Covert Christmas

by Marilyn Pappano

  “Is that what you mean by looking out of place?” Natalia asked dryly.

  “He fits the description for me. What do you think, Nat? I’ve always been on the nonviolent side of the business. The last time I hit someone was when Brent Jacobi and I fought over Melissa Cardone in eighth grade, and I broke my hand.” He grinned ruefully. “Turned out she didn’t like either of us. She was after Joe.”

  Her smile was faint, but reassuring. “Work your way to the left, but stay with that bunch of girls. When I give you the signal, run like hell. The door’s just past the sporting goods place.”

  “What signal?” he asked as she moved behind him, out of his sight.

  “You’ll know it when you hear it.”

  That didn’t sound good. Josh increased his pace, pushing past people to get behind a dozen teenage girls who didn’t seem to be shopping for anything more than pricey coffee drinks. He didn’t look back but felt the pressure of Natalia’s hand holding onto his jacket.

  Davison changed course to intersect with them before the exit, and the murmurs of irritation rising behind them suggested the skinny guy was moving in, too. Farther ahead, someone else was in a hurry, too, this guy a stranger, leaving disgruntled shoppers in his wake.

  “Come on, Nat. Do something.” At this rate, the clowns were going to grab them less than fifty feet from the door, and they’d have no choice but to go along.

  And then they’d die.

  A broad grin spread across Davison’s face as he stopped a few yards away. Josh stopped, too, to avoid getting swept right into his arms.

  “You won me a fifty-dollar bet, Saldana. Frank said that wasn’t you. Said it was too clean-cut. But a shave and a haircut don’t fool me. I’ve spent so much time looking for you that I’ve been seeing your ugly face in my dreams.”

  “Sorry, Mickey,” Josh said easily, “but you’re not my type.”

  Davison made an obscene gesture, then opened his coat to show the pistol he wore. “Don’t make me—”

  A piercing scream echoed through the mall, damn near bouncing off the rafters. “Oh, my God, that man in the Bears jacket has a gun!” Natalia shrieked. “Help, help, he has a gun!”

  Panic erupted, people shouting, jostling, running. Mothers grabbed their children and rammed their strollers into anyone in their way. The girls they’d been following raced into the nearest store in hysterics. Everyone ran—to them, away from them, it didn’t seem to matter.

  “Freeze!” a police officer yelled, and Natalia gave Josh a shove from behind. Giving Davison a wink, he grabbed her hand, and they joined the stampede of shoppers heading for the door.

  The cold hit like a shock wave. People gathered in knots in the parking lot, traffic was snarled, and sirens wailed. When he slowed to a walk, Natalia pulled at him. “They only got Davison. The rest will be after us. Come on.”

  They ran to the end of the building, then started across the parking lot, dodging cars trying to leave. When tires squealed behind them, Josh risked a second to look just in time to see Leeves sighting in on them over the roof of the SUV.

  “Oh, jeez.” For the first time, instead of following, Josh took the lead, finding the energy in adrenaline, dragging Natalia with him and diving behind the cover of a Dumpster a split second before Leeves fired. Instantly they were up and running again, keeping obstacles between them and the SUV. He counted three—no, four more shots before they reached the congestion of the street.

  They turned east on the easier path of the sidewalk, though they couldn’t stay in the open for long. Either Leeves would leave the truck and come after them on foot, or he would send his people after them. They had to disappear first.

  “Cab,” Natalia called, and he saw it sitting at a red light ahead. The windows were rolled up and the driver was singing along with the stereo. If the light changed before they got to the intersection—

  Like the scream in the mall that had set off a thousand heart attacks, the whistle she gave could have pierced eardrums. It penetrated the closed windows and the music, making the cabbie turn their way. He cracked the window and grinned. “Want a ride?”

  Josh jerked open the back door, gave Natalia half a second to slide inside before he dove in practically on top of her. “Man, I’m really too old for this shit.”

