Crossfire Christmas

“Bossy little thing,” he muttered. His eyes blinked open again, long enough to assess her face. “You’re...nurse?”

“What’s your name?” she repeated.

He inhaled a quick breath, gritted his teeth, then squeezed the words out. “Charles. I’m Charles.”

“Like Charlie? Or Mr. Charles? No, don’t close your eyes.” She cupped her palm against the sandy beard stubble on his jaw. “Keep looking at me. Can you tell me where you’re hurt?”

He pulled his left hand from his lap and grabbed the steering wheel. By sheer will, his vision seemed to sharpen and his gaze dropped to the phone tucked to her ear. “Is that 911?”

“Yes.” When he reached for it, she handed it over. “Good idea. You can tell them exactly what hap— What are you doing? Give me my—”

“No cops.” He disconnected the call and tossed her phone onto the dashboard. With a jerky shift of his broad shoulders, he pulled his right hand from beneath the duffel bag.

“¡Oh, mi Dios!”

He had a gun.

Teresa instinctively recoiled, but before she could jump off the running board, a big gloved hand anchored her arm to the door with surprising strength. “Let go!”

His fingers tightened around her wrist, trapping her beside him as he pounded her phone with the butt of the wicked-looking pistol, smashing it into pieces.

“Hey!”

And then he turned the barrel of the gun on her. Bleeding Charles tilted his eyes up to the shoulder of the road. His voice was raspy, deep. “That your car, kid?”

Teresa’s answer was a frozen gasp in the cold air. “Yes.”

The gun barely wavered as he pushed open the door, forcing her into the snow. She landed on her butt and slid down the hill a few inches, but her bare hand, numb toes and panic slowed her efforts to scramble back onto her feet. He swung one long leg out, then the other, his black cowboy boots sinking into the snow, his breath hitching when his feet hit solid ground. Leaning against the cab for support, he pulled the duffel bag across the seat and tossed it at her. It hit her square in the stomach, knocking her onto her bottom again.

Judging by its weight and rattle, whatever was inside was heavy and metal and... “Son of a...” More guns.

Teresa shoved the bag away and climbed onto her knees, letting gravity pull her down into the ditch, farther away from the bleeding man, until she could find solid ground and bolt away.

She’d come to the aid of some drug dealer or gunrunner or mass murderer.

She was the one in trouble.

“I’d stop if I were you.”

The ominous double click of a bullet sliding into the chamber of his automatic weapon rang clear in the crisp, frigid air, spurring her to her feet.

“I said stop!”

The deafening report of a gunshot froze her in her tracks. Teresa pushed her hood away from her face and turned her head, lifting her gaze to the tall, pale man with the narrowed eyes and bloody coat.

The mysterious Charles-slash-Mr. Charles was still leaning against the truck to hold himself up. But the gun he’d fired into the tree behind him was steaming in the cold air. The smell of sulfur filled her nose as he pulled the weapon down to aim it right at her. “Don’t get any idea that you’re going to run from me.” His raspy, low-pitched threat was a whispery cloud in the night air. “Now you’re going to pick up that bag and get me the hell out of here.”

Chapter Three

Please don’t make me scare you any worse than I have to, darlin’, Nash silently begged. Just do what I say. Take me where I want to go. And then you never have to deal with my sorry butt again.

But those dark brown eyes tilting up to his were wide and frightened and telling him exactly what he didn’t want to see—she was about to run.

“Ah, hell.”

He was already sliding the gun into his holster when she spun around to leap across the bottom of the ditch. He was in no shape to chase anyone down, but she wasn’t leaving him many options.

She landed on her hands and knees, a tangle of turquoise coat and pink scarf in the snow. But before she could find her footing, Nash ignored the protest jolting through his stiff leg and dove after her, using his six feet three inches of height to full advantage. He wasn’t fast, but he was big enough to catch her around the thighs and tackle her. He landed across her legs and bottom, crushing her into the snow beneath him. Pain radiated through his shoulder as he hit the ground beside her, and he groaned.

But she didn’t leave him any time to clench his teeth through the blinding agony or even to catch his breath. With a feral roar, she rolled onto her back beneath him, spitting snow in his eyes and clawing at his neck and face.

