Cutting Loose Read Online Free PDF Page B
Author: Tara Janzen
and the sun hadnât even broken the horizon yet.
Aligning himself flush with the door frame, he reached over and turned the knobâand in the next instant, something crashed in the basement.
CHAPTER FOUR
        Â
Inside the bathroom, Lilyâs heart jammed into her throat and the cup of water sheâd been holding landed in the sink, along with a flurry of aspirin tablets out of her other hand.
Holy crap. What in the hell was that?
She lunged for her pistol and barely got her hand around it before the door swung open and a man stepped inside.
âLet go of the gun,â he ordered, his voice low and harsh.
Let go?
No way.
There was a man in her bathroom, and he had a gun leveled at her chest.
âLily, let go of the gun.
Now.
â It was a command, but she could hardly breathe, let alone move.
He knew her name. Dark hair, broad shoulders, gray suit jacket over a black T-shirt, and stone-cold green eyes freezing her in placeâshe knew his name, too, and her heart was racing like a freight train. His gaze was fierce, direct, compelling, the scar running down the side of his face unmistakable. Her heart beat onceâ¦twice.
Out of the corner of her eye, she caught a flash of movement behind him, and life slid into a time warp, where every second lasted and lasted, where the length of a breath hovered in one endless moment after anotherâplenty of time, an eternity to process it all: the crash from her basement, the man with the gray ponytail bursting out of her stairwell, a cold, blank look on his face, a gun in his hand, how he brought the pistol up, pointing it at her, or possibly at the man in front of her, who was dropping to his knee and swinging around, his gun firing at the same time as hers.
The sound was deafening, the blast of her .45 in a small, confined space and the clack of Alejandro Camposâs pistol cycling a fresh cartridge into the chamber.
Campos had a silencer on his gun.
âGetââ He started to say something over his shoulder, then whirled around and grabbed her instead, jerking her out of the bathroom and all but throwing her onto the hallway floor. She heard it, too, the sound of someone pounding up the stairs. The white-haired man came out of the stairwell firing, and the time warp shattered at light speed.
No more orders were necessary. She understood perfectly. She was scrambling, one gun blast after another following her down the hall, tearing through drywall and two-by-fours, and Alejandro Campos was hot on her tail, returning fire.
Oh, my god.
She kept moving, scrambling, crawling, ducking, making a beeline for the door into her garage. At the end of the hall, without missing a beat or standing up, she wrenched the knob, pushed the door open, and tumbled through. Campos was with her. She could feel his energy, and his heat, and feel him moving, the brush of his shoulder, the strength of his arm when he pulled her to her feet and pushed her toward the door leading to the outside.
Even in early June the air was crisp and cool before dawn, the grass wet with dew, and she was barefoot, in her summer pajamas, and runningârunning through old man McCreadyâs backyard, trampling azaleas and tearing through his prizewinning lilies.
Goddamn.
He already thought she was a blight on the neighborhood, and if he caught her, thereâd be hell to pay, absolute years of endless nagging, but catching her dead was worse, so she ran, keeping up with Alejandro Camposâ
so help her God
.
When they came out of McCreadyâs yard onto Somerset, it suddenly hit her just how barefoot she really wasâcompletely. And they were running down the street, hell-for-leather, heading toward a Fastback Mustang. Campos had taken her hand as soon as theyâd left McCreadyâs yard, and when they reached the car, he opened the door and swung her into the passenger seat. She hadnât even righted herself, before he was
Aligning himself flush with the door frame, he reached over and turned the knobâand in the next instant, something crashed in the basement.
CHAPTER FOUR
        Â
Inside the bathroom, Lilyâs heart jammed into her throat and the cup of water sheâd been holding landed in the sink, along with a flurry of aspirin tablets out of her other hand.
Holy crap. What in the hell was that?
She lunged for her pistol and barely got her hand around it before the door swung open and a man stepped inside.
âLet go of the gun,â he ordered, his voice low and harsh.
Let go?
No way.
There was a man in her bathroom, and he had a gun leveled at her chest.
âLily, let go of the gun.
Now.
â It was a command, but she could hardly breathe, let alone move.
He knew her name. Dark hair, broad shoulders, gray suit jacket over a black T-shirt, and stone-cold green eyes freezing her in placeâshe knew his name, too, and her heart was racing like a freight train. His gaze was fierce, direct, compelling, the scar running down the side of his face unmistakable. Her heart beat onceâ¦twice.
Out of the corner of her eye, she caught a flash of movement behind him, and life slid into a time warp, where every second lasted and lasted, where the length of a breath hovered in one endless moment after anotherâplenty of time, an eternity to process it all: the crash from her basement, the man with the gray ponytail bursting out of her stairwell, a cold, blank look on his face, a gun in his hand, how he brought the pistol up, pointing it at her, or possibly at the man in front of her, who was dropping to his knee and swinging around, his gun firing at the same time as hers.
The sound was deafening, the blast of her .45 in a small, confined space and the clack of Alejandro Camposâs pistol cycling a fresh cartridge into the chamber.
Campos had a silencer on his gun.
âGetââ He started to say something over his shoulder, then whirled around and grabbed her instead, jerking her out of the bathroom and all but throwing her onto the hallway floor. She heard it, too, the sound of someone pounding up the stairs. The white-haired man came out of the stairwell firing, and the time warp shattered at light speed.
No more orders were necessary. She understood perfectly. She was scrambling, one gun blast after another following her down the hall, tearing through drywall and two-by-fours, and Alejandro Campos was hot on her tail, returning fire.
Oh, my god.
She kept moving, scrambling, crawling, ducking, making a beeline for the door into her garage. At the end of the hall, without missing a beat or standing up, she wrenched the knob, pushed the door open, and tumbled through. Campos was with her. She could feel his energy, and his heat, and feel him moving, the brush of his shoulder, the strength of his arm when he pulled her to her feet and pushed her toward the door leading to the outside.
Even in early June the air was crisp and cool before dawn, the grass wet with dew, and she was barefoot, in her summer pajamas, and runningârunning through old man McCreadyâs backyard, trampling azaleas and tearing through his prizewinning lilies.
Goddamn.
He already thought she was a blight on the neighborhood, and if he caught her, thereâd be hell to pay, absolute years of endless nagging, but catching her dead was worse, so she ran, keeping up with Alejandro Camposâ
so help her God
.
When they came out of McCreadyâs yard onto Somerset, it suddenly hit her just how barefoot she really wasâcompletely. And they were running down the street, hell-for-leather, heading toward a Fastback Mustang. Campos had taken her hand as soon as theyâd left McCreadyâs yard, and when they reached the car, he opened the door and swung her into the passenger seat. She hadnât even righted herself, before he was