Boneyard Ridge Read Online Free PDF

ready for whatever might go down tonight.
    Or why there had been something hard poking into her ankle where his right leg had braced her when he pulled her back into his grasp.
    He was armed. Ankle holster, which was why she hadn’t spotted it before. Did that explain the limp? If he wasn’t used to ankle-carry, he might not realize that unless he balanced the weapon with a counterweight on the other leg, like extra ammo strapped to the opposite ankle, it could seriously mess up his walking gait.
    Except he limped with his left leg, didn’t he? Not the leg with the weapon.
    Before she had a chance to puzzle it out, Hunter snapped on the flashlight, slanting the beam across her face. She squinted, turning her face away from the painful glare. “Do you mind?”
    “I do,” he said, still speaking softly. “We got damn lucky just now. But you have got to learn to listen when I ask you to do something.”
    “You don’t ask. You order,” she muttered, kicking herself for saying anything at all. One of these days, her grandmother had always promised her, her smart mouth was going to get her into trouble.
    As if it hadn’t a million times already.
    But fear made her angry, and abject terror made her furious and verbal about it. If Mr. Enigmatic Maintenance Man with the hidden gun and a hidden agenda couldn’t handle a little pushback from her when he started barking orders, this night was about to go downhill at blazing speed.
    “Look.” He was struggling with some anger of his own. She could tell by the way his jaw was working, as if he had a mouth full of chew and no spit cup. “I know you’re confused and scared. And I wish I could tell you there wasn’t any reason to be, but we both know there is.”
    “I don’t need you to candy-coat anything,” she said flatly. “I just want to know all the facts. Why is somebody trying to kill me? And how did you know about it?” She swallowed the final question she wanted to ask, about the gun strapped to his ankle. It might be in her best interest to keep that knowledge to herself for the moment.
    He gave her a long, considering look before he turned his gaze away, eyeing the narrow stone outcropping they’d used as a bench earlier. “I meant what I said about getting some sleep. It’s cold and it’s wet out there, and that gauze wouldn’t last long if we started trekking through the woods tonight.”
    “It’ll get torn up just as badly tomorrow.”
    “If you’ll promise to sit tight and wait, I may have a way to fix that problem.” He waved the flashlight beam toward the stone bench. “Get some sleep. I’ve got to go somewhere.”
    She stared at him, not believing what she was hearing. “You’re going to leave me here? Alone?”
    “They’re convening somewhere else for the night. You should be safe enough.” He didn’t say it, but she could see the rest of what he was thinking in his hooded eyes. Even if he was here, there wouldn’t be much they could do to hold off a whole crew of armed men looking to take her down. She wouldn’t be much safer with him than stuck here shoeless with the damp, bitter cold and the rugged mountain terrain between her and safety.
    “What are you going to do out there?”
    He looked down at her bandaged feet. “Well, first of all, I’m going to get you some shoes.” He lifted the flashlight upward again, handing it over to her. “You keep the light. I won’t need it out there.”
    She closed her hand over the flashlight handle. It was warm where he’d gripped it, transferring welcome heat to her numb fingers.
    But almost as soon as he slipped out into the rainy night, she extinguished the beam, preferring the comforting obscurity of the darkness to the stark reality the light revealed.
    She was trapped and hunted. She was stuck with a man she didn’t know, for reasons she wasn’t sure she understood, in a place that might as well be the far side of the moon, for all the chance she had of finding her way out of