Covert Christmas

by Marilyn Pappao

“Wonder if they did it here.”

  She glanced at the tires that provided them protection, imagining two bearing cuts from her knife, and from somewhere deep inside a laugh escaped.

  Josh began chuckling, too. “Don’t you know the Mulroneys are pissed at them? Having us cornered, then losing us?”

  Her laughter slowly faded. The brothers were damn scary when things weren’t going their way, and for a long time now, fate had been smiling the other way. Find them, they’d probably ordered Davison and Leeves, or we’ll find you. And there was no doubt what would happen when they did.

  “I bet they’re regretting the day they met you.”

  “Are you?” He turned to meet her gaze, his expression gone serious. He was closer than she’d realized. If she leaned forward this much…but it was an impossible distance to cover.

  “Are you regretting the day we met, Nat?”

  She tried to look away. Tried to lie. But her mouth didn’t care what her brain wanted. Her heart didn’t care. “No,” she whispered. “The circumstances, yes, but meeting you? Never.”

  Turned out, the distance wasn’t so impossible. All she had to do was lean, just a tiny bit. He met her more than halfway, removing her glasses, gripping a handful of her jacket, pulling her the rest of the way. His skin was cold, his mouth undeniably hot as he coaxed her lips open, then slid his tongue inside.

  It was astonishing how such simple—such intimate—contact could push everything else out of her mind. The cold, the fear, the alertness she lived with…all forgotten. Meaningless. For the moment only this kiss mattered, this touch, this sweet reminder of what she’d lost.

  After a time he pulled back, and for one aching second, she followed him, clinging. With a rush of shame, she caught herself and would have crawled even deeper into the tires if he hadn’t held onto her jacket like a lifeline. He stared at her, at a loss for words—probably a first for the slick, sweet-talking con man.

  “What’s wrong, Josh?” she asked, sliding her glasses on to better see his reaction. “Cat got your tongue?”

  He blinked, and his fingers slowly unfolded from her jacket. “You always did remind me of a cat. Sleek. Powerful. Sexy.”

  It was her turn to blink. If she’d had to describe herself as an animal, she would have picked a mouse: small, drab, easy to overlook.

  Or a rat.

  Uneasily she shifted. “Do you think it’s safe to go back to the cave?”

  He let the intimacy fade as he shrugged his everyday, normal shrug. “We sure as hell can’t stay here. Even if we shared our body heat, I’d freeze to death before the sun came up.”

  He got to his feet, then gave her a hand up. She took it, wishing she’d removed her gloves, wanting the feel of bare skin against skin.

  Not that it lasted long. Once they’d cleared the maze of tires, he released her hand as they walked behind the garage, keeping to its shadows, then jogged to the back door of their building. Once again she picked the lock, and they returned to the break room.

  Josh stripped off his jacket, ripped open the hair color package, then held out the scissors. “There’s a ten-dollar tip in it if you don’t make me look like a whack job.”

  Slowly she peeled off her gloves and her own jacket. “You’re trusting me with scissors?”

  “Honey, you’ve already got a gun. You don’t need scissors to mess me up.” He laid them in her palm, then muttered something under his breath as he swung a plastic chair around to sit on.

  It sounded an awful lot like, You did that all by yourself.

  Lacking a comb, she brushed his hair into order with her fingers, counseling herself silently. It wasn’t sexy, it wasn’t sensuous, it wasn’t intimate. It was just a job. Thousands of stylists did it every day to both regular customers and strangers.

  But she wasn’t a stylist, and Josh wasn’t a stranger, and she’d missed touching him, God, so much.

  Her first cuts were conservative, taking off a fine spattering of blond hair. He looked at the floor, then snorted. “Give me the scissors.”

  When she did, he grabbed a thick hank of hair and blindly cut it near the roots before handing the scissors back. “Now cut the rest of it to match.”

  Obeying, she soon had a broom-worthy pile of hair on the floor. The big cuts were done, leaving her with the finer work, when he spoke again.

  “What was it like having two sisters suddenly move in with you?”

  Her hand trembled, snipping where she didn’t mean to, but it was on the back of his head. He’d never know.