“Get off me!”

Nash deflected the first blow. The second caught him square in the nose and made his eyes water. Hobbled by cold and pain and utter fatigue, he was about to be outmaneuvered by the thrashing woman unless he resorted to doing her some serious harm. And since he was still a hairbreadth away from that kind of desperation, he crawled on top of her and let his weight pin her down until the night stopped reeling about him.

She screamed in his ear and shoved a palmful of snow against his cheek.

“Stop struggling.” The icy cold on his skin was like a reviving slap across the face. But when the empty fist arced toward him a second time, his temper flared. He caught her wrist with his good hand and pinned it on the ground above her head. “I said stop!”

For one surprising moment, she went still beneath him. Through the rapid puffs of breath that clouded the air between them, he took in the quick dart of her tongue across her full bottom lip and the halo of long coffee-brown hair fanning over the snow beneath her head. The defensive anger that had spiked inside him gave way to a flash of something wildly inappropriate for a wanted man fighting to survive for a few more days.

He was still processing those quick impressions of curves and heat and spirited beauty when she offered up a husky whisper. “What are you going to do with me?”

Keep your head in the game, Nash. Don’t let the pretty girl distract you.

“Not a damn thing. Look, I don’t want to be a part of your life any longer than you want to be a part of mine.” Running on fumes, he summoned what little energy he had left and went the tough-guy route again. “You can either drive me where I want to go or I can take your keys. But I don’t especially want to leave you abandoned out here on a night like this.”

“Don’t worry about me.” He saw the spark in her eyes a split second before he felt her leg sliding beneath his and sensed her target.

Of all the... Nash pulled his knee between her thighs, beating her to the intimate contact. With a startled gasp, she went still again—long enough for him to release her wrists and unholster his gun. “I wouldn’t if I were you.”

“Those injuries aren’t from any car wreck.” Although her rosy cheeks indicated she was as aware of their intimate position as he was, it seemed nothing could silence that smart mouth. She brought her hands to the uninjured side of his chest, and he let her shove a few inches of breathing room between them. “And that’s body armor. Who are you, Mr. Charles? What did you do?”

“The less you know about me, the better.” Good. He hadn’t slipped and given her his name in his groggy state in the truck. That meant it wasn’t out there on the wire or in cyberspace, flagging his location to the cartel or the inside man who’d set him up.

Nash raised his head and glanced around him, suddenly wary that he’d already spent too long out in the open. That gunshot he’d used to intimidate her when he realized he couldn’t stop her from running might have alerted a nearby farmer or some other fool who was out here in the middle of nowhere on this wintry night. And even though he’d severed her call, the authorities were almost certainly already on their way.

He assessed the subdued flight risk in her warm chocolate eyes before easing his hips off hers and gingerly pushing himself up on one knee in the snow. “I don’t have much time. I can’t afford to let the police get here before I’m gone—and you’re my only way out of here, Peewee. I need you to grab my bag and get me to your car, then take me someplace where you can patch me up.”

“Peewee?” She sat up as soon as she was free. A second later she was scooting away, climbing to her feet and brushing the snow off the clinging wet cotton of her pink pant legs. “I should just leave you here to freeze to death.”

“Can you outrun a bullet?” If she tried, he’d have to let her go. But he was hoping he still had that big-and-mean-and-on-his-last-nerve look going for him to convince her to cooperate.

Apparently, he did.

Although that defiant spark never left her dark eyes, she lifted her gaze from the gun up to his, nodding her acquiescence. “Now that you’ve conveniently gotten us both soaked to the skin, we’re at risk for hypothermia if we stay out here much longer. And I’m not dying for the likes of you.”

She stumbled down the hill, kicking her way through knee-deep snow with every step. Man, she was a little spitfire. Maybe not as afraid of him as she should be, and definitely not the teenager he’d first thought her to be. She stood over his go bag, breathing deeply, rubbing her bare hand inside her gloved one, no doubt feeling the cold and damp, especially after that tumble in the snow.

Or maybe she was contemplating another avenue of escape.

