Perilous Christmas Reunion

by Laurie Alice Eakes

  “I’m sorry.” Chris slung an arm over her shoulders more as an apology than because he needed her physical support.

  She said nothing. Head bowed, she trekked through the snow more slowly than he liked with at least one gunman possibly still lurking in the trees biding his time for—what? A better shot at the deputy marshal, if it was Ryan who had done the firing? For Ryan to reappear, if this was a separate gunman? Chris hadn’t seen Ryan, or anyone other than Lauren. He had seen only the muzzle flashes, heard the shots echoing from the trees and across the frozen lake.

  Chris fought the urge to run. He wasn’t sure he could, and Lauren wore ridiculous slipper things on her feet that would probably make her fall at a faster gait. They didn’t have far to go along the length of the deck. Their footfalls made nearly no sound in the powdered snow blown across the boards. In contrast, the wind through the bare tree branches sounded like torrential rain. Ice along the shoreline cracked with the onslaught of rising waves. Although the first flakes of snow heralded the coming storm, Lauren no longer shivered. Chris understood why—maybe. Lauren’s nearness warmed him, and she might feel the same, despite the coldness that had frozen communication between them when he’d changed career paths.

  The fifteen feet to the door felt like fifteen miles. So close to Lauren, Chris caught her scent, sweet and delicate like orange blossoms. He tried not to breathe. He tried not to remember how being near her had once made him feel.

  They reached the house. Through the open door, heat from the wood-burning stove poured over them like hot syrup, along with the fragrance of bacon and fresh bread and sugar cookies.

  “I’ll just grab my first-aid kit.” She called out her intent without looking back, then raced for the bathroom.

  Chris closed and bolted the door, then headed for the stove with its radiating heat. It needed another log to really be effective. With a gunman probably still outside somewhere, he should close her shutters and—

  He clapped his hand to his side. His gun. It wasn’t in its holster. He had removed it to fire back at the rifleman in the trees long enough for Lauren to get to safety. Riflemen in the trees. More than one shooter. He had made the rookie mistake of thinking all he heard behind him were echoes. Apparently another man had been behind him, shooting him in the back, and he had fallen, logs burying him and crashing into his head so hard he feared he lost consciousness for a minute or two. He must have dropped the gun when he fell.

  Cautious, all too aware the fugitive was likely still armed from his daring escape from the courtroom that morning, Chris opened the door. Wind threatened to snatch it from his hand. He muscled the door shut behind him and paused to listen.

  If anyone still lurked in the trees, the wind masked any sound they made. Scudding clouds and waving branches disguised anything else moving in the shadows. But he dared not leave his weapon in the snow. He might want it. Judging from how the night was going, he would need it.

  Still dizzy from the blow to his head, his upper back throbbing with every breath, Chris braced one hand against the side of the house to traverse the fifteen feet to the woodpile at the end of the deck. He was partially sheltered there by the house and the stacked cordwood. No one raced along the lakeshore or across the frozen water. But those trees could hold any kind of menace.

  He dropped to a crouch and began to hunt for his weapon amid the disordered logs. Nothing. No glint of waning moonlight on steel. No unmistakable dark shape against the snow. The place where he had fallen was clear of wood. Blood from his head wound was a dark stain against the white. Yet no gun lay amid the wreckage.

  He guessed what had happened to it. Lauren had stopped while investigating his injuries and accused him of shooting her brother, most likely because she had found his weapon.

  “Chris?” Lauren called from the doorway.

  “Stop.” He turned and held up his hand, palm toward her.

  She stopped on the threshold. “Do you need my help?”

  “I need your help all right.” His insides as cold as the lake, Chris stalked toward the door. “You can help by telling me what you did with my gun.”

  Lauren stared at him. “What are you talking about?”

  “My gun.” He gestured toward the ground where he’d been lying. “My weapon. It isn’t here.”

