The Christmas Clue

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Oh, God. More heart-pounding adrenaline. But Cass stayed focused on her own task. There was no movement in the back of the woods. No sounds, other than those that should be there. So all she could do was wait and pray that Matt was as good a shot as she thought he was.

It didn’t take long, mere minutes, for the winter to stake claim to her body. She was bone cold, and her butt had likely frozen. Oh, and her teeth were chattering. Audibly chattering. Cass clamped her teeth over her bottom lip and hoped it would help.

Matt fired yet another round and then almost calmly readjusted his arm. “The guy behind the tree is injured. I shot him in the right hand, so he probably won’t be shooting at us anymore.”

He’d said that so calmly that it took a moment to sink in. Cass hated that she felt nothing but elation over the injury of another human being. But it seemed appropriate, considering this man, this stranger, had been willing to kill them.

“What about the one on the roof?” she asked.

“Still there.”

Wonderful. They couldn’t get him, but he could certainly do some damage to Matt and her.

There was a cracking noise. A sound that caused both Matt and her to scurry to re-aim. But Cass saw no gunman. Instead, a dead tree limb swooped to the ground.

Matt immediately went back to his original position so he could keep an eye on the roof. “We need to get to that clearing just to your right.”

She glanced in that direction, and it was obvious that Matt and she did not share the same definition of a clearing. At best, it was a path. A narrow one. To make matters worse, there weren’t nearly enough trees or underbrush, and it’d be easier for the roof shooter to see them and gun them down.

“Why do we need to be there?” she asked.

“I have a truck parked at the end of the clearing.”

Cass glanced in that direction. “How far can the roof guy shoot?”

“Five hundred meters, give or take a meter or two.”

“My butt and brain are too frozen to do the math. How far do we have to make it down that so-called clearing before we’re safe?”

“About halfway.”

This time Cass attempted the math, and she figured that was at least thirty running steps. In other words, it was way too far. “And how many bullets can he fire in thirty seconds?” she asked.

He gave her a flat look. “You don’t want to know.”

Cass groaned softly. “We can’t just lie out here. We’ll freeze to death. So, what do we do?”

“The clearing,” Matt repeated. “First, though, scoop up those dead leaves and twigs around your feet and toss them on top of the makeshift bunker.”

It seemed a strange request, but since there was nothing nonstrange about any of this, Cass did as he asked.

Immediately, bullets came hailing down on them.

“Keep moving those leaves,” Matt instructed. He returned fire with one hand and did some leaf arranging of his own.

While keeping a grip on her gun and watching their backs, Cass hurried, scooping and tossing, until she’d gathered up everything that was gatherable.

“Now, put your coat up there,” Matt added.

Heck, she didn’t question that, either, even though once Cass had stripped off the jacket, she went from teeth-chattering to downright freezing. But she didn’t forget to remove the picture of Matt’s baby. She shoved that into her jeans.

“Take the small black case from my pocket,” he continued. “And then help me out of this jacket so you can add it to the leaves.”

Cass did that, too, and it required a lot more body touching than she’d anticipated. Specially, touching Matt’s chest, abs and arms. It wasn’t easy to get a man his size out of a jacket without her practically crawling all over him.

When she’d finished removing his jacket, Cass opened the wallet-size case and found some small tools, cash and a book of matches. “I’m going to set fire to the leaves and coats?” she asked, not believing that was a good idea.

He nodded, then shot at the guy on the roof, ejected the empty magazine and reloaded. “Literally a smoke screen.”

Oh. It might work.

But since Cass couldn’t come up with anything better, and since the guy was still shooting at them, she used one of the tiny tools to rip off the bottom of her cable-knit sweater to use as kindling. It wasn’t easy because of her shaky hands, but she struck the match, and she sheltered the tiny flame until she managed to get the wool-blend fibers to light. She tossed the lit hunk onto the leaves, twigs and coats.

The cold wind actually helped. It fueled her scrawny fire and quickly whipped it into a pile of gray billowing and suffocating smoke.

Cass coughed and turned her face from the fire.

Matt didn’t turn his face, and he began to peel off his shirt. “There’s not enough smoke.”

She disagreed but then realized the guy on the roof wouldn’t have much trouble seeing down past the smoke and flames. Matt was right. They needed more.

Cass yanked off her sweater and immediately felt the harder sting of the cold. Her white silk camisole wasn’t much protection, and it wasn’t the best of days to be braless.

Matt tossed his shirt onto one end of the fire; Cass added her sweater to the other end. Both garments caught fire, and both produced a slightly different-colored smoke. It was enough to create a six-foot-high wall that would hopefully conceal them if Matt didn’t stand up too straight.

“Let’s go,” Matt said, and he pulled her to her feet.

Cass didn’t even have time to catch her breath before they started running.

Chapter Five

Matt considered every step to be a victory. But of course the only victory that counted was for them to make it through the clearing without getting shot.

He pushed Cass ahead of him so he could shield her as best he could and catch her if she fell. Yet despite the thorny underbrush and the limb-riddled ground, she not only stayed on her feet, she ran even faster than Matt imagined she could. But then, she had a huge motivation to run.

