The Off Season Read Online Free PDF Page A

her street nearly every night since Walt Gunderson had been attacked. That he’d been worried about her staying out here on her own, even though he suspected the thieves’ run-in with the old man had been accidental.
    As he turned toward the door again, Christina clutched his elbow, her grip surprisingly strong.
    “Please be careful in there, Harris,” she warned, an unexpected fierceness burning off the fear in her voice. “I might’ve wanted you dead once, but not tonight.”

    No sooner had the words slipped from Christina’s mouth than she felt a desperate need to snatch them from the air and stuff them back down her throat. But clearly, they’d already hit their mark. She saw it in Harris’s stiff nod before she turned and walked away.
    So much for pretending she’d forgotten all about what he’d done. As if any woman would ever forget the man who conned her out of her virginity, whose sweet lies had carved bloody slivers off her heart like the sharpest scalpels.
    But she wasn’t herself this evening, not with every nerve stripped bare. Maybe it was the nighttime pain reliever she’d taken earlier, lowering her defenses. Or maybe it was raw fear that had exposed the person behind the polite, professional facade she’d been using to keep her new coworkers—and everyone—at a safe distance since her return.
    She carried Lilly to the idling SUV, stopping short when she realized it was the same vehicle she’d spotted outside last night. Had Harris been here staking out the street, or had it been a different officer? Wouldn’t the police chief have more important duties?
    Maybe he was just keeping an eye out, since Renee and their son, Jacob, spent so much time at the house. Though Renee had never spoken directly of the circumstances that had broken up her marriage last year, she’d dropped hints about another woman, and had once remarked that Harris couldn’t be trusted. As if Christina hadn’t learned that lesson for herself—though she’d been too humiliated ever to say a word to anyone about it.
    Lilly shivered, breaking the spell, and Christina climbed into the unmarked vehicle’s passenger seat and locked the doors. Teeth chattering, she fiddled with the vents, directing the lukewarm air onto the child in her arms. Wondering whether she could figure out the police radio in front to call for help if Harris didn’t come back.
    Her stomach tightened at the thought, and she assured herself he’d be fine, with his experience and training. But her own experiences in the ER, the faces of the dead and dying, reminded her that both qualities had their limitations.
    Fifteen minutes passed, then twenty. Her gaze skimmed the shadows, which only deepened when the overhead clouds parted, and a full moon cast its cold light on the frothing shore below. Snuggling against her chest beneath Harris’s jacket, Lilly was sleeping heavily by the time Christina finally spotted his tall, lean frame jogging toward them. Probably half-frozen, wearing only his sweatshirt, and limping, too. Was it from the fall on the back walkway, from when she’d tried to take his head off with the golf club? Or was the injury an old one, from the explosion that had made headlines about five years back?
    She unlocked the door, and he climbed in behind the wheel.
    “Is everything all right?” she asked.
    “Far as I can tell,” he said. “There’s no sign of forced entry. Nobody inside, either. Well, other than one big dog—or a really scrawny horse.”
    “That’s just Max.” A news story from last week popped into her mind, an incident where Newark cops had shot a family pet after kicking in the wrong door after midnight. “You didn’t hurt him, did you? He doesn’t even bark.”
    “Wagging his tail at me and grinning the way he was? C’mon, Christina. Give a guy a little credit.” The corners of his mouth quirked upward, an unwanted reminder of the boyish charm that had lured her like a bluefish, heedless of the