  TWO

  Lauren crossed her arms over her chest and grasped her elbows to stop herself from shaking—from cold or in response to the fury on Chris’s face, she wasn’t quite sure. “I know your gun was there. I felt it when I was helping you get up, but I didn’t take it.”

  Chris pressed one hand to his head, where blood still trickled along his hairline, then bent to roll aside a log at the same moment a crack of gunfire reverberated from the trees.

  “Get inside,” Chris shouted.

  Lauren was already running for the open door. Chris caught up and grabbed her hand. Her moccasins slipped on the doorsill, and she landed on her knees. Chris edged past her, then bent to catch hold of her arms and haul her to her feet. A sharp hiss of breath through his teeth reminded Lauren he was injured, and she freed herself from his grip so she could slip her arm around his waist and propel him through the door.

  It was two-inch-thick, oak with a steel core, meant to withstand a Michigan winter or the worst summer storm. Lauren slammed it and threw the two dead bolts into place. The storm shutters were already closed, save for the one over the front window. Chris lunged for that one and banged it shut. A moment later, another shot cracked, muffled by the cabin’s thick walls, but the walls weren’t so thick Lauren missed the thud of a bullet striking the window frame.

  “What are they doing?” She flung herself to the floor below the level of the window. “Who is shooting at us?”

  “Maybe you can tell me.” Pallor emphasizing the deep blue of his eyes, Chris sank onto the edge of the leather sofa. “Your brother?”

  “But—” Lauren stood and leaned against the wall, her heart racing as though she had just finished swimming across the lake “—that wasn’t you shooting at Ryan?”

  “I never saw Ryan. Where did he go?”

  “He took off when the shooting started.”

  Chris gazed at her with narrowed eyes, then glanced toward the steps to the bedrooms above and back to her. “You know, if you harbor a fugitive, you’re an accessory—”

  “He isn’t here.” Lauren flung her arms wide, nearly knocking a poinsettia off a low table. “Go look for yourself, if you don’t believe me. I know that’s why you’re here. I should have known you’d come here first.”

  “I was on my way to see my family when the news hit.”

  “And your first thought was that Lauren would protect her brother.” She blinked hard against hot moisture in her eyes.

  “You’ve always put your brother first.”

  She spun on her heel, numb with cold from her wet moccasins, and stalked into the kitchen. “I never put Ryan first, but you will never understand that I can’t stop loving him just because he might associate with criminals.”

  “‘Might associate with’?” Chris’s voice was far too quiet.

  Lauren understood what that meant. He grew quiet when he was angry. She supposed she couldn’t blame him. Her family had come between Chris and her having a happy future together. Now Ryan was interfering with Chris’s Christmas with his mother and sister.

  And she had just said that Ryan might associate with criminals, as though he wasn’t one himself. She never could accept that her big brother was something other than the kind and loving young man who had built her a tree house and cleaned her bloody hands and knees when she was learning to ride a bike.

  “Ryan ran into the woods when the shooting started.” As an olive branch, her information was poor, but it was all she had to offer.

  “Do you have any form of communication here?” Chris’s question was his only response. “I
get no signal on my mobile.”

  Despite the heavy storm shutters, she was all too aware of a gunman likely lurking outside the house. Without a word, she fetched the satellite phone and handed it to Chris, then she located the first-aid kit she had dropped on the faded Oriental rug in the center of the living room. She could doctor Chris’s head wound until he got assistance from EMTs. Needing warm water to cleanse the wound, she returned to the kitchen. With the open floor plan, she wouldn’t be able to avoid hearing Chris’s call, but if he wanted privacy, he could go into the bathroom, one of the bedrooms or even retreat upstairs.

  Yet he made no phone calls. One hand holding a square of clean linen cloth beneath the kitchen tap, Lauren glanced over her shoulder. Chris perched on the edge of the sofa with the phone in his hand, his mouth set in a grim line.

  “What’s wrong?” She flicked off the water.

  “No signal. I guess I have to risk going outside.”

