Page 5 of Lone Star Christmas Mission

Over the past two decades, Cash and she had attempted to resist the fierce attraction, but once—on her 21stbirthday—they’d gotten drunk and landed in bed for some incredible sex.

And her first full-blown panic attack.

That had happened shortly afterward and had been so horrific that Kayla had required hospitalization, and it’d convinced Cash and her that they should keep their hands, and other body parts, off each other. They had succeeded at that, for the most part, anyway.

Until tonight.

He was holding her hand now. Was right next to her. And evidently they were going to be sharing close quarters for a while.

“It’s sort of because of you that I got away from Alvin,” she heard herself say. She was babbling, and this was one notch above small talk, but she wanted to fill the silence. Because if she didn’t, Kayla had learned the hard way that the silence would fill itself with panic. “The Bowie knife I used is…it was supposed to be your Christmas gift.”

The corner of his mouth lifted in a near smile. “Nice gift. Thanks.”

“I’d planned on dropping it off at Maverick Ops’ headquarters first thing in the morning since Christmas is only two days away.”

She stopped, considered the time. It was already morning. Three AM to be exact, and since it was December 24th, Christmas was tomorrow.

“I shipped your gift to your store,” he let her know, and that sounded like small talk, too. “I figured you’d go there before Christmas.”

She would have. In fact, Kayla went there nearly every day, even though she had staff to run the place. Still, she enjoyed just walking around, seeing her own finished work and the pieces of custom furniture that were on consignment from other artisans.

Kayla looked at Cash again, their gazes locking, and the silence returned. So did the wave of emotions, and while she tried to hold back the sob, she wasn’t successful. Tears filled her eyes, and her breath shattered.

Cash sighed and eased his arm around her, pulling her to him, but she felt his muscles stiffen. Felt the hesitation over what he was doing. However, no panic came. Only the comfort, and Kayla found herself sliding right into it. She dropped her head on his shoulder and let the tears fall.

They sat there with Cash holding her. He didn’t offer up any solutions. Didn’t try to fix this. Probably because he knew he couldn’t. He just let her cry it out.

With the fresh round of tears came the bone-weary exhaustion from the ordeal and the spent adrenaline. Kayla might have drifted off to sleep then and there, but his phone buzzed, the sound echoing through the room.

“Sorry,” he muttered, taking out his cell from his pocket. “It’s Maverick Ops’ headquarters,” Cash let her know.

He answered it, and while he didn’t put the call on speaker, Kayla had no trouble hearing what the caller said because she kept her head on his shoulder and right against his ear.

“This is Tammy at dispatch. Cash, someone just called here asking to speak to you. He says he’s Harvin Parker.”

That got her head whipping up from his shoulder. Kayla practically snapped to attention, and her gaze flew to Cash’s.

“I know Ruby’s looking for this guy,” the dispatcher went on, “so I’ll alert her about this.”

“Put the call through to my phone,” Cash instructed, and while he waited, he switched to speaker mode.

Kayla immediately started trying to steel herself up for what she might hear. But there wasn’t a lot of time to do that. Barely a couple of seconds before she heard the man’s voice.

“Cash,” he said, his voice tight with rage. “And I’m guessing that Kayla’s listening. If not, pass along this message to her. Soon, she’ll pay for what she’s done to my father. Soon, the murdering bitch will be dead.”

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Chapter Three

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Cash threaded his SUV around the sharp curves of the rural road toward his house. Like Kayla’s, his place was nowhere near the proverbial beaten path, and at this hour, there was no other traffic.

Well, none of that he saw anyway.

But he kept watch for Harvin just in case the asshole was already lying in wait. Not a lot of people knew where Cash lived, but with all the digital tools and internet resources available, it wouldn’t be hard for Harvin to get the info. Nor would it be hard for Harvin to assume that Cash would be taking Kayla to his place.

That last possibility was giving Cash plenty of concern and having him second guess this, but Kayla was exhausted and in pain. And his house was more secure than a hotel would be.

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