Nash shifted the angle of the gun toward her. “Pick it up and don’t try to run again,” he warned. With an answering glare, she hoisted the heavy bag onto her shoulder. It was almost as big as she was. But other than a Spanish curse beneath her breath, she trudged up the hill without further protest or complaint.

Nash, however, struggled to find his footing. His leg ached but felt solid enough. It was more a case of finding his balance and catching his breath. He lurched to his feet, swaying with the first step. White spots swam before his eyes, but it was more than the snow swirling past.

The nurse was several steps ahead of him when she dropped the bag into a drift at the shoulder of the road and turned.

Nash willed the light-headedness to go away and raised the gun toward her. But his left arm hung at his side and his right was getting weaker. “I said—”

“I don’t think I can carry you both,” she groused, marching back down the hill.

He almost laughed at the idea of this little bundle of sass thinking she was going to carry him. But she moved to his right side, wound her arm behind his waist and urged him to put his arm around her shoulders. “Lean on me,” she ordered.

Nash hesitated. She fit right beneath his arm, the perfect height for the crutch he apparently needed. And yeah, it put the crown of that silky dark hair that had fallen out of its ponytail and gotten dotted with snow right beneath his chin. He tightened his grip around the gun that rested on her shoulder when she grabbed his wrist and butted her hip up against his. Was this cozying-up tactic some kind of trick to get the weapon away from him?

“Come on, tough guy.” She latched her fingers around his belt and tugged. “You can get fresh with me in the snow and threaten me with a gun all you want. But if you really want my help, you’ll put your weight on me and move your feet.” She flashed her dark eyes up to him before urging him forward with a jerk at his waist and a grunt of effort. “In about two minutes, my extremities are going to be so numb I won’t be able to do anything for either of us—even if you do shoot. So move.”

He couldn’t have been rescued by some meek, mousy thing who’d do what he said without the attitude? He tapped the butt of the gun against her shoulder. “That’s pretty bold talk for a woman who’s got no advantage.”

“Uh-huh. I’m not the one bleeding to death. Your color’s awful. Your skin is cold to the touch. I don’t want your dead body on my conscience.” She tugged again, forcing him to take a step. “How long have you been losing blood?”

“The leg’s just a graze,” he informed her, bracing more of his weight on her shoulders to limp another step up the hill. “I stanched the hole in my chest,” he ground out as his right boot slipped and he came down hard on his injured leg.

“Nice dodge,” she chided. “That means longer than you want to admit.” She yanked back on his belt to keep him from falling. “So if you won’t tell me about your injuries, then tell me what the other guy looks like.”

The exertion of climbing the hill and keeping his wits about him left Nash gasping for breath. But he kept moving. “You don’t want to know.”

Three steps. Four. They’d reached the tracks in the snow where he’d plowed through the drift on the shoulder of the road. “Is he kidnapping some poor unlucky Good Samaritan, too?”

“Nope. They aren’t doing anything right now.”

“They?” She was breathing as hard as he was when she stopped beside the car and tipped her face up to his. “Wait a minute. Are they...? Did you...?”

“Yeah, darlin’. I killed all three of them.”

“Killed—?”

“I preferred them in the morgue instead of me.”

Her cheeks blanched as she opened the passenger door. “You murdered three men?”

No jury would call what he’d done anything but self-defense. But she didn’t have to know that those hired guns had come to the warehouse to murder him. And Tommy. Remembering the young man dead on the warehouse floor created a different kind of pain in Nash’s chest. He should have dragged the body to his truck, made sure Agent Delvecchio got the proper burial he deserved, instead of letting him lie alongside his own killers on a cold concrete floor. Losing Tommy had been like losing a kid brother. One by one, Graciela and his thugs were taking out the closest thing he had to family. There had to be justice. They had to pay.

Nah. He wouldn’t feel remorse about taking advantage of this woman’s nursing skills or scaring her into the no-questions-asked cooperation he needed. Even if he wound up dead at the end of all this, he was going to make sure the traitor was exposed and no one else on his team died.

