A Cavanaugh Christmas by Marie Ferrarella Read Free Book Online Page B

up.
    Anticipating what she was about to say next, he told her, “Cover them, I’ll call the precinct.” Tom lowered his weapon just a shade as he pulled out his cellphone.
    The man on the ground closest to her had a particularly malevolent expression in his dark eyes. It seemed to mock her. Rocking forward, he looked as if he was starting to get up.
    Kait deliberately cocked her revolver, aiming the muzzle straight at him. “Don’t even think about it,” she told the thug, her voice low, threatening. “I’m not as good a shot as my partner is. If you make so much as a move, I’ll shoot. And who knows? I might just hit something important on you. Something you wouldn’t want to part with.”
    Cursing and threatening to get his revenge, the thug nonetheless sank down.
    In the middle of requesting a squad car and a couple of paramedics, Tom glanced in Kait’s direction. He had caught the offhanded compliment she’d just paid him and smiled to himself. Maybe being paired up with this woman wasn’t going to be so bad after all. God knew she was easy on the eyes. If she was good at her job, as well, so much the better.
    Finished with the call, Tom tucked away his phone again.
    “Go back inside and wait for the paramedics,” he told the clerk. The latter quickly vanished. Tom moved in closer to Kait. His eyes swept over her in quick, succinct scrutiny. “You okay?”
    “Sure. The shot he got off never hit me,” she answered, her eyes still trained on the bleeding threesome, all of whom were on the ground, growing more vocal about their pain, as well as anger over being stopped.
    “No, but I did,” Tom said. He realized belatedly that in trying to save her, he could have caused her to sustain a concussion. “Sorry I came down so hard on you. I didn’t bruise you, did I?”
    “Why don’t you check her over to make sure?” the man farthest from the front called out and then leered. “Give us something to look at while we’re waitin’ on that ambulance.”
    Tom was behind the thug in less than a heartbeat. He grasped the loudmouthed thief by the back of his dark, near-shoulder-length hair and jerked his head back. The thief yelped and then snarled. Tom pulled harder.
    “One more word out of you and you’re going to have to learn a whole new way to eat your food, because you’re not going to have any teeth left.” For good measure, he touched just the tip of his gun muzzle to the man’s lower jaw. “Do I make myself clear?” he asked in a low voice.
    “Yeah,” the thief snarled, then stifled a whimper as his hair was drawn back farther. “Perfectly,” he uttered between clenched teeth.
    “Good.” Tom continued to hold on to the man’s hair as he ordered, “Now apologize to the lady.”
    The suggestion was met with rage. “I ain’t— Okay, okay,” the thug cried as pain shot through his scalp because Tom had pulled harder on the strand of hair he had wound around his fingers. “Sorry,” the thief spat out, his small, brown eyes shifting toward Kait. “Didn’t mean anything by it.”
    Kait merely nodded dismissively. She didn’t care to hear any insincere apologies. The man was less than dirt to her, anyway. What he said couldn’t bother her, couldn’t touch her. She’d learned a long time ago how to shut things out, how to compartmentalize.
    And, when that failed, how to shut down entirely. There were times when this skill saved her. It kept her from being conquered by the life she’d never asked for and didn’t deserve.
    The sound of approaching sirens pierced the air, and a squad car arrived just a step ahead of the ambulance that was coming from a different direction.
    Tom backed up to let the paramedics and police officers get closer to the prisoners.
    “You have some kind of knight-in-shining-armor complex?” Kait asked him.
    He assumed she was referring to the interaction with the foulmouthed, would-be thief.
    “No complex. I just wanted to teach that lowlife a lesson.”