Covert Christmas Read Online Free Page B

me? Or How could you do it? Even Did you regret it? But it was a start.
    â€œPractically everything.” She sounded as tired as she looked, but he was way beyond feeling sympathetic.
    â€œEverything but the important stuff.”
    She raised one hand to gesture around her. “You found me. Obviously I told you something important.” A pause. “What was it?”
    He could keep the answer from her. Yeah, it was petty, but it would soothe his ego to know he had something she wanted. It was a little bit of power for him, when all the power before had been hers.
    But he was trying to change, right? Trying to become someone different. Better. Someone people weren’t trying to kill. Someone his brother and their parents might someday respect.
    â€œWhen you were a kid, your grandmother lived in Augusta. Over by the mall, a couple blocks off the Bobby Jones Expressway. You visited her in the summer. It was the only place you ever felt…”
    The memory formed in his mind, as clear as if it had just happened. She’d been naked in his bed, limp and sleepy and talking in a drowsy murmur. It was the only place she’d ever felt wanted, she’d whispered, and he—he’d hurt for her. He had wanted to hold her tighter, to promise her that he would want her forever, but before he’d said the words, she had begun to snore softly in his arms. He had lain awake that whole night, holding her, facing feelings for her that were too big, too intense, but feeling them all the same.
    If she’d remembered any part of the conversation the next day, she’d given no hint.
    Now her face was flushed. She might not remember telling him something so personal, but clearly she had an idea whatshe might have said. Stiffly she moved away and crossed her arms. “So you came to Augusta and…what?”
    â€œGot lucky.” That was what he was known for: being the luckiest son of a bitch that ever lived. “You and your grandmother walked to the mall every day to buy cinnamon rolls. Even when you were ten, she still made you hold her hand when you crossed Gordon Highway. So I’ve been hanging out.”
    And he’d gotten lucky. The bakery was only a hundred feet from the storefront where she worked wrapping Christmas gifts. Yesterday afternoon he’d spotted her, buying a cinnamon roll for lunch, and last night he’d followed her home, but he had been so pissed that he’d put off confronting her until today.
    â€œLucky,” she scoffed. “You brought Davison and Leeves to my door.”
    â€œNo way. Nobody followed me.”
    â€œSo it’s a coincidence that they showed up minutes after you?”
    â€œThe entire United States Marshals Service, along with numerous local and state authorities, are looking for me, and you think Davison and Leeves found me?” He shook his head. “I figure they already knew where you were and were just waiting for me to show up. When I did, they crawled out of the gutter.”
    â€œWhy would they think you’d show up?”
    He gave her a long, dry look. She was a beautiful woman. She’d seduced him, lied to him, set him up and almost gotten him—or, at least, his twin—killed. And he’d been stupid in love with her. Everyone had known he would go looking for her, except, apparently, her.
    Her hair gleamed in the overhead light when she shook her head, the color easy and flirty and so not her. “I would have known if someone was following me.”
    â€œYou were still working for the Mulroneys when you moved to Copper Lake, and they were watching you then. When you ran, you didn’t go far. They were probably right behind you.”
    She continued to shake her head. “I would have known.”
    Her self-confidence reminded him of himself—and, yeah, he’d been wrong a few times. He was about to point that out— Like you knew I was there waiting for you? —when the