  Should she answer? Her old practice of keeping her secrets her own hadn’t gotten her anything in the past. Just a man who’d said he’d loved her without knowing that she wasn’t worth loving.

  When what she needed was a man who could love her even knowing that.

  “Just call me Cinderella,” she replied once her hand—and her voice—steadied. “I wasn’t exactly popular at home. I talked about my mom. I cried for her. I had nightmares about her. Traci preferred her own daughters, of course, and so did our father. They liked me best when I was locked in the utility room after I’d done my chores. That was where they’d moved me so her girls could have my room.”

  She smiled faintly. An aluminum cot, a washer, a dryer and the smell of bleach—that had meant home to her for a long time.

  “Did you ever tell anyone?” Josh’s tension knotted the muscles in his neck as well as his voice. It was sweet that he could be angry about something that had happened so long ago to a woman who’d betrayed him.

  “I tried, but my timing sucked.” She laughed rustily. “It was the day before Christmas break when I told my teacher. She took me to the counselor, and the counselor called a meeting with my father and Traci. They denied it, of course, and in the end, everyone agreed it was the trauma of my mother’s death making me act out, and they took me home… I had two and a half weeks for the bruises to heal before school started again, and I never told anyone else until tonight. Until you.”

  He twisted his head to meet her gaze. There was so much in his expression: anger, impotence, sympathy, frustration. “Is your father still alive?”

  “Last I heard.”

  “Hot-wire a car for us, and we can lead Davison and Leeves right to his door.”

  The small, terrified little girl that still cowered inside her smiled at the idea of unleashing the goons on her unsuspecting father. The woman who clung to that little girl, though, couldn’t do more than contemplate such a thing. “I don’t want him dead.”

  “Even after what he did to you? To your mother?”

  She shook her head.

  Josh rolled his eyes. “And you claim you’re not a Goody Two-shoes.”

  He turned back so she could finish the haircut. The back and sides done, she moved in front of him to trim the bangs that fell across his forehead to brush his brows. He sat still, his eyelids fluttering shut as bits of hair drifted down onto his cheeks. She held her breath as she leaned close for a final inspection, then murmured, “All done.”

  He scrubbed his hand over his face before locking gazes with her again. “You really didn’t know they were going to kill me, did you?”

  She shook her head, and this time, she thought, he believed her.

  He touched her face gently, brushing something away—a snip of hair, a speck of nothing—then stood and pulled a crumpled ten from his pocket. “Here’s your tip.”

  “From my own money?” She stuffed the bill into her pocket. If they got separated, at least she wouldn’t be flat broke.

  “Hey, I had some cash on me when I showed up tonight. Not much, but some.” A glance at the clock, and he amended that. “Last night. How long will this color take?”

  “A half hour or so.”

  “Time to shave, too, and then we’d better be getting out of here.”

  “And go where?”

  “It’s your town. You choose.”

  She found a whisk broom and dustpan under the sink and cleaned up while he starte
d the coloring process. Where could they go? It was Christmas Eve, freezing cold and there was an unknown number of killers looking for them.

  Her first impulse was simple enough: the Feds. They would arrest her, and turn Josh over to the marshals, who would take him back to Chicago. Maybe she could make a deal with them, too; she knew enough about the Mulroneys’ business, especially their activities in Georgia, where they’d ordered the kidnapping and murder of a deputy U.S. marshal, to be of some value to the U.S. Attorney’s office.

  Maybe she and Josh could go into witness protection together if they survived the trials.

  The scent of chemicals stung her nose as she dumped the hair into the trash can. Christmas Eve should smell differently; there should be peppermint and cocoa, pecan pies baking, eggnog and fresh, hot bread. At least, that was what she remembered from the few Christmases before her mother died.

  “What will your parents do for Christmas?”

  Using vinyl gloves to smear goop into his hair, Josh glanced at her. If he felt melancholy or homesick, it didn’t show. “Joe and Liz are driving down Christmas morning to spend a couple of days with them. On Sunday, they’re flying to Kansas to visit her family, and Mom and Dad are going on a cruise.”

