Holiday Mountain Conspiracy

This time the chatter was laced with an undertone of hurt and regret and it made Ned even more curious about Mary Grace. But he clamped down on the sudden protective instinct that rose to the surface as she matter-of-factly discussed a childhood that had to have been fraught with heartache.

He empathized with her pain more than he wanted to and it was time to get the conversation back on track. He had to find Bobby.

“Why would Bobby go to Georgia? If his family lives there, that’s the first place anyone would look for him.”

Relief hit him full force when he glanced at her. The right side of her mouth kicked up and the challenge was back in her eyes.

“You ever been to a swamp, Mountain Man?”

He had fought the enemy plenty of times in a swamp, but decided to let her win this round. For some foolish reason—a reason he didn’t examine too closely—he wanted to see the now-familiar smirk back on her face.

His hands relaxed on the steering wheel as he turned onto the road leading to the airport. “There’s a first time for everything.”

After waving his hand at the guy at the gate, he pulled onto the tarmac right up next to the plane.

Mary Grace gave him an incredulous look. “You can’t just drive onto the tarmac without permission, and don’t we need to go inside and see about the car return and go through security?”

He grabbed her hand, stopping her. “The car will be taken care of and we don’t need to go through security. Stay close to me until we’re on the plane.”

She stared at him for a full minute, then pulled her hand away, her eyes narrowing. “Is this legal? Am I going to end up in jail?”

He couldn’t help it, he grinned through his beard. “Everything is legal, and no, you won’t end up in jail.”

She stared at him a moment longer. “Who are you?” she asked, then grumbled, “Never mind. I’m sure it’s classified.”

She didn’t sound as if she believed him, but after he called Krieger, she and TB did follow him onto the tarmac toward the plane. He stopped halfway there when the fine hair on his nape rose. Mary Grace ran into his back and he pulled her under his arm. Smart woman that she was, she didn’t fight the maneuver.

“What is it?” she asked, her voice muffled under his heavy fleece jacket.

“Stay close to me and run when I say go.”

The instinctual warning system that had saved his life on more than one occasion was screaming a red-hot alert. He took two more steps, moving them closer to the plane before he gave a quiet command. “Go. Now.”

Mary Grace shot out from under his arm, clamored up the steps and barely got through the door before Ned heard a ping on the steps leading into the plane. He took a giant leap forward and slipped into the plane before the sniper could take another shot. Unfortunately, he still didn’t know whom they were shooting at—him or Mary Grace. The bullet could have been meant for either one of them. But the one thing he was sure of was that they needed to get out of there before the sniper found a way to ground them...and finish the job.