Christmas Confidential Read Online Free PDF

reason?”
    * * *
    Miri tossed her pack into the backseat, fastened the seat belt, then gathered Boo close again. She was grateful to be out of the cold, to be back in one of the few familiar places in her life. With the tinted windows obscuring her from anyone outside and Dean settling into the driver’s seat, she felt safe.
    It was stupid to think of Dean and safety in the same sentence. He would never physically hurt her, she knew that, but he’d deceived and disappointed her before, and those kind of wounds were usually far more difficult to recover from.
    Okay, so she just wouldn’t let herself be vulnerable. She’d spent two-thirds of her life on guard, protecting and hiding herself from emotional attachments. She’d learned too well the cost of caring and the inevitability of losing. The only person she could truly count on was herself.
    But that didn’t mean she couldn’t accept help from someone when it best suited her. She was cautious, not stupid.
    He started the engine and turned the heat to high. Cool air from the vents warmed quickly, chasing the chill from her feet.
    When he made no move to put the car into gear, she glanced his way and found him watching her. “What?” she asked automatically.
    “Where are we going?”
    His use of we made her stomach tighten. They weren’t a we and never really had been. She hadn’t been part of a we for so long that she didn’t know if she could even remember how. “East.”
    “Can you be a little more specific? The east side of Dallas? East Texas? East of the Mississippi?”
    It took a swallow or two for her to force the answer out. “Georgia. Atlanta.” Copper Lake was only ninety minutes or so from there. Surely she could travel that far alone without getting accosted, or maybe she’d even call Sophy to meet her there. Her sister might not want her showing up in her hometown, anyway, especially on the eve of the biggest family holiday of the year.
    He pulled out onto the street. “Do you mind if we stop by my place first to get some clothes?”
    She didn’t want to stop anywhere, not even to eat or spend the night, but he was doing her this favor, so the least she could do was be agreeable. “No problem.” Then she stared out the side window.
    Was this really a favor? Did he really care about anything that had happened between them? Or was the money his ulterior motive?
    People didn’t do her favors. You had to have some kind of relationship before favors came into the picture, and she didn’t have those. So he was probably looking for the money.
    That was okay, she told herself, but the tightening in her chest seemed to disagree.
    She’d been to his apartment a time or two when they were dating—when he was working her as a suspect. It was only about ten miles from hers, but another galaxy in terms of hope. The houses were older and well maintained, the businesses more prosperous, the streets safer. Bad things could happen anywhere—she knew that from her own experiences growing up in an upper-class Asheville neighborhood—but bad seemed less likely to happen here than in her own area.
    He rented a second-story apartment in one of those old, well-maintained houses, with a side set of stairs and a grandmotherly landlady occupying the first floor. GranMare, she’d called herself, the nickname the first of her fifteen grandchildren had given her when he shortened Grandma Mary, and the evening they’d met, she’d greeted Miri with a huge smile and an invitation to the next family dinner.
    “You need to come in,” Dean said as he shut off the engine.
    “I was planning to.” It was cold outside, and nearly getting kidnapped had shaken her confidence. It was flimsy enough, given her mission, that another hard shake would shatter it, and she’d take Boo and his bucks and beat it to the nearest hiding place she could find.
    Lightposts illuminated the street, but even without them, the Christmas decorations would have shown their way to the base