Tag, You're It! by Penny McCall Read Free Book Online

Alex."
    "Yeah, that helps. If you want to make me feel better, tell me this is about world peace or… something equally critical," she finished when she couldn't come up with anything bigger than that.
    "It's not world peace," Tag said, "but it's important enough to the guys in the plane to try to kill me."
    She crossed her arms and waited.
    "Ever hear of the Lost Spaniard?" he asked.
    Her mouth dropped open and for a second she gaped at him. Then she did the one thing she never could have imagined under the circumstances. She threw her head back and laughed.
    "IT'S COLD BACK HERE."
    "We're outside," Alex said. "It's spring in the mountains. It's cold everywhere."
    You'd never know it to look at her, swaying along with Jackass's ambling gait, not hunching into her collar or blowing on her hands. Of course, she was wearing sheepskin and she was mounted on a nice, warm horse. Tag was wrapped in a couple of thin blankets and huddled on the supply sled, which spent more time plowing through the snow than gliding over it. His ass was wet. And frozen.
    "Isn't this one of those times we should be sharing body heat?"
    Alex reached forward to give the horse a couple of fond pats. "Jackass and I have all the body heat we can handle, thanks."
    "You're doing this because I pointed a gun at you, right?"
    "I'm doing this because you burned my cabin down."
    "I didn't burn it down."
    She half turned in the saddle to look at him. Even in the darkness he knew that expression. It made him defensive in a way he couldn't ignore. "Fine," he said, "so I had the bad luck to fall on you."
    "Bad luck for me," she muttered, turning back around.
    "Then I guess you could say it was your bad luck that resulted in your cabin being burned down."
    "You could say that 'til hell froze over and I'd still blame it on you."
    "This is hell, and it has frozen over," Tag said, peering around and finding nothing but trees and snow. There'd been nothing but trees and snow since they'd left the cabin behind. And cold. You'd think the frigid air would numb some of the pain of falling out of a plane, but no, the cold made his bruises sting and his joints ache like an arthritic granny.
    The only good thing about the journey was that it seemed to be all downhill.
    "Trust me, this isn't hell," Alex said grimly. "Hell is a long way east of here."
    No, Tag thought. Hell was being responsible for the death of the best friend you'd ever had. And if he kept thinking like that he'd have to roll off the sled and put himout of his misery. If Alex Scott didn't do him that favor first. "I'll let you know when I get there," he said, "which will be right after I freeze to death."
    She sighed dramatically and reined Jackass in, climbing down from the saddle and pulling out the flashlight she kept in her emergency pack. "Not exactly Indiana Jones, are you?"
    Tag peered up at her, blinking in the sudden light. "I never said I was."
    He didn't really look the part either. No fedora, no scarred bomber jacket. With his dark hair ruffled by the wind and a day's growth of stubble, he had the scruffy part down, but the physical resemblance ended there. It wasn't the physical that had made her think of Indiana Jones, though. It was the impression that the guy shivering and glaring at her from the sled like a sulky little boy was also a guy who could hold his own when things got rough. The kind of guy who could fall out of a plane, wake up a prisoner, and still proposition her.
    The kind of guy she needed to be wary of.
    "I'm on the verge of a hypothermic coma. How much farther is it?" he asked. "Where's the town?"
    "We're not there yet."
    "Then why are we stopping?"
    "I'd never forgive myself if you sink into a hypothermic coma."
    Tag gave her a look that made her grin. Probably not the reaction he was going for. "Jackass needs a break," she said, "we'll walk for a while."
    "We?"
    "Walking will get your blood pumping, warm you right up."
    "Sure," Tag muttered, sounding even crankier, if