Read Betrayed by a Kiss for Free Online Page B

Marnie didn’t know what she’d expected when she finally met MacLain, but she’d hoped it would be a reasonably normal encounter. She should have known better. Marnie didn’t do normal. “Those bodies can be used against you. Put you in jail for good. It’s just Whitman’s style.”
    He nodded, as if humoring her. “Well, there are lines I’m not willing to cross.”
    Marnie couldn’t say the same. “There are people worried about me. Can I use your phone to text them I’m all right?” She didn’t wait for his agreement, texting Caleb Smith, a man who knew her better than she knew herself. He’d give her hell when he discovered how tonight played out, but now she needed his help. Merry Maids at the cop’s cabin! Six p.m. When she was done texting, she deleted it to avoid a fight with MacLain. “Thanks.” She dialed his sister and then held the phone out to him.
    He pressed it to his ear. “It’s me.” He glanced at Marnie. “No. Take Elizabeth to the safe house. From now on, use the new burner phone I gave you.” He disconnected the line and slammed the phone against the steering wheel, opened his window and threw it outside.
    Safe house. In all of her searches on MacLain, she’d never found a digital or paper trail to any safe house. It sounded promising. She could tuck him away there and get on with her plan B. The MacLains had been through enough. She’d take it from here.
    MacLain held out his hand. “Tissue.”
    The box was at her feet. She did him one better. She pressed a handful to his wound. A millimeter more and he’d have been unconscious and they’d both be dead. The gunmen were wearing Kevlar. No way could she have made the shots MacLain did. “You need stitches.”
    “Just bandage it. There’s a first aid kit in the glove compartment.”
    Marnie found it. “Pull over.” Her hands were still shaking, and the prospect of touching him was making her freak out.
    “I’m not stopping until I’m with my family.”
    He did it again. Family talk. I’m not stopping until I’m with my family. She was totally charmed. What Marnie wouldn’t give to live in that kind of world. She took out the first aid kit from the glove compartment and felt every one of her twenty-five years weigh on her.
    He wasn’t going to like it when she told him to drop her off at the nearest town, and truth be told, she wished she could have more time with him, but it was for the best. For him, for her, though she knew he’d try to stop her. Now that MacLain was tipped off and able to protect himself and his family, she had a job to do, a company to dismantle. Sighing and mooning over him was best left for later, when Whitman Enterprises was dead and the people she’d helped to endanger were saved.

Chapter Four
    Dane glanced at Marnie, trying to figure her out. She’d come to save him. No one had ever tried to save Dane before. It felt weird, and a bit delusional. The woman didn’t know enough to put a coat on in sleeting rain, or stay out of a rising creek, and her effectiveness on the battlefield was laughable. Still, it was a nice thought. Her warning about Whitman’s people coming had helped, hell, it’d saved his ass—if she hadn’t led them to him in the first place. Then there was the whole notion of her having evidence that he needed, about Tuttle, about the real murderer who took his wife’s life. If she was telling the truth, he could leapfrog miles of sifting through evidence and solve Alice’s murder sooner rather than later.
    It wouldn’t bring his wife back, but he could move on. Elizabeth, Harper, all of them could move on. Even the possibility she was telling the truth made missing his plane to the Caymans less of a blow. He needed her not to be full of shit.
    When she dabbed at his wound, he flinched, automatically catching her wrist, struggling to read her expression while not running them off the road. The tissue crumpled in her fist, and he felt her shake. She was a strange