Tag, You're It! Read Online Free Page A

so it's been sitting on the hearth for twenty-four hours, give or take."
    "Give or take?"
    She shrugged. "I figured a guy who could survive a header out of an airplane could drink day-old coffee."
    "That's not coffee," Tag said. "I'm not sure it even qualas a liquid."
    "Rocky Mountain espresso." She took the cup from him and set it down on a small table beside the bed. "No self-respecting cowboy would turn his nose up. But you're not a cowboy, are you? Or even a Westerner, for that matter."
    "You're not exactly the kind of woman I normally assowith either."
    "Why? Because I don't charge?"
    "Because you carry a gun."
    "So do you," she reminded him. "So where are you from and what do you do that you need one?"
    He huffed out a breath. "Anybody ever mention dogs and bones around you?"
    She raised her chin and looked down her nose at him, and Tag could feel his face heating. He knew that look. He hated that look. She might be broke and alone in the midof nowhere, but she'd come by way of a society drawing room. Could be Washington, DC, could be New York, but every now and then he heard a hint of broadness in her vowels, so he'd put his money on Boston.
    "You haven't answered my question," she said in a tone of voice that went with the expression on her face.
    "It's not important."
    She took her time digesting that. Her eyes were on him the whole while, and he had to battle the urge to fidget.
    "Let's start with something easy," she finally said. "Do you have a last name?"
    "Donovan."
    "Good. No hesitation, and it goes with the Irish theme. Donovan might actually be your last name. Care to tell me why you fell out of that airplane? Or did you jump?"
    "Why would I jump?"
    "Gee, I don't know, because someone was shooting at you?"
    "You've got good ears," Tag said. And a good brain, the kind that read between the lines instead of taking a story at face value.
    "Well?" she said. "Why the gun, why the plane, and why did you get tossed out?"
    "It's better for both of us if I don't answer those questions."
    "Ignorance is bliss?"
    "Something like that."
    "Funny," Alex said, "it feels a lot like I'm the only one who's ignorant and you're the only one it benefits."
    "I can't help that," Tag said. Even if he'd been a hundred percent sure she could be trusted, FBI protocol had to be followed. He was undercover; he couldn't break cover unless absolutely necessary, and he couldn't tell her the truth without breaking cover. Lying wasn't an option, either. He didn't know enough about her yet to feed her a believable story. "If I told you what was going on you wouldn't believe me anyway. All you'd have to go on is my word, and you've made it clear that's not good enough."
    She opened her mouth, then snapped it shut again, and he knew he had her.
    "If you don't mind, I'd like to get some rest." Tag let his eyes drift shut, but he could feel her watching him. Skeptically. It pissed him off. "I fell out of a plane, remember?"
    "Yeah. I was there. You dropped thirty-five feet, forty at most, into the equivalent of a twenty-inch-thick feather mattress. Not the softest landing, but you survived it. You weren't even hurt except for some bruises. If you're going to complain about something, maybe you should try crabbing about the fact that they came back and shot the place up, just in case the fall didn't kill you. Of course, you dodged that bullet, too. Literally."
    "Wait, what?" Tag reared up, fighting his way past the stab of pain in his head. "They came back?"
    "And shot at you." Alex folded one leg under her backside and sat at the foot of the bed. "You don't remember that part because you'd already fainted."
    "Passed out," he corrected her. "I'm lucky my brains aren't permanently scrambled."
    "You're lucky there was a couple of feet of snow this late in the season, although it almost got me killed. I don't think they cared if they hit me, as long as they got you."
    Tag didn't say anything, busy looking at the situation in a whole new light.