Leaving Carolina by Tamara Leigh Read Free Book Online

When all that stands between me and death or dismemberment is a bullet?
    The dog shows more teeth, causing my trigger finger to tremble. He’s going to force my hand. I don’t have to shoot to kill, though, just to disable. “Don’t make me do it.” My final warning. “Back off!”
    “Ah, Piper, you aren’t gonna shoot the dog, are you? He’s just doing his job.”
    That hadn’t occurred to me. Does he belong to Uncle Obe? Did the gardener leave him inside to discourage intruders?
    “And he’s good at it.” Bart chuckles. “Got me up a ladder.”
    My cousin, the intruder. “Speaking of which—”
    The dog makes its move. I yelp and seek him in my sights.
Aim low
.
    “Errol! Halt!” A hand reaches from behind me, closes over my gun arm, and swings it to the right.
    Despite my thundering fear, I don’t squeeze the trigger, and I don’t know why. Unless I’m just a pistol-toting wannabe who doesn’t have the guts to pull the trigger on anything beyond a paper target. But in this case that might be a good thing. The growling, fang-bearing beast has transformed into a tail-wagging mutt.
    “Sit!” Axel continues to hold my arm with the pistol pointed at the floor.
    The dog obeys, ears perked and tongue lolling as it looks at the man over my shoulder.
    Warm air sweeps my ear, causing strange sensations to zip through me. “I told you to wait in the car,” Axel says with the studied patience of one speaking to a naughty child.
    That does it—no more sensation. Just me and a man who has no business touching me, especially since I’m practically spoken for. I pop my head around to tell him to remove his paw, but when we come face to face, he looks even better indoors, despite a clenched jaw. It must be the eyes. None of that gray stuff people pass off as blue—myself included. They’re… well… capital-
B
Blue.
    He continues to glare at me, and when I don’t respond, his eyes soften with questioning, but only for a moment. Then he steps from behind and pulls the pistol from my hand. “You could have killed Artemis’s dog.”
    “Or your cousin,” Bart says. “I told her to put down the gun, Axel, but did she listen? No, just as unreasonable as ever.”
    Yanked back to my
unreasonable
self who, for one crazy moment, was attracted to Uncle Obe’s gardener, I reach for my pistol. “Give me that.”
    He flicks on the safety, then slides my pistol into his waistband as he walks farther into the library.
    “That’s mine!” I hurry after him.
    At the base of the rolling ladder that juts out from rows of cloth-and leather-bound tomes, Axel halts. And though I’m tempted to snatch the pistol from his pants, reason prevails. Curling sore fingers into sore palms, I follow his gaze up the ladder.
    My cousin, his back to a jumbled shelf, smiles.
    “Artemis told you what would happen if you were caught sneaking around the property again,” Axel says.
    Bart does surprise well—unless you know him. Then it’s akin to crying wolf. His quirkily appealing face, which has gotten him out of trouble more times than he deserves, opens wide and innocent. “Why, I just dropped by to welcome my long-lost cousin home.” He nods at me, as if seeking agreement.
    Which he doesn’t get.
    “And, I suppose, that required turning off the power while I was in town?”
    Bart’s eyebrows shoot up. “I can’t believe you’re accusing me of something so underhanded.”
    “The switch was thrown on the main power box.”
    “And you think I did it?”
    Axel lowers his gaze, then pointedly trails it up the ladder to where Bart perches near the ceiling. “You came in through a window.”
    “Appearances can be deceiving.” My cousin considers the big dog in the doorway. “Is it safe to come down? I’m getting a cramp.”
    “That depends on whether someone wants to press charges for breaking and entering.”
    Bart chuckles. “You know my uncle won’t do that.”
    “Your cousin might.”
    The eyes Bart turns on me are