Deadly Christmas Secrets. Shirlee McCoy

and he’d be within reach. Another few feet. The guy moved past the tree where Logan was hiding, completely oblivious to the danger he was in. Not a professional hired gun, that was for sure. Logan had run into his fair share of those during the years he’d been working for HEART. They weren’t this careless, and they were never easy to take down.

      He waited another heartbeat.

      That was all it took. Just that second of waiting, and calm became chaos. The bushes beside the guy moved and Harper’s dog burst out, snarling and barking as he tried to bite the bald guy.

      The man cursed, raising his weapon, aiming at the dog’s head, and then Harper was there, a shovel in hand. She swung hard, the metal end of the tool smacking into the guy’s wrist as Logan pulled his weapon and fired.

       TWO

      The bald guy looked dead. His eyes were closed and blood was seeping from a wound in his shoulder. He was breathing, though, his barrel chest rising and falling.

      Harper dropped the shovel and leaned over him. She would have touched the pulse point in his neck, but Logan edged in beside her and nudged her away.

      He lifted the man’s gun from the ground, unloaded it, then shoved the cartridge in his pocket.

      “He needs first aid,” she murmured, trying to move closer again.

      He blocked her way, frisking the guy, pulling a knife from the sheath strapped to his calf.

      “First things first, Harper,” Logan muttered. “We secure the weapons. Then we provide first aid. It’s in the rule book.”

      “What rule book is that?” she asked, shrugging out of her jacket and using it to staunch the blood flowing from the bald guy’s shoulder.

      He moaned. Not dead after all.

      “The one called How to Keep Alive in Dangerous Situations,” Logan responded drily. “Did you call the police?”

      “Yes.” As soon as she’d cleared the tree line, she’d called 911. The dispatcher had assured her help was on the way.

      Good thing she hadn’t had to depend on that.

      She’d be dead now.

      She pressed harder on the bleeding wound. The guy had been shooting at her, but that didn’t mean she wanted him dead.

      “Get off me!” he growled, rolling onto his side and struggling to his feet. His wrist was broken from the force of her blow, his face ashen, but he looked more angry than anything.

      “How about you mind your manners, buddy?” Logan said calmly, holstering his weapon.

      “How about you shut up?” the guy spit out, his voice a little slurred, his gaze darting back the way they’d come. No one was there, but Harper thought he must be hoping for help.

      “Fine by me.” Logan pulled a cell phone from his pocket, typed something into it and snapped a picture of the man.

      “Hey! What’s that about?” the guy snarled.

      “Just sending your mug shot to a friend who can find out who you are and whether or not you have any warrants out for your arrest.”

      “You got nothing on me.”

      “You tried to shoot us,” Harper responded, and the guy grinned.

      “Thought you were deer. Hard to see people out in woods like this.”

      “No one is going to believe that,” she said, and Logan touched her shoulder, his fingers warm through her T-shirt.

      “Don’t engage him, Harper. He’s got his story. It’s what he’ll tell the police. He’ll still end up in jail.”

      “Not if I have anything to do with it,” the guy responded, his gaze darting toward the creek.

      “You think your friend is coming for you?” Logan asked, brushing dirt from his jeans, his expression unreadable. He had dark eyes. Not brown. Not black. Midnight blue. They remained fixed on the gunman, no hint of emotion in them. “Because he’s not.”

      “We’re a team—”

      “A team that kills for money?” Logan smiled, a hard, predatory curve of the lips that would have made Harper’s blood run cold if she’d been on the receiving end of it. “That’s the kind of team that lasts until one guy gets caught. Then it’s not a team. It’s just that one guy alone, wishing he’d picked some other way to make money.”

      “You don’t know—”

      An engine roared to life and tires thumped on gravel. First slowly, then more quickly.

      The man’s accomplice escaping while he had the chance? Probably, and the man seemed to know it. He pivoted and tried to run into the trees.

      Logan moved so quickly, Harper barely had time to realize what he was doing. One minute he was beside her. The next he and the bald guy were on the ground, Logan’s knee pressed into the other man’s back.

      “Not smart, buddy,” Logan said quietly. “Stuff like that could get a man killed.”

      “I’m not your buddy, and I’m not the one who’s going to die.” The guy bucked, trying to dislodge Logan. He didn’t have a chance. Even if he hadn’t been weak from blood loss, Harper didn’t think he could have moved Logan. Muscles and training definitely trumped anger.

      “I guess that depends on whether or not you try to run when the cops get here.”

      “When the cops get here—”

      “Tell you what,” Logan interrupted. “How about we skip the discussion and get to the point. Who hired you to follow me out here?”

      The guy went silent, his face blazing with anger.

      “Right. So someone did hire you.”

      “I didn’t say that!” the man snarled.

      “Which answers another question. You’re afraid of whoever hired you, and that’s why you’re denying it.”

      “I’m not—”

      Sirens cut off the words, the screaming sound of them filling the woods. Picasso barked frantically, excited and alarmed by the chaos.

      Harper just wanted it to be over.

      She wanted the police to take the gunman away. She wanted Logan to leave. She wanted to go back to the life she’d made for herself. Quiet. Simple. Free of disappointments and heartaches and sorrows.

      She supposed that made her a coward.

      She wasn’t really.

      She’d loved the life she’d once had—the hectic, high-stress graphic design job, the sweet brownstone she’d bought for a steal and remodeled. She’d loved her sister, her niece. She’d even fallen in love. Once upon a time. When she’d still been in college and not nearly as convinced that Shelby women always chose men who were going to hurt them.

      Daniel had taught her a valuable lesson about that.

      If she hadn’t learned it from her college sweetheart, she might have learned it from watching Lydia. Gabe hadn’t been the kind of husband any woman deserved. He’d cheated. More than once, and he hadn’t been apologetic about it.

      And then Lydia and Amelia had died, murdered by a homeless man who’d stolen Lydia’s purse. That was the story the prosecuting attorney told. He’d built a tight case and presented it to a jury, convincing them that Norman Meyers had killed Lydia and Amelia and tossed their bodies into the Patuxent River. Norman was a known meth addict who’d committed enough petty crimes to be a frequent flyer with the police. He’d been married twice, and both his wives had restraining orders against him. Violent was a word