Desire & Ice: A MacKenzie Family Novella (The MacKenzie Family) by Christopher Rice Read Free Book Online Page B

now?" she asked.
    It was kind of hilarious they were having this intimate exchange with the two of them back in their previous positions, her head resting on his lap as he sat cross-legged with his back against the wall, both of them staring at the padlocked door. She'd make a note to laugh about it later, once they were truly safe.
    "For a little while. Sure."
    "Danny…"
    "Yes, Eliza."
    "We're gonna get out of this cabin, right?"
    "What's the rush? I can think of plenty of other things I can do to your body without taking my eyes off the door."
    "Be serious, Danny."
    "We're gonna be fine, Eliza. I promise. Soon as this storm lets up, Coop's gonna be on our trail if he isn't already. First place he'll go is the ranch and first thing he'll see will be my patrol car all shot to hell."
    "Yeah, but how will he find us here?"
    "We're not that far away, for one. And second, a bunch of us worked the cattle roundup that night so it's fresh in everyone's minds. We were all right here in this cabin getting our supplies together just a few weeks ago. He'll find us, I promise."
    "Wow."
    "What?"
    "You really were thinking this all the way through, the whole time. Even while we were running from those bastards."
    "Yep."
    "That'll get you an A plus too."
    It wasn't just a quick escape he'd plotted as windows shattered and gunfire cracked the air all around them, but a rescue plan as well. She found that as sexy as his smile, as sexy as what he'd done to her with his fingers and his focus and his sensitivity to her bliss. Blame four years of being with a man whose solutions to the problems he kept bringing down on their house were anything but. Just snappy answers he'd pulled from his ass at the eleventh hour.
    She didn't need a man to take care of her, but it sure was nice when one was up to the task.
    "You start to feel drowsy, you let me know, okay?" she said.
    "Is that your way of telling me you're feeling drowsy?"
    "Kinda. Yeah."
    "All right, well. Don't you worry. I'll wake you up if I need to."
    "Good."
    "But I won't need to."
    "All right, well…"
     
     
    The next thing she knew she was coming up out of a dead sleep as something slammed against the cabin's door with enough force to bring the entire structure down.
    She was standing before she knew what was happening.
    The fire in the stove still burned. But the stack of wood in the corner was shorter by a third. And there was a new, soft light all around her. Daylight, she realized. Or the earliest, faintest version of peeking in around the edges of the boarded up window and through little cracks in the walls it had been too dark to see the night before.
    My God, how long had she slept?
    Gun raised, Danny was advancing on the door.
    "State your name!" he bellowed.
    A voice on the other side. "The fucking sheriff of fucking Surrender, Montana. How's that, you crazy dipshit?"
    Danny took a deep breath. His entire frame sagged.
    He holstered his gun, undid the padlock, and threw open the door. There stood Cooper MacKenzie, in uniform, with the same dazzling eyes that were practically the man's signature.
    Cooper said, "I'm going to go out on a limb here and say you might know something about these two dead jackasses out here in the woods."
     

6
    "I want to see them," Eliza said.
    "Trust me," Danny answered. "You don't."
    He'd just returned to the cabin after taking to the woods with Coop and the three locals he'd deputized for the very simple reason they all owned Ford pickups capable of making the drive there. An access road led to the Flynns' hunting cabin, but it was as iced over as the rest of the town, which meant even once the snow had died down, a twenty-minute drive had taken their search party almost three hours.
    Danny had seen some bad accidents since he'd joined the force. But the bloody scene Cooper had led them to halfway down the hill was one for the books, that was for sure.
    "Danny––"
    "I know. I know, Eliza. I get it. They tried to kill us so you need to be sure