  “Nice.” She’d never met the elder Saldanas, but Josh had always spoken of them affectionately. He’d had a perfectly normal upbringing, he’d told her, with perfectly normal parents. Now that she’d told him of her upbringing, did he have a better appreciation of normal?

  He held up the color applicator bottle. “There’s a lot of this left. Wanna get rid of that red?”

  Thinking of how much she hated both the color and cut of her hair, she eyed the bottle. “I thought all men were hot for redheads.”

  “Not all. Some of us like plain ol’ brown. Sit.”

  After a moment, she did as he ordered, and he began working the solution into her hair. Her eyes stung and her nose got sniffly, but she didn’t kid herself that it was from the chemicals. She’d been wrong earlier. Having him work on her hair was sexy, sensuous and intimate. By the time he finished, she wasn’t sure whether she was a boneless mass waiting for him to do what he would or a bundle of raw nerves. Either way, she was wowed.

  “Thanks,” she murmured as he threw the gloves away.

  He grinned the charm-her-socks-off grin. “You can tip me later.”

  She watched the clock while he shaved, then they took turns at the sink, shampooing their hair. After she towel-dried hers, she offered him the scissors. “Cut it, will you?”

  He didn’t hesitate. In moments, hunks of newly auburn hair littered the floor, and she felt ten pounds lighter. While she swept up, he pulled on a black hoodie, then his coat, and tossed the second hoodie on the table. “We’d better get out of here. Where are we going?”

  Natalia’s stomach knotted. The break room was the only place she felt safe. Once they set foot outside the building, every person they saw would be suspect. People would be looking for them, and not all of them looked the part of hired killer like Davison. Some of them would look quite innocent. Like her.

  But staying here wasn’t an option. People would begin coming in soon—if not to actually work, then for the Christmas party the woman last night had mentioned. She tugged the hoodie on, combed her hair back in place, then stuffed their other purchases into her duffel. Sacrificing a few minutes to trade her glasses for the contact lenses in her bag, she pulled on her coat and gloves before giving Josh a this-is-it look. “I think we should turn ourselves in.”

  “Yeah, that’s funny.”

  “I’m serious. You’ll be okay, just back with the marshals for a while. And I—I can work something out.”

  He propelled her down the hall and to the rear exit. “I don’t want to be back with the marshals, and you don’t want to ‘work something out.’ Trust me.”

  She dragged to a stop at the door. “What I don’t want, Josh, is to hide the rest of my life.”

  “You think you won’t be doing just that if you make a deal with the Feds? In less than two years, they had me in six states. I never got to go anywhere or do anything. The only time I was alone was in the bathroom and in bed. They drove me freaking crazy. If you want to be the government’s prisoner, go ahead, but leave me out of it. I’m not going back.”

  She believed that he’d hated every minute of it…but she also believed it was better than dying. Shouldering him aside, sliding her hand inside her pocket to grip the pistol, she eased the door open, looked to the left, then stepped outside, flat against the building, and scanned to the right. Giving him the okay, she shrugged, pulled the hood over her damp hair and said, “At least there would be someone in my life.”

  Without giving him a chance to respond, she began walking with long strides toward the street. “Come on. We’re taking a bus tour of Augusta.”

  She hadn’t been kidding, Josh reflected hours later. They’d hopped from bus to bus, wandering aimlessly around the city. The local residents embraced the Christmas season with open arms. Every place they passed, business or home, bore decorations, and too often when the bus doors opened, carols drifted in from someplace nearby. If things were different—he glanced at Natalia—it could be nice. Hell, even joyous. But, jeez, it was hard to get in the Christmas spirit when people were trying to kill you.

  “I’m starved.”

  “Me, too.” Natalia, sitting beside the window with her back turned out, roused from her stupor. As far as he knew, she hadn’t gotten any sleep last night, and it showed. She’d been semi-comatose since they’d transferred from the last bus.

  She looked around, getting her bearings. “We’re not far from the mall. We can go there.”

  He stared at her. “Are you kidding?”

  “It’s not the one I work at. It’s Christmas Eve. It’ll be crowded.”

