Read Online Copy That by Helenkay Dimon - Free Book Online

here.”
    He recognized the tone. Firm and sure and not budging an inch. Still, being a confident woman was not enough. Her attitude didn’t stand a chance against a bullet. “Are you sure you can shoot?”
    “Yes.”
    Not the response he expected. “A person?”
    “Yes.”
    “How do you know?”
    “I know.”
    Against every ounce of common sense inside him, he handed her a weapon. “It’s a semiautomatic. You shoot and it reloads. You’ll have eight bullets, and be prepared for flying cartridges.”
    “I’ve used a semiautomatic before and know how the magazines work.”
    He had to ask. Not knowing was killing him. “You’ve practiced, what, once or twice?”
    “I’ve shot about four thousand rounds, the most recent time being about five days ago.” She held out her hand palm up. “The gun, please.”
    A whole new side of her opened up to him. He wanted to know more. “Is there anything you want to tell me about your past or your life outside the classroom?”
    She inched her hand closer to him. “If we want to find Sara before midnight, you need to find me a gun and we need to go.”

Chapter Seven
    A half hour later Meredith stood in front of a firehouse garage somewhere in downtown San Diego not far from PETCO Park, the baseball stadium. A rusty lock secured the metal brace to the brick wall of the building. A chain-link fence surrounded the property but its bent bottom didn’t exactly shout safety. The black graffiti scrawled across the twenty-foot-high double doors didn’t inspire confidence either.
    “This is it?” She froze when the broken bulb of the safety light crunched under her foot.
    Jeremy leaned one shoulder against the wall. “The point of a safe house is to blend.”
    She glanced down the abandoned street and rows of falling-down garages. “Define ‘blend.’”
    He chuckled. “The neighborhood is in transition.”
    “The place looks abandoned.”
    “Then we set it up right. It’s the perfect cover.”
    “If you say so.”
    When he threw an arm around her shoulder and pressed her tight against his side, her heart sped up to a hyper rat-a-tat beat. With his hair damp from his quick wash-up after the medical attention, he brushed his cheek against hers.
    “There are two cameras at the top of the building and across the street.” The volume of his voice dipped low. “We monitor the entire place all the time.”
    “Is someone here?”
    His gaze bounced all around them as every inch of him went still. “Why, do you see something?”
    “I’m wondering why you’re whispering?”
    “Just in case.”
    When she tried to look up, he gave her a small squeeze she assumed meant not to move. “That seems to be your justification for a lot of things.”
    He pointed at the chained door. “The rust is fake and the fence could stop a truck. There are motion sensors and all the images go to monitors at Garrett’s office and directly to our phones.”
    “Very stealthy.” And a bit scary.
    The over-the-top security both stopped the nerves jumping around in her throat and set her back teeth chattering. Being here went against every minute of training she’d invested in. She never left public places when meeting with a man she didn’t know. For Jeremy, she made an exception. The question was, why? And she really couldn’t come up with a reasonable answer.
    Even injured, with a slight limp from protecting his wounded side, he struck her as being twice as tough as any guy she’d ever met, including Garrett. The dark scowl gave him a sexy in-control look, but his smile... Oh, yeah. The way the corner of his mouth kicked up lit up his whole face, even as it sucked the air right out of her lungs.
    Over the past few hours she’d glanced over only to find him staring back at her. He didn’t turn away or pretend he hadn’t seen her gaze. He met her eyes with a heated look of his own.
    Garrett had walked in and out of her life and filled the role of helpful neighbor during those times when