  Chapter 5

  “Drive toward downtown,” Natalia instructed as she pulled the duffel’s strap over her head. “But take the long way. Through the residential areas.” She started to slide across the seat, but Josh caught her hand, holding her where she was. Tension of a new kind streaked through her, making her heart stutter and her muscles go weak.

  His cheeks were ruddy from the cold, his eyes bright with hyperalertness. When he eased his grip a bit, his hand shook, and his breathing was slow to return to normal. He looked…incredible.

  “You kids all ready for Christmas?” the driver asked.

  “As ready as we’ll ever be. How about you?”

  “Nah, that’s my wife’s department. She’s been shopping since June. We’ve got six kids and seventeen grandkids. It takes a long time. So…you just killing time before all the fun starts?”

  “Yeah. It’s his first time in Augusta. I thought we’d give him plenty to see.” With a deep breath—casual conversation was so not her strong suit—she leaned back, resting her head against the seat, closing her eyes.

  She was breathing slowly—the scent of Josh, hair-color chemicals, taxicab smells—when something different caught her attention. It was faint until she rolled her head to the left and concentrated. She knew the smell—it was one of those you never forgot—and it was coming from Josh. From his hoodie, to be exact.

  Setting the duffel on the seat next to the door, she twisted to face him, lifting the black hood where it hung down his back. She ran her fingers over the fabric and swallowed hard when her index finger slid neatly through a hole on one side of the hood and out another on the opposite side. The pounding of her heart made her breath catch audibly, and he turned a concerned look on her. Following her stare, he twisted to look over his shoulder, then grabbed the hood and stretched it around so he could see.

  His face paled. She was sure she’d gone even whiter.

  One of Leeves’s shots had torn right through the hood, an inch, no more than two, from Josh’s head, leaving behind ragged fabric and the smell of gunpowder. With the high-powered ammunition Leeves preferred, just a few millimeters to the right, and likely no wound would have been survivable.

  Josh had almost been killed.

  Grabbing the sides of his jacket, she yanked him forward and pressed her mouth to his. It was a fierce kiss, filled with fear and anger and wanting and needing. Dear God, if he’d been hit, if he’d died, what reason would there be for her to go on?

  If her ferocity stunned him at first, soon enough he’d recovered. He slid his arms around her, pulling her as near as he could in the cramped seat, and kissed her back with just as much fear and anger and wanting. His hands slipped beneath her jacket, roaming restlessly, tugging at her shirt, seeking bare skin. She shuddered and made a soft little whimper, swallowed by his mouth.

  “Where are you fro—” The driver chuckled. “It’s hard when you’re staying with your folks and can’t get any privacy, isn’t it? Never mind me. I’ll keep my eyes forward and my mouth shut.”

  Barely able to make sense of his words, Natalia laid her palms against Josh’s cheeks. It had been nearly three years since she’d touched him, but her hands remembered the feel of him. Her skin knew him; her fingers delighted in the shape and the touch of him. Her hands, her mouth, her whole body, knew this was home.

  Desperate for air, she drew back just enough to break the kiss. Their noses still bumped, and his strangled breathing warmed her lips. His eyes darkened to a stormy blue, he whispered, “Did you believe I loved you?”

  She was halfway through a shake of her head when it became a nod. She’d been afraid to believe it—afraid that her father was right and she wasn’t wo
rth it, that he’d disappear and break her heart. But somewhere deep inside she’d believed enough to love him back.

  “That’s why I did it,” he continued to whisper, the words little more than a brush of air between them. “Why I made the deal with the Feds. I wanted a chance to be normal. I wanted to be better than I was, to have something to offer you.” His expression turned abashed. “To stay out of prison, too, but to have a reason to stay out. To straighten up and be someone you could be proud of.”

  “I would have run away with you at any time.”

  “I didn’t know that. I didn’t know…”

  A lot of things. That she was no better than the life he’d wanted to leave behind. That she was more a liar than he’d ever been. That she wasn’t someone he could be proud of.

  The hope and heat and pleasure generated by their kiss deflated, sinking heavily in her stomach. “And finding out changed everything.”

  He gazed past her for a time before giving her a raised-brows look that substituted for a shrug. “I make a lot of bad decisions, Nat.”

