Holiday Mountain Conspiracy by Liz Shoaf

Author:Liz Shoaf
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2019-08-07T13:13:49+00:00

TWELVE

Ned winced when Mary Grace sat upright and whispered loudly enough to draw anyone hunting them to their location. “What is it? Is something out there? Ned! Do you hear me?”

It was so dark beneath all the cypress trees loaded with hanging moss, he could barely see her pale face. Instead of answering, he reached out and laid a hand on her shoulder. Leaning in close, he whispered in her ear, “It’s probably a wild animal. I’ll check the perimeter. It’ll only take a few minutes.”

But it wasn’t an animal. Krieger had been trained and the growl he released portended trouble, of the human kind. Ned admired her quick assessment of the situation when she grabbed his hand on her shoulder and squeezed it tight, lowering her voice even more.

“We can’t stay here. You would have left the swamp earlier, but I know you were worried about my safety, so you chose to spend the night. I don’t know if the person who blew up the shack and shot at us has found us, but we’re sitting ducks. It’s been a long time, but I know this swamp pretty well. I can get us out of here. I know several shortcuts to Gram’s, but we’ll have to go slowly and watch out for sinkholes.” Ned could barely make out her anticipating grin. “If whoever is after us gets caught in the swamp mud, they’ll have to remove their boots to get out and that’ll slow them down.”

Ned assessed her hasty plan. A swamp was dangerous at night, which is why he had decided to stay put with a woman and fluff dog in tow, but a swamp in Georgia was far different than some of the places he had fought while in the military.

“Can’t you at least trust me on this?” she hissed quietly.

The annoyance in her voice made him smile—something he’d done more of since meeting Mary Grace than he had in a long time. He knew the heavy guilt he carried over Finn had pretty much taken over his life, but he was so close to finding the culprit, or culprits, he could almost smell it. But to answer Mary Grace’s question. Did he trust her? She still hadn’t told him what she’d found in the shack. But in the end, did it matter? After this was over, they would go their separate ways.

“Maybe.” He grunted when a sharp elbow jabbed him in the side. Not many people would’ve had the courage to do what she had just done, much less argue with or tease him. And that included his own family, at least since the incident with Finn.

“Just for that I might let you fall into a bog and leave you there.”

“You wouldn’t do that,” he surprised himself by saying.

She sniffed. “Well, at least you trust me that much. Let’s grab our gear and go.”

“Let’s get out of here,” he agreed.

“Fine by me. I’ll lead the way. Stay close. I have a flashlight in my backpack, but I won’t turn it on until we reach the dangerous places.

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