  “They’ll be watching it.”

  “Looking for a blond man with a beard and a red-haired woman. They’ll have to look twice to recognize us, and there are plenty of exits.”

  He still thought it was a crappy idea, but when the bus slowed and she stood up, he stood, too, stepping into the aisle, allowing her to go ahead of him.

  Traffic was at a crawl, both going into and coming out of the mall. Parking spaces were at a premium and, inside, so was walking space. God, he hoped no one took a shot at them, because in this kid- and stroller-choked environment, it would be tough to run, and who else might get hurt?

  “Nat, I don’t think this is a good idea.”

  Concern flickered across her face. “You’re probably right. Let’s get something to eat, then get out of here.”

  She headed straight to the food court, where they stood in line for grilled-chicken sandwiches. All the tables were full, so they found a bench nearby, each sitting at one end, leaving space between them for a table of sorts.

  Once his first sandwich was gone, Josh took a bite of the second before voicing something that had been on his mind since they’d left the office building. “You don’t have to live so alone, Nat. Joe and Liz know you saved their lives.” When Josh had escaped the marshals’ custody, the Mulroneys had figured, as the Feds had, that eventually he would turn to his brother for help, as he’d always done. The Feds had sent Liz to Copper Lake. The Mulroneys had sent Natalia. When Josh had failed to appear, the Mulroneys had tried to force Joe into giving up his location by kidnapping Liz. In saving their lives, Natalia had put her own in danger, and his brother and sister-in-law understood that. “They’d be happy to have you back in Copper Lake.”

  “Right. And when Patrick sends someone to find me, they could be in danger, too—or their baby.” As if to demonstrate the conversation was closed in her opinion, she turned her back while she continued to eat.

  Her sarcasm had been heavy, but underlying it was something else. Wistfulness. Whether she wanted to admit it, she’d gotten close to Joe and Liz; his brother had told him as much. She’d let them get closer than anyone besides Josh had ever gotten, and she mi
ssed them.

  If the Mulroneys and their goons were in prison, there’d be no reason for anyone to go looking for her. She could live where she wanted, do what she wanted. Be wanted.

  If they were in prison. And Josh could put them there.

  But then he could never live where he wanted.

  He was selfish and a coward, because he couldn’t face going back into protective custody and then into relocation for the rest of his life. As he’d told her, he’d rather live his own version. A little danger seemed a fair trade-off for a whole lot of freedom.

  Beside him, on the other side of a tall green plant, a group of teenage boys leaned against the railing. They talked about girls they were dating, gifts they were expecting, family dinners they were being forced to attend. Josh didn’t have to wonder if he had been so self-absorbed when he was their age. Hell, he’d been like that at twice their age. But he was changing. He really was.

  “Hey, look at that clown over there,” one of them called, gesturing to a man on the other side of the mall. “He looks like he’s trying to direct traffic for a bunch of morons.”

  Like the other boys, Josh’s head swiveled around, and his gaze zeroed in on Clive Leeves, standing at the opposite railing, gesturing with both arms. Toward them.

  Josh jerked back around, then tried to spot Leeves’s accomplice in the crowd, but sitting down made that impossible and the instant he stood up…

  “Nat, Leeves is here and he’s seen us. Which way to the closest exit?”

  Stunned, she spit the food in her mouth into a napkin. “It’s at the food court. But that’s away from the main street. We need to go back to the right.”

  “Okay. Look for anyone who looks out of place. Ready?” When she nodded, he took her arm and together they rose from the bench. He gave their rear a sweeping gaze as they eased into the flow of people and saw a face familiar from Chicago—skinny guy, always in a bad mood. A hundred feet ahead was another: Davison trying to muscle his way through the crowd toward them.

  “Is that what you mean by looking out of place?” Natalia asked dryly.

  “He fits the description for me. What do you think, Nat? I’ve always been on the nonviolent side of the business. The last time I hit someone was when Brent Jacobi and I fought over Melissa Cardone in eighth grade, and I broke my hand.” He grinned ruefully. “Turned out she didn’t like either of us. She was after Joe.”