  The lump in her stomach turned to ice as she carefully disengaged from him and sat back. Which was his latest bad decision? Kissing her? Admitting that he’d loved her? Tracking her down in the first place?

  He let her go, but not her hand. His fingers gripped hers firmly, holding it on his knee. His head turned away from her, staring out the window, he quietly asked, “Where were you before Chicago?” No need for such intimate whispers now.

  Speaking required a deep breath and more effort than she’d expected. “I ran away from home when I was fifteen and wound up in Jacksonville. I hadn’t had any contact with the family for years when I started getting letters from my youngest half sister. She had located me somehow, and she wanted to…to be sisters.”

  There’d been no possibility of that when she’d lived at home; Traci had encouraged both girls to treat Natalia the same way their parents did, and the older one had delighted in it. Allie had tried to be friendly, but after seeing Natalia punished for it, she’d taken to ignoring her completely.

  “Our father found out, and he threatened me. He never made idle threats, so I left town the next day. Chicago was as far as I could go on the money I had.”

  Josh looked at her. “And there you met Patrick. Then me. You ever notice how fate has a way of screwing with some people?”

  Her own look was dry enough to rattle. “Fate, destiny, fortune…my whole life has been a cluster—”

  “Nat! Goody Two-shoes don’t say that word.”

  She primly closed her mouth, waited a beat, then murmured, “I’ve said it before.”

  “Not to me. And you never can—” he leaned closer and his voice dropped to a husky, make-her-blood-pump shiver “—unless we’re both naked and have a lot of time to pass.” He followed the words with a wink and an impossibly sexy grin before settling back to watch the scenery again.

  Both naked. Her heart was beating wildly again. He was entertaining the possibility that they could have wild, wicked sex at least once more. Just the idea made her throat dry and her stomach flip-flop. She had resigned herself to living the rest of her life the way she’d spent the past few years—celibate—but a few kisses, a few words and a wink, and she was ready to strip down then and there.

  Even if it was his latest bad decision.

  Even if it meant getting her heart broken all over again.

  Even if this time she might not recover.

  She scoffed. She hadn’t recovered the last time. She’d lived like a robot—doing the jobs the Mulroneys demanded of her, too defeated to run again, too hopeless to care. The closest she’d come to really living had been her weeks in Copper Lake, with Joe and, later, Liz. Even though, their biggest value to her had been the constant reminders of Josh. She’d just existed, and, after fleeing there to avoid arrest, she’d hardly done even that.

  From the last time she’d seen Josh in Chicago to the moment she’d recognized him in the yard last evening, she’d barely been getting by.

  There should be more to life than barely getting by.

  Traffic got lighter as they neared downtown. Most businesses had closed early for Christmas Eve, their employees gone to the malls for shopping or home to prepare for the festivities. The cabdriver would be wanting to head that way soon to get in as much time as he could with his six kids and seventeen grandkids. She and Josh needed a plan, and the only one coming to mind was the one he’d rejected: turning themselves in. It was rational. Sane. Relatively safe.

  But would he ever forgive her for betraying him a second time?

  They were stopped at a red light when she saw a fast-food restaurant ahead, its neon light flashing Open. Her stomach clenching, she looked at Josh, mouthed, Bathroom break, then leaned over the seat. “Excuse me, sir, could you pull in there just for a minute?”

  The driver grinned. “It’s your meter, hon. You can take as long as you want.”

  When Josh started to open the passenger door, she stopped him. “I’ll be right back. Watch my bag, will you?”

  Hesitation crossed his face, but finally he closed the door again. “If you need anything—”

  “I’ll fire three times in the air.”

  “Hell, don’t waste the ammo.”

  She flashed him a smile before climbing out, hustling the few feet to the restaurant door and disappearing inside. It wasn’t much warmer inside than out, leaving condensation thick on the windows. She got change from the counter girl, then did go to the bathroom—one of the few pieces of intelligent advice Mickey Davison had ever given her: never miss a chance to take a leak. But her real goal was the pay phone in the bathroom hallway.

