Loaded. Joanna Wayne

I heard. That doesn’t mean he couldn’t have ordered a hit. With his money, hired guns are easy to come by.”

      “But we have no evidence that any of the Collingsworths have ever used a paid assassin,” Shelly countered. “And Lenora Collingsworth visited me at the hospital. She seemed extremely apologetic about the shooting incident and has asked me to move to the ranch tomorrow. That would be the last thing she’d do if she knew I was with the CIA.”

      “It would seem that way, unless you’re walking into a trap.”

      “They’re not going to shoot me in cold blood,” Shelly said. “They use money and influence—not guns—to get what they want.” Shelly knew that Brady would have a difficult time denying that.

      Besides, she was his best chance—maybe his only chance—to get an agent inside the family circle, and they needed that edge to push things off dead center.

      They’d had a mole inside Collingsworth Oil for months. Ben Hartmann was an experienced agent and talented computer hacker, but as yet he hadn’t acquired the proof to seal the case. No proof that the Collingsworths were GAS, Ben’s term for suspects once they had indisputable evidence that they were guilty as sin.

      “We’ve spent weeks setting this up,” she argued. “Unless there’s a serious leak in our department, no one could possibly have found out why I’m really here. It would be a major setback if we called this off just because some two-bit hood with a point to prove to his fellow gang members shot up my car.”

      “The random violence angle is a huge assumption, Shelly. You know what I think about assumptions.”

      “Yes, sir.” But he also knew there was always a gamble in this type of operation.

      “I’d like to hear your firsthand, no-spin account of today’s shooting incident.”

      She filled him in on the details, leaving nothing out—except for her ridiculous and very momentary attraction to Matt Collingsworth. He listened without questions until she’d finished.

      Then the silence on the line seemed thick with apprehension. She knew he was rethinking everything, especially her inexperience. She didn’t breathe easy until she heard the muffled clicking of his tongue against the roof of his mouth, a clear signal that he was giving in. All the agents recognized the telltale habit.

      “Proceed as planned, while I have this checked into, Shelly. But watch your back and stay on high alert. Never underestimate a Collingsworth.”

      “That’s a given.”

      Once the connection was broken, she stepped outside the car and looked around. It was almost completely dark now and a sliver of moon hung just over the top of a cluster of sweet gum trees on the opposite side of the street.

      There were a couple of other businesses on the block—a machine shop and a tree-trimming business. Both were closed with no sign of life around the buildings, except a black cat, crouched near a trash bin, cautiously watching Shelly.

      A welcome gust of wind caught an empty bag and blew it across the parking lot depositing it under Shelly’s banged-up vehicle. Thankfully it was not actually her car, but one the agency had purchased specifically for this assignment.

      A pickup truck turned the corner onto Birch, the beam from its headlights fanning her for an instant before returning to the street. The driver slowed, and in spite of her mental reassurances of safety, her nerves skittered nervously.

      It’s a small town, she told herself as the driver pulled into the parking lot a few feet away. He was probably just curious why a woman would be out here all alone. Still, she’d feel a lot safer with her weapon in hand. Today’s close call had been an excellent reminder that she wasn’t invincible.

      The car stopped, and she got her first good luck at the driver. Her muscles clenched. This wasn’t a curious passerby.

      He was here to find her.

      Chapter Four

      Matt slid from behind the wheel and stood by the side of his truck, his gaze fixed on Shelly. Her face and eyes were shadowed, her features blurred in the early-evening darkness. She looked pale, but her shoulders were squared and her mouth was set in hard lines as if she was determined not to let the situation get the better of her.

      An unexpected protective urge surged inside him as his focus moved to her bandaged arm and then to the bullet-battered car.

      “We’ve got to stop meeting like this,” she quipped, but her attempt at humor lost its effect to the eerie screech of an owl hidden in the branches of a nearby tree.

      Matt looked around, expecting to see Hank standing nearby. He didn’t. The place was completely deserted except for Shelly.

      “What are you doing here after hours?” he asked.

      Shelly brushed her bangs to one side and propped her right hand on her hip almost defiantly. “I could ask you the same thing.”

      “I was looking for you,” he admitted. “I tried your motel. When you weren’t there, I drove here to see if Hank had heard from you.”

      “How did you know I’d left the hospital?”

      “The sheriff called me. Apparently you told the nursing staff you were going to Jack’s Bluff tonight.”

      She shrugged and looked backed to the car as he stepped closer. “I didn’t exactly tell them that. They just surmised it and I didn’t set them straight. It seemed the easiest way to walk out of the hospital without causing a major ruckus.”

      “Why not just wait until the doctor released you?”

      “I hate hospitals and I didn’t see any point in running up a big hospital bill when I didn’t need to be there in the first place.”

      Matt scanned the quiet parking lot. “How did you get here?”

      “I walked. It’s not that far.” She slapped at a mosquito that was buzzing around her ear. “I’m fine, Matt. And I don’t hold your family responsible for any of this, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

      “I’m not worried at all.” Unfortunately, that wasn’t exactly true. Pretty much everything about Shelly Lane worried him—and puzzled him—especially the fact that she was standing on a deserted street alone at night after being shot at just hours ago.

      He didn’t trust this whole situation, wasn’t at all convinced that Shelly didn’t know who’d tried to kill her. Yet if she did, that would give her all the more reason not to put herself at risk like this.

      He stepped between her and the car. “Are you in some kind of trouble, Shelly?”

      “No. Why would you ask that? You were there when some crackpot roared in from nowhere and used my car for target practice.”

      “The other possibility is that he’d come to town looking for you.”

      “Don’t be ridiculous. I don’t even know anyone around this part of the country.”

      “Maybe someone followed you from Atlanta. Maybe a jealous boyfriend? A jilted lover?”

      “The last boyfriend is engaged to be married to a fashion model. He forgot me at the first sight of my replacement—who I introduced him to, no less.”

      Matt doubted that any man had found Shelly that easy to forget, but he wasn’t going there now. He pressed a hand on the top of the car and leaned into it. “Do you always carry a loaded gun in your glove compartment?”

      She turned to look at his truck and the shotgun riding the rack behind his seat. “Obviously there’s no local law against carrying weapons in a vehicle.”

      “Touché.”

      “Actually, one of my friends insisted I buy it before leaving Atlanta. She kept stressing how it wasn’t safe for a woman to drive so far by herself,