A spray of bullets tore into the ground. They were close, but not close enough. Which told Matt one important thing—the smoke screen had worked. Because if it hadn’t, Cass and he would have been dead.

With bullets zinging around them, Matt spotted the crest just ahead. “Hit the ground,” Matt ordered. “Slide down.”

Cass did. Just as the bullets stopped. She dropped onto her butt and began the descent down the remains of the banks of a ravine. The dark-green rust-eaten truck was there, waiting for them. It didn’t look like much, but Matt knew that it worked, and it was their ticket to safety. It was literally his backup, a vehicle he’d placed in the woods in case the worst happened.

“Don’t slow down,” Matt warned her when they reached the bottom. By now the gunman was probably off the roof so he could come after them.

Cass raced toward the truck, jerked open the passenger-side door and jumped onto the seat. Matt got behind the wheel and used the key that was duct-taped beneath the seat to start the engine. He slammed his foot on the accelerator and got them out of there.

“Stay down,” Matt insisted.

She did, sort of. Cass slid lower into the seat, but she kept her attention focused on the side mirror. She also kept a solid grip on her gun. Matt kept watch, as well, and then he got them the hell out of there.

Kicking up ice and dirt, he plowed through the ravine and exited onto a path that would eventually take them to a back road and then the highway.

Matt dodged some scrub oaks, barely scraping past them, and he checked the rearview mirror. No gunman in sight. That didn’t mean there soon wouldn’t be. He had to make it past the next rise and dry creek bed before he could even start to level his breathing.

Next to him, Cass was doing her own share of heavy breathing. He could see every muscle in her body knotted, the pulse on her neck pounding. The adrenaline was no doubt still pumping through her. It wouldn’t last long, and she’d soon have to deal with the inevitable crash.

“I don’t see him,” Cass announced. “Do you think he’ll come after us?”

“Not easily he won’t. By now he’s probably rushing back to his vehicle. Maybe calling for reinforcements. If we’re lucky, he might be making arrangements to get his comrade to the hospital.”

Matt knew he should call headquarters. He should report this, especially since he’d discharged his weapon and injured a man. But what if Cass was right? What if there was a breach in security? If so, his personal cell phone would be easy to track.

She checked the mirror again. Then she leaned forward and tried to turn on the heater.

“It doesn’t work,” he explained, turning off the cold blast of air from the fan. “There’s a blanket behind the seat.”

While still staying low, she draped her arm over the back of the seat and fished it out. “There’s only one blanket?”

He nodded. “Use it. Your lips are turning blue.”

Matt wasn’t sure she was going to follow his advice, but then she glanced down at the front of her camisole, noticing her very erect nipples. And that wasn’t the only thing. The camisole was short, and the shortness revealed several inches of her bare stomach.

He felt that slam of lust shoot through his body, and he silently cursed his brainless reaction.

“Cover up,” he snarled.

She did, finally, but she kept her shooting arm free by draping the fake Navajo-design blanket over only half her body. For some stupid reason, she seemed even hotter and more provocative than she did without the blanket.

“All right. I’m covered. Satisfied?” she asked.

Noteven close.

Cass glanced at him, sat up in the seat, did a full 360-degree check of their surroundings and, apparently content that they were safe, she opened the glove compartment. “You have a first-aid kit?”

Alarmed, he looked at her. “Are you hurt?”

“No. But you are.” She pointed to the jagged slice across his left bicep. He hadn’t even been aware of the injury, but it looked to be from a bullet.

She extracted the small travel-size kit and scooted across the seat toward him. Very close to him. She brought with her the scent of the woods. The fragrant cedars. The leaves. The winter soil. The smoke. But she also brought the smell of flowers. Her shampoo, he discovered, when she leaned across him and her hair went right in his face. It was distracting. But not nearly as distracting as having her firm, small breasts pressed against his right arm.

“You saved my life back there,” she said, working quickly to clean the wound. “So, while I’m not thrilled about what just happened, I have faith in you.”

Matt winced, both at her comment and the poking around she was doing to his injury. “Faith?”

Cass’s gaze met his. So did her breath. “Yes. You know, as in confidence in your ability to keep us alive and get into Dominic’s estate.”

Matt leaned back to put some distance between them, and he took the ramp that led to Highway 281, which would take them directly into San Antonio. “Don’t have that kind of faith in me.”

She shrugged and kept working on the bandage. “Too late.”

“It’s never too late. Let me tell you something about me. I don’t play well with others. I do mainly solo assignments because that’s the way I like it.”

“Keep talking,” she insisted. “Because this is going to hurt, and I’d rather you have your mind on something else when I do this—”

Without further warning, she doused his wound with antiseptic. And she was right.

It. Frickin’. Hurt.

Matt barely muffled a groan.

“Besides, faith is sort of a moot point,” she continued. “I have to trust you.”

Hell. Now they were onto trust. What next? Fuzzy teddy bears and air kisses?