  Her hands trembled when she picked up the receiver and dropped in a coin. It took courage to dial the numbers, and she almost hung up with every ring. Josh would be furious with her for going against him, and even more so for involving others, but she had no idea where else to turn late on Christmas Eve afternoon.

  “Hi, you’ve reached Liz at A Cuppa Joe. Merry Christmas, and why aren’t you here at the shop celebrating our first and hereafter annual Christmas Eve coffee klatch?”

  Natalia wasn’t sure whether the faint feeling came from hunger, dread, stress or simply hearing Liz’s voice again, all bright and happy, but she braced herself against the wall. “Hey, Liz. It’s Natalia. I—I need your help.”

  Josh didn’t realize he was holding his breath until the glass door swung open and Natalia came out. She looked fine, unharmed, beautiful and troubled—and that last part came from him. He was tired of putting those expressions on the faces of people he loved.

  “I guess our tour’s lasted long enough,” she announced, giving the driver an address.

  Josh wondered where they were going, but in minutes they were at their destination: a waterfront park called Riverwalk. He paid off the cabbie, traded Christmas well-wishes with him, then shouldered the duffel as the car drove away. “This is it?”

  “No, we’re headed a few blocks away. But this is my favorite place in Augusta. I come here on pretty days. I just want to see it…”

  One last time? Before something happened, before she had to flee again?

  She took his hand and they walked past the statue of James Oglethorpe and through an opening in the levee. The Savannah River looked dark and cold. His parents were a couple hours down that river, but he’d never felt farther from them.

  Natalia didn’t linger long staring at the river. After a moment, she gazed around the early winter darkness with a shiver, then smiled tautly. “We should go.”

  It took a few minutes of brisk walking to reach a squat, square building. In earlier days, it might have been a department or furniture store, but now it was home to a shelter. He gazed in the plate-glass windows and saw bright lights, Christmas decorations, lots of tables and chairs and people milling about. Most of them looked happy to have someplace to be on Christmas Eve, out of the cold and with the promise of a hot meal.

  They
were greeted by a shelter worker, given cups of cocoa and directed to tables laid out with Christmas cookies, snacks, cheeses and breads. From the kitchen at the back came the aromas of dinner cooking.

  “Nice spread,” he commented.

  “People donate a lot of food at Thanksgiving and Christmas. The holiday spirit, you know.” Natalia didn’t sound as cynical as he thought she might have twenty-four hours earlier.

  Most of the chairs and sofas were occupied, so they found a table they could lean against near a large central pillar and still see most of the large room. Josh located an exit on the south side of the building and a sign indicating another at the rear on the north side. Always like to know where the exits are, don’t you? Damn straight.

  Not a way for a grown man to live, huh?

  Damn straight.

  In the center of the room stood a Christmas tree, decorated with twinkling lights and glass balls. Children sat beside it with their parents, young couples held hands and gazed at it longingly, and old men stared sightlessly at it, probably lost in memories of better times, happier Christmases.

  He didn’t want another homeless-shelter Christmas in his future—or Natalia’s. You could run from your problems for only so long. Even if they didn’t catch up with you, there was always the fear that they would, and that was no way to live. It was no way to ask someone else to live.

  But testifying against the Mulroneys, probably having to be relocated with a new identity, leaving his parents and his brother behind for the rest of his life…

  Or refusing to testify, going to trial and hoping that the Mulroneys didn’t have someone in the system kill him to send a message. Asking Natalia to wait five or ten years on the off chance that he did survive, hoping that his enemies didn’t take their revenge on her…

  He sighed heavily, and she looked at him. “What?”

  “I hate it when the only choices are crappy, crappier and crappiest.”

  Her pretty features screwed into a frown, but before she could ask when he meant, movement near the main entrance caught his attention. Two men had just come through the door, and three more waited outside at the curb where a van sat. The cost of Clive Leeves’s suit would have fed the shelter’s clients for a month or two, and some of them recognized that as they eyed him speculatively. They paid little attention to skinny, cranky Frank at his side.