Of course, he’d aged, too. Nothing had brought that home as clearly as his brief visit with his brother on the way to Augusta. For thirty-some years, they’d been virtually identical in looks. Now the resemblance between them was more of a family thingand less a twin thing. Instead of the seven-minute head start he had on Joe, he looked a hard seven years older.
    â€œWas anything you ever said true?” It wasn’t one of the real questions he wanted to ask. Not Why? Or Did you ever feel anything for