Read Online The Huntress: full-length sexy romantic suspense by Dorothy McFalls - Free Book Online Page B

passenger side before her toes could touch the ground. The determined gleam in his brown eyes and cold flatness of his voice only added to her concern.
    She wobbled a bit when her feet first landed on the pavement. “You’re still in my custody.”
    “You sure you weren’t hit by that sniper in the swamp?” he asked. His dark gaze touched her. Vega glanced down at her leather coat. It was caked with a mixture of dried mud and shiny fresh blood.
    She was hurting but not from any new injuries.
    “You’re still in my custody,” she said again, making sure he understood her determination.
    He curled his hand around her arm and narrowed his eyes. “I am?” Flat. Hard. Dangerous. “And what do you intend to do about it?”
    She couldn’t very well overpower him. Her head was swimming and sharp pins were pricking fire all up and down her arm. And her eyesight was so blurry she could barely see.
    Damn, she was in trouble. Even so, she wasn’t willing to let him go.
    She couldn’t. Someone else might get hurt if she did.
    With a sigh of irritation, she pulled away from him and headed straight to the store’s front counter. A hefty woman in her mid fifties sat in a stool behind the counter. An assortment of guns, stuffed animals, and trophy fish hung from the walls. Two people were screaming at each other on the television perched high on a shelf across the room. The clerk peeled her sleepy gaze from the set and frowned as Vega approached. Her hand disappeared under the counter. A gun, probably a meaty 45, was no doubt hidden under there.
    “I need help,” Vega demanded. Her vision swam.
    “There’s a payphone outside,” the woman drawled with thick lowcountry flavoring.
    “I know. But—but you don’t understand.” Vega fought the dizziness as best she could. She leaned heavily on the counter, smearing it with mud. “You need to call for help…”
    Grayson appeared by her side. His hand closed around her arm. The woman behind the counter rose from her stool, her shoulders taut with suspicion.
    “Been hunting all night,” he said, matching the woman’s rich accent. “My girl fell into a deep mud hole, you see. She ain’t none too happy. She’s been wanting to call her mamma and cry about her ruined clothes.”
    The woman let loose a deep breath. Her whole body seemed to relax into Grayson’s honeyed smile. “First time in the swamp, dearie?”
    “It sure was,” he answered before Vega could utter a word. He squeezed her arm just below the bullet wound. The searing pain kept her quiet. Hell, it was all she could do to keep her feet underneath her. “I’d still be out there, but I ran short of bullets. You wouldn’t happen to have any, would you?”
    “What’cha shooting with?”
    He leaned forward. “Just a toy, really. A Glock 9.”
    Vega tried to pull away. He squeezed her arm even harder. She nearly sank to her knees as a fresh wave of blinding pain struck her.
    “Sure she’s okay?” the clerk asked. She leaned over the counter to get a better look at Vega. “