Packing Heat by Penny McCall Read Free Book Online Page B

handy thicket of lilac bushes.
    “Fake a twisted ankle,” Cole said, trying to shove her back out into the open. “I’ll circle around and take out the cop.”
    Harmony grabbed two handfuls of shrubbery and refused to be thrown under the bus. “You’ll take off.”
    “You’re the one who keeps saying we have to trust one another,” Cole reminded her, his voice low but fraught with frustration.
    “Fine, you fake a twisted ankle,” she said. “I’ll circle around and take out the cop.”
    “How are you going to manage that?”
    “These hands are lethal weapons,” she said, holding them up, French manicure and all.
    She could all but see Cole rolling his eyes. “Twisted ankles are chick territory, and the cop is less likely to shoot a woman.”
    “Wow. You managed to be a chauvinist twice in one sentence.”
    “I’ve always been an overachiever,” Cole said.
    “Then you might be able to handle chick territory,” Harmony said. “With a little help.” She kicked him in the shin, and when he jackknifed to clutch at the assaulted body part she planted her foot on his butt and sent him stumbling out from behind the bushes.
    “Hey,” the cop yelled, “I mean, freeze.”
    Harmony heard the pounding of feet as she cut the opposite way around the bushes, coming up behind the cop and kicking him in the knee. She used her gun butt on the back of his head at the same time, and he crumpled into a satisfying heap at her feet. And then he jumped back up and lumbered toward her, murder in his eyes and his gun completely forgotten for the more primal urge to strangle her.
    Harmony danced out of his way, heart pounding, no idea how she was going to live up to her big claims to Cole, let alone avoid arrest, when the cop dropped again. This time he didn’t get back up. Any self-congratulatory urges or notions of delayed reaction died when she saw Cole behind the cop. The look on his face was . . . bloodthirsty.
    “You didn’t, uh . . .”
    “He’s not dead,” Cole said, “but it won’t be long before his partner finds him or he wakes up.” He took her by the wrist again. “And then we’re going to discuss your definition of teamwork.”
    “I can walk by myself.” Harmony gave her arm one good, twisting yank that broke his grip, then she set off, getting about two steps before the heel of her shoe caught on some obstacle unseen in the utter darkness and she fell on her backside, hitting Cole below the knees and nearly taking him down with her.
    “You can walk,” he said, his face a white blur above her. “It’s staying upright that seems to be a problem.”
    “Stop manhandling me,” she hissed as she climbed to her feet.
    “You’re lucky I didn’t fall on top of you.”
    “It’s these shoes,” she whispered back. “They’re not exactly outdoor gear.”
    But they made her look like she had a mile of leg. “We have to go cross-country,” Cole said, putting her incredible mile-long legs—and how they’d feel wrapped around him—out of his mind before he lost the blood flow to his brain. “We don’t have a choice.”
    “Then we go cross-country.”
    They didn’t go fast enough for Cole’s preference. He kept the pace down for Harmony’s sake, not to mention his own. He couldn’t afford for her to fall again and maybe turn an ankle. But it worked against them.
    They hit the edge of town and headed into the woodland beyond, Cole pulling her to a stop behind a handy tree while he got his bearings. Noise had a tendency to travel in the country, and there wasn’t anything to mask it, no crickets chirping, no frogs croaking, no sounds of the sidewalks being rolled up since that had apparently happened while they were in the restaurant.
    The troopers were crashing through the underbrush, swearing and making enough noise to wake the dead as they split up and went in different directions. He and Harmony were both wearing dark clothing, but there was enough moonlight coming through the trees to