“You gonna stop giving me trouble now, Peewee?” He looked down at her and saw the bravado or anger or whatever had fueled her defiance these past few minutes disappear. Now she was finally truly afraid of him. Ignoring a deep stab of guilt and reminding himself of the necessity for haste and maintaining anonymity—for her sake as well as his—he lowered himself into the seat of her midsize car. He pointed the gun over the crest of the hill. “Now the bag. Put it in the back.”

With a nod, she hurried to obey his orders. Fisting the gun in his lap, Nash risked tipping his head back against the headrest and closing his eyes for a few seconds. The heat inside the car was a drugging mix of pain and relief. The thawing nerve endings around his wounds and frozen toes stung like hundreds of needles piercing his skin. Yet drawing warm air into his lungs after so many hours exposed to the elements seemed to ease the constriction in his chest. Maybe it was the influx of oxygen into his system, or maybe these were the last moments of his life seeping away, and all he wanted to do was sleep.

This was humiliating, to be so helpless, so dependent on a frightened woman for survival. And while he might be more comfortable giving orders to his men or smack-talking his way with the bad guys, he’d sweet-talked a woman or two in his day. But that required a degree of thought and patience, and minding the words that came out of his mouth, that he didn’t possess the energy to stay on top of this evening. So he’d resorted to the bull-in-a-china-shop approach to gaining her cooperation.

Once he was in better shape, he’d let her go. She could report him to the local police after she’d gotten him off this exposed stretch of road, stitched him up and bought him a few hours of rest. Of course, by the time he released her and any cops got wind of his presence here in Kansas City, he intended to be long gone.

The car door slammed behind him, startling him from a dozing state, reminding him that he probably needed a good twelve hours of rest and recovery time before he could let his reluctant rescuer contact anyone. That meant he had to stay alert and he had to stay mean to maintain the upper hand and keep her from asking any questions or turning him in. If she never found out who he was or who was after him, the cartel wouldn’t be able to tie him to her. He needed her to believe he was a threat, but Nash intended to walk away without doing more than inconveniencing her for one night. Berto Graciela and Santiago Vargas and their selfish greed were real dangers he wouldn’t risk her life on by making her any kind of witness or information source.

When she opened the driver’s door and got in, the blast of cold air revived him further. “Let’s go.”

Instead of obeying, she cranked the heat, peeled off her remaining glove and rubbed her fingers in front of the heating vent. He could see her visibly shaking now, but he wondered how much of that was the cold and how much was fear. “What’s going to happen to me?”

“Nothing, if you do what I tell you.”

She slid him a sideways glance before focusing on bringing warmth back to her fingers again. “You owe me a new phone.”

The corner of his mouth wanted to crook with amusement at the woman’s refusal to say die. Ignoring his growing admiration for her spirit, though, he reached over and turned the heat back down to low—partly to keep his head clear and partly to remind her who was in charge. “Drive.”

“I’d like to wait until I can feel my toes first.”

He shifted the gun in his lap. “It wasn’t a request.”

She tucked a long strand of tangled hair behind her ear, peeking at him around her hand. Her gaze dropped to the Smith & Wesson pointed at her before she buckled herself in and shifted the car into gear. “You’re a bully, you know that?”

“I know,” he answered, surprised she hadn’t called him worse. Nash checked the mirrors right along with her, ensuring the road was clear in both directions before she pulled out. “Did you give 911 my license plate number?”

“No. I was more worried about your safety. Stupid me, huh?”

Good. That should buy them a few minutes. A police officer, ambulance and fire engine were most likely already en route to the scene. But if she hadn’t reported his truck, then the authorities wouldn’t be able to track him or put his name over the wires until they arrived on site. And he intended to be long gone by then.

She tapped on the brake, slowing their speed as they neared the bottom of the hill. “What are you, a hit man? Drug dealer? Is that what’s in that bag? Your payoff? Drugs and guns? Is there some innocent man somewhere I should have stopped to help instead of you?”

“Less talking, more driving.”

She nudged on the accelerator as they followed the dark ribbon of road up the next hill. “The moisture in the air is freezing on the pavement, so I don’t trust myself to turn around here. I’ll have to drive up to the next intersection or driveway to turn around and get you back to the med center.”

“We’re not going to the hospital.”

“Then where...?” She stomped on the brakes and they started to skid.