  “You shouldn’t have to. I have an antenna.” Their eyes met across the breakfast bar, and she corrected herself. “I had an antenna.”

  “Cloud interference?”

  “The weather isn’t bad enough for that yet.” Despite the heat of the woodstove, a chill raced down Lauren’s arms. When she read the accusation in Chris’s gaze, steady upon her face, the shivers penetrated through her body to her core. She would rather face an arctic storm outside than remain beneath the scrutiny of those beautiful blue eyes. Yet she could not look away or he would think she was trying to hide something.

  “Did you disable the antenna because you were expecting your brother?” He asked the question she had anticipated.

  She flattened the palms of her hands on the white quartz countertop so they wouldn’t shake. “Do you really think I climbed on the roof to disable the antenna?”

  “I think you didn’t answer my question.” His tone was as cold as Lauren felt—a rival to the oncoming storm—cold enough to make something inside her snap.

  “I did not disable the antenna.” She threw the cloth she’d been wetting into the sink. “I did not plan to give my brother shelter.” She grabbed the frying pan with her ruined dinner congealing inside and threw that into the sink with a satisfying clatter of cast iron on stainless steel. “I did not shoot at you, steal your gun or make the woodpile collapse on top of you. I arrived here two hours ago to avoid the press that seems to be forgetting it is nearly Christmas and some of us would like a peaceful time to remember the season and the birth of Jesus in peace. I came here to avoid the press so I didn’t forget about goodwill toward men.” She rounded the breakfast bar and yanked open the door to the stove to add more wood. “I was not in Chicago for my brother’s trial, so I did not aid and abet his escape.” A log slipped from her hands and hit the floor a hairbreadth from her toes. “I cannot prove the negative, so you will simply have to believe me or not. Frankly, at this moment, goodwill toward men does not include you, as far as I’m concerned.” She wrestled the log into the stove and latched the door before she dared face a too-silent and, she presumed, outraged deputy US marshal.

  She faced a man with one arm clamped to his side and his other hand flattened to the wound on his head, as he rocked with silent laughter.

  “I’m glad I amuse you.” Burdened with the knowledge she had just made a fool of herself, she trudged back to the kitchen and found another clean cloth. “Your head is bleeding again. Let me clean it up and get a bandage on it.” The running water masked anything he might have said. By the time the cloth was wet and she returned to the living room, Chris had stopped laughing. The light had left his eyes, and his jaw, solid and square, was set in renewed anger, or maybe just pain—set enough so he didn’t seem inclined to speak.

  Lauren took a deep breath. “I apologize for losing my temper. I simply—” She broke off, not willing to diminish the apology with excuses about how much she hated false accusations. “Please forgive me. My temper is my thorn in my flesh.”

  “I know.” Their eyes met again. From only two feet away, the impact struck Lauren like a physical blow to her chest, to her heart.

  He had always laughed at her temper, those infrequent outbursts after she was pushed too far. At least he had laughed until the last time when she had sent him away in a flood of outrage, a spate of words designed to drown any affection he felt for her.

  She held up the wet cloth like a shield. “Let me cleanse that wound for you. Do you think it was from a bullet too?”

  “A log struck me. I doubt I’d be awake if it had been a gunshot wound.”

  “I suppose not.” She brushed aside his hair, cut short no doubt for his job, but so thick it tended to wave anyway, so dark a brown it was nearly black, far darker than her own burnished chestnut. “It’s not deep. I don’t think you’ll need stitches.”

  “That’s fortunate, since we can’t seem to get an ambulance or sheriff here.” He held up the useless sat phone.

  “I could have stitched it.”

  “Without anesthesia? No thanks.” He shuddered.

  “You mean the big bad deputy marshal can’t take a little pain?” She meant the words to be teasing; they sounded snarky.

  In truth, they were mean. He must be in serious pain from the blow to his back, vest or not, but hadn’t complained about it. His head must hurt, as well. Again, he hadn’t complained.

