Yuletide Suspect. Lisa Phillips

FIFTEEN

       SIXTEEN

       SEVENTEEN

       EIGHTEEN

       NINETEEN

       TWENTY

       Extract

       Copyright

       ONE

      Arrest him. Or apologize.

      Liberty Westmark gripped the steering wheel, not sure which she was going to do first. If she ever got there. She peered out the windshield, where fat flakes of snow obscured both lanes of the highway beyond her high beams.

      “In six hundred yards, turn right.”

      The voice of her GPS was loud and clear, but the way was not. She’d probably wind up turning into a ditch. It would serve her right to end up the sad conclusion of an obscure news article about the snowstorm of the century. Heartwarming. She rolled her eyes and muttered, “Lone Secret Service agent who left ahead of her team gets lost and freezes to death chasing a dream.”

      She froze. A suspect.

      Not a dream.

      Where had that come from, anyway? The fact that Tate Almers had been her fiancé a year ago was absolutely not relevant anymore—unless she got the chance to apologize. Otherwise this was just work, and once she had Tate in custody she could drop him off at the nearest federal agency office and go back to her cozy DC condo and her hairless cat.

      Job done.

      It was a courtesy, nothing more. Tate might have done something bad—really bad—but the qualifier was what made her unable to believe it was actually his doing. A plane had gone down, and three people were missing—two White House staffers and a senator. The man she had known and worked with—okay, and loved—would never have done something like this. That history was why she’d convinced the director she should come here ahead of the rest of the team.

      Liberty was going to give Tate the courtesy of explaining, and then he could tell his former Secret Service team the same thing.

      The turn came up faster than she was expecting. Liberty hit the brakes and took the corner too fast. The back end of her car hit ice and fishtailed. Stupid man, living in the middle of stupid nowhere. The car kept spinning. Liberty gripped the wheel harder, like it was going to help.

      She squealed.

      When the car came to a stop, she was sideways on the single-track road.

      Liberty sighed. “No one heard that squeal.”

      She was still the fully fledged Secret Service agent her teammates respected. Just a little ice that threw her for a minute. No big deal. She was fine.

      Liberty shook off the rush of adrenaline that had set her heart racing and righted the car on the road. A single lane, probably dirt or gravel, but right now it was covered in a layer of snow and ice. Liberty drove slower than she needed to down to the house.

      It was more of a cabin, really. The roofline was lit up with Christmas lights, and she could see a Christmas tree in the front window, the only light in the house. Tears filled her eyes. It was beautiful, like a Christmas card. Tate was a no-nonsense kind of guy, and this was anything but. What on earth? Then it hit her. What if he was married now? What if he’d found someone else, and this was all for her?

      Liberty nearly turned around and left, but the Secret Service would be here soon and she wanted answers. After it was done, she’d be able to move on for good. Sure, he might be married, but actually that was better. It would help sever those few lingering ties, right?

      Liberty cracked the car door and braced against the cold as she got out, then leaned back in and grabbed her gloves. The wool wouldn’t protect her much against this temperature. Cold cut through the layers of her clothing, and the wind chafed her cheeks. Her coat covered her badge, but maybe there would be time to really talk before she told him she was here for work reasons.

      A couple of dogs barked, but not in the house. The sound came from the barn. Liberty waded through snow and banged her fist on the barn door. It swung open and two dogs raced toward her, barking louder. Liberty took a step back.

      Tate stepped out of the barn, but she couldn’t take her focus off the dogs, even as she backed up more across the stretch of snow over the driveway between the barn and the house. They barked and circled her, their attention imposing enough that Liberty didn’t move.

      “Good boys. Sit.”

      Both dogs sat, one on either side of her. Liberty wanted to slump onto the packed down snow between them. The sound of Tate’s voice cut through her and left a ragged wound in its wake. She glanced up, and her eyes locked with his. It was too dark to get a good look, but in the glow of the Christmas lights the line of his jaw was set. He wasn’t happy.

      One of the dogs broke his sit and barked.

      Tate’s eyes widened, fixed on some point beyond her, away from the house. “What...” He lunged and grabbed her arm, dragged her the ten feet or so back toward the barn and yelled, “Bubblegum!”

      A gunshot went off. Liberty ducked, having no idea where the shot had come from. She skidded on the barn floor, reached the end of Tate’s grasp and snapped back toward him. She grimaced. Tate didn’t let go. Outside the dogs barked, and someone yelled.

      “Intruder,” he said. “I thought it was you who set off the alarm, but there was a man out there with a gun.” A gunshot went off outside. “Do you have your weapon?”

      Liberty pulled her gun from the holster at her back, under her jacket. He grabbed it from her. “Hey—”

      Tate stepped outside and shut the door behind him.

      The dogs continued to bark. Outside, Tate yelled, “Hey!”

      A gunshot followed.

      Liberty pulled the backup weapon from her ankle holster and moved to the door. She was the Secret Service agent. Sure, Tate had been one, too, over a year ago. But he’d quit, and Liberty didn’t have time to think through all of that—or the fact that it was basically her fault.

      Liberty wanted to pray, but that part of her life was long gone, just like her love life. Neither had ever done her any favors or bettered her in any way. She’d given up on God and romance both in the last eighteen months. This was one last favor to Tate, and then she was done. Liberty was going to live her life her way, on her terms.

      The door swung open before she reached it. Tate strode to her, and the dogs raced in around him. Liberty shook her head. “What on earth was that? And why did you shut me in here?”

      “Man outside,” he said, without handing her weapon back to her. “An intruder, which I already mentioned.” He didn’t look happy. “He ran off. The dogs did their job.”

      As though they knew he’d complimented them, the two dogs returned to his side and sat to be petted. One was a German shepherd, lean enough that Liberty wanted to feed the animal treats. The other was a stocky Airedale who came to her next. She didn’t pet him.

      Tate raised his eyebrow. “You still have that ugly cat?”

      She