His instinctive reaction to reach for the wheel burned through his shoulder like a fresh gunshot. Nash swore as the edge of the road zoomed up to his window.

But she jerked the wheels into the skid, jerked them the other way. Leaving dirt and drift on the blacktop behind them, she steered them back to the middle of the road.

“Easy, Peewee.” Nash gritted his teeth as new waves of pain shot through him. “We need to get there in one piece.”

She slowed their speed and guided them back into the right lane. “Enough with the nicknames, okay?”

He nudged back the front of his jacket and pulled the blood-soaked bandanna from beneath his vest. His time was already limited—he didn’t need a panicked driver cutting it any shorter. “I thought you were a kid when you first walked up to my truck. What are you? Five foot nothin’?”

“I’m five-three. I’m not even the shortest one in my family, and I’m not going to have any personal conversation with you.” She glanced over at the bandanna dripping on his pant leg. “Here.” She released her death grip on the steering wheel to untie the pink scarf from her neck and pull it free. She tossed it across the seat into his lap. “Pack that against the wound. The cold temps have probably slowed the bleeding enough for you to survive this long. You need to see a doctor.”

“I’ve got a nurse.”

“A pediatric nurse,” she reminded him.

Bit by bit, he stuffed the scarf beneath his vest. “Can you stitch up a wound?”

“Yes, but you need antibiotics. Maybe even surgery. At the very least, you need an X-ray to find out what damage that bullet’s done inside you.”

“I’m not going to any damn hospital.”

“Then where am I taking you? The nearest cemetery?”

“That’s a sweet bedside manner you’ve got there, darlin’.” She reached over and shut off the heat. “Turn it back on. You’re shivering.”

“Like you care.” She shook her head. “The cold’s better for you. That’s probably the only reason why you haven’t bled to death yet.”

“You’re a smart girl.”

“I’m not a girl.” She said the word as if it left a sour taste in her mouth.

“No, you’re not.” Her cute little curvy shape and endless backbone proved that. Her grown-up strength was also giving him an idea for plan B or C or whatever letter of the alphabet he was on now with this mess of an assignment. He could see the glow of lights in the distance now, a neighborhood or highway interchange, he guessed. But there was still no oncoming traffic or vehicles on the road behind them. The site of his crash had been swallowed up by hills and darkness. So the ambulance and cops must be coming from the south—not the direction they were headed. He’d have to play the kidnapper for a day or so longer, but he could make this work. “You married?”

“No.”

“Got a boyfriend? Kids? Roommate?”

She smiled, but there was no humor in her tone. “I’ve got a big brother who’s a cop. A fugitive like you is probably already on his radar.”

Good. “So no boyfriend, either.”

“I didn’t say—”

“Eyes on the road,” he warned when she glared at him again. “You don’t play the big-brother card unless you’ve got no other man in your life to stick up for you. You live alone.”

Her fists tightened around the steering wheel. “My personal life is none of your business.”

This plan was going to work. The woman lived alone and no one was expecting her. She had the skills he needed—if he could just keep her in line. “A pretty little thing like you with that sassy mouth and no husband or boyfriend? Are you a widow or a workaholic?”

“Am I a...?” He met her glare this time, and she quickly glanced away. “It’s...complicated.”

As intriguing as that answer might be to follow up on, Nash had the information he needed. She lived alone. No one was expecting her for a date. No one would worry if she didn’t check in for the next few hours. Steer clear of the cop big brother—if he wasn’t just a story she’d made up to try to intimidate him—and this plan could work. “Trust me. I understand complicated.”

“I bet you do.” They passed a sign indicating a state highway up ahead. She pointed to the traffic lights in the distance. “Am I taking you to your place? Just tell me where to turn. I’m bad with street names. I promise if I see the address, I’ll erase it right out of my head.”

“I’m not from here.”

“Are we going to your hideout?”

“Hideout?” Amusement threatened a smile again. “Isn’t that a little Sam Spade-ish?”

“Whatever you call it. To meet up with your friends? Will they take care of you? Or are they the three men who did that to you?”

“They were from...” Ah, hell. He was saying too much. He didn’t want to give her any names or places she might share later. “I don’t have friends in K.C.”