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “No need to apologize for that.”

  “Which means I need to apologize for something else.” She affixed a couple of butterfly bandages to the wound, covered them with a larger adhesive-edged pad and stepped back to inspect her work. “It’ll do.”

  “Thank you.” He gave her a half smile. “Now that I’m patched up, let’s go back to talking about your brother.”

  She stiffened. “I do not need to apologize for helping my brother. I did nothing but go to him when he fell at the bottom of the steps, to offer him aid if he was seriously injured. He wasn’t hurt that badly, apparently.”

  “That’s all?” Chris’s gaze burned into hers.

  “Yes, that’s—” Her hand dropped to the pocket of her jeans.

  In all the terror of being shot at, not to mention the shock of seeing Chris after five years, she had forgotten about the flash drive Ryan had pressed into her hand.

  * * *

  Lauren paled, emphasizing the depths of her wide, dark eyes. Chris regretted his harshness, yet she needed to see the consequences of helping her brother evade the law. He might not be able to love a woman who could not support his chosen profession, but he remembered enough of his former affection for her to want to keep her free to live her life as she wished to.

  “What is it?” Chris demanded.

  “I...don’t know. Maybe nothing.” She pulled something from her pocket and held it out to him.

  The dull black plastic of a flash drive lay stark against her pale skin.

  “What is it?” Chris repeated.

  “Ryan gave it to me before he got up and started running again, right before the shooting.”

  “And when were you going to tell me?”

  “As soon as I remembered it.”

  Chris arched one brow in skeptical inquiry.

  “I was a little distracted over being shot at.” She spoke through gritted teeth. “I have no idea what’s on it. I have no idea why he gave it to me, but you probably have more use for it than I do.”

  “I probably do.” Chris started to reach for it, thought of fingerprints and snatched a piece of gauze from the first-aid kit.

  “It already has my fingerprints on it, and Ryan was wearing gloves,” Lauren pointed out.

  “I don’t need to add my fingerprints to what might be there.” Chris wrapped the flash drive in gauze and slipped it into his pocket.

  “Should I get my computer so you can see what’s on it?” Lauren asked.

&n
bsp; Chris studied her face for a moment, trying to look beyond the distraction of her beauty to discover if she was being sincerely cooperative or playing some kind of game. He couldn’t forget his missing service weapon, nor the fact that Ryan had come straight to her, as Chris had suspected he would. He couldn’t forget that Lauren had put her criminal family before him five years earlier.

  With her final words—I love you too much to let my family drag down your new career, but I can’t give up the only family I have—ringing in his ears, Chris made a decision.

  “I’d rather give it to the nearest US marshal’s office to look at.”

  “Even if it holds a key to where Ryan has gone?”

  “Good point, but I can wait until I get my own laptop out of my SUV. It’s parked along the highway.”

  Lauren gave him an exasperated glance. “My computer is about five feet from you. You’re welcome to use it.”

  And have some special encryption erase the drive the instant he inserted it?

  “You.” She flung up her hands. “Do you think I’ll destroy the data on that thing by some technical sleight of hand?”

  “You are a computer whiz, aren’t you? The successful computer-security entrepreneur?”

  “I am,” she said without conceit, “and I am also a law-abiding citizen with some compassion. Since you’re hungry, I can make us some dinner.”

  Chris’s eyes widened. “You read minds?”

  “I hear growling stomachs—yours and mine. Come sit at the breakfast bar while I cook.”

  Chris tried to rise. Pain shot through his back, and a groan slipped from his lips before he could suppress it.

  “You need a doctor.” Lauren grasped his upper arm on the unwounded side. “Let me help.” She tugged.

  With her help and some gritting of his teeth, he managed to get his legs beneath him enough to fight the softness of the sofa and stand. “I don’t need medical help, but we do need to get that flash drive to law enforcement tonight. If you have any ideas how we will do that, you have better resources than I do.”