LITMIR.BIZ

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She crossed the room, careful to keep her back to the wall and her finger on the trigger. One glance at the woman’s pale face and hair told her it was her friend. Blood blackened the left side of her head.

      She held her breath and watched Misty’s chest. There—a faint flutter.

      Thank heavens. Misty was alive. Laurel hated to leave her friend lying in her own blood, but neglecting the basics could get them both killed.

      So, gripping her weapon more tightly, Laurel edged her way through the dining room and into the kitchen. She quickly and efficiently cleared the house.

      Whoever had attacked Misty was gone.

      Back in the den, she knelt beside her friend. “Misty? Honey? Can you hear me?”

      She didn’t answer. Laurel reached for her cell phone to call 9-1-1.

      “Damn it.” She’d left it in the car, plugged into the charger. She glanced around. An old-fashioned dial phone sat on a side table, but from her position Laurel could see the naked wires. Whoever had attacked Misty had jerked the phone out of the wall.

      She moved to stand, and the toe of her pump touched something. It was a baseball bat that had rolled partway under the couch. Laurel nudged it with her foot. There was wet, shiny blood on the end of it.

      She hated to leave Misty alone, but she had to get to her phone. She had to report an assault with a deadly weapon.

      Someone had attacked her friend and left her for dead.

      

      POLICE CHIEF CADE DUPREE turned onto Misty Waller’s street and parked near the corner. He’d been investigating a report of a break-in at the Visitor Center of Dusty Springs’ brand new convention complex when the call came in.

      Mrs. Gardner, Misty’s neighbor, was frantic, because someone was lurking around their street. That was the word she’d used. Lurking. To hear her tell it, people had been lurking all afternoon.

      A break-in and a lurking in one evening—that was more crime than he’d seen since he’d left the FBI to take over his dad’s job as chief of police of Dusty Springs. His mouth curved into a wry smile as he walked down the sidewalk toward the Wallers’ house.

      Not quite what he’d pictured himself doing after completing his training at Quantico. Still, at least this job wasn’t dangerous.

      Or interesting.

      A curtain fluttered in Mrs. Gardner’s window. Cade resisted the urge to wave at her as he spotted a rental car parked in front of Misty’s house.

      That was what he’d figured. The lurker was a friend of Misty’s in town for the high-school reunion.

      He pushed up the brim of his cap and squinted in the bright sunlight. The driver’s side door was open, and a well-rounded backside above long shapely legs faced him. Not Misty. This bottom was skinnier, sexier. And those legs…

      “Evening, ma’am,” he said, as he approached the front of the car.

      The woman tensed, then straightened. The car’s interior light glinted off blue steel.

      Gun. Cade rocked to the balls of his feet and moved his hand to his belt holster. “Hold it right there.”

      She froze.

      “Now set that gun down on the car seat and straighten up slowly.”

      She obeyed. As she straightened, the car’s light caught coppery highlights in her collar-length hair. She held out her hands in a nonthreatening gesture.

      Her brows lowered and her mouth dropped open for a split-second, but before he could wonder what she found surprising, she composed her face and looked him straight in the eye.

      “It’s all right,” she said. “I’m FBI.” She slowly pulled her jacket aside to reveal the distinctive badge pinned to her waistband.

      “FBI?” Unwelcome memories assaulted his brain. The excitement of making it to Quantico. The sense of purpose that the FBI had chosen him. But then his older brother had died, his father had suffered a stroke and he’d had to give up his dream and return to Dusty Springs.

      Cade forced his attention back to the woman. “What’s going on?”

      “Misty’s hurt. I need to call 9-1-1. I left my cell phone in the car.”

      “I’m 9-1-1. Do we need the EMTs?”

      “Yes. She’s got a blow to the head.”

      Cade didn’t stop to ask any more questions. He sprinted up the steps and through the front door.

      “The living room,” the woman called out.

      He rounded the doorway and saw Misty crumpled on the floor. He crouched beside her. There was blood matted in her hair.

      “Misty, you all right?” Damn, that was a lot of blood.

      Misty stirred and moaned. Relief loosened his tight neck and shoulders. “Lie still. I’m calling an ambulance.”

      He punched a preset number. “Get the EMTs over here,” he barked. “The Wallers’ house. Misty’s hurt. And no sirens. Don’t wake all the neighbors.”

      The FBI agent’s heels clicked on the hardwood floor, but Cade kept his attention on Misty. “You’re doing fine, Misty. Hang in there another couple of minutes.” He patted her hand, then spoke to the agent. “I don’t think the injury is serious. She may have a concussion.”

      “The weapon’s right under your feet.”

      “So you found her like this?”

      “That’s right.”

      “You didn’t see anyone leaving the area? Didn’t pass a vehicle?”

      “No.”

      “How’d you get in?”

      “The door was unlocked.”

      Cade swiveled and eyed her. He hadn’t taken the time to examine the door. “Unlocked?”

      She nodded, looking past him at Misty. “Yes. Definitely. And no sign of forced entry. It doesn’t make sense. She has an obsession about locking her doors.”

      He heard a truck pull up outside. Within seconds, heavy footsteps on the wooden porch announced the arrival of the EMTs.

      “Here we go, Misty. They’re going to take good care of you.” He rose from his haunches and moved out of the way so the EMTs could check her out.

      He met the FBI agent’s gaze and found her watching him with a pensive expression.

      She blinked, and then held out her hand. “I’m Laurel Gillespie. You don’t remember me. I was a year behind you in school.”

      “Gillespie?” he repeated absently.

      Laurel saw the blank look in Cade’s eye and her heart sank. She knew he wouldn’t remember her, but that didn’t make it any easier.

      He stepped aside as the EMTs lifted Misty onto a gurney. He was close—too close. She could smell his aftershave. It was fresh and subtle. Sexy.

      Dear heavens, she was really standing next to Cade Dupree, her high-school crush. She’d thought that by now, ten years after she’d graduated from high school, she’d have forgotten his confident stance, his broad-shouldered, slim-hipped silhouette.

      Now that the threat of danger and her worry about Misty were over, she was practically shaking with reaction. Partly from finding Misty collapsed and bleeding, but partly from seeing Cade.

      She turned her head. His handsome, familiar face was only a few inches from hers, his thick lashes lowered as he watched Misty. He hadn’t changed except that his face had more character and his body had filled out with lean, hard muscles.

      Her pulse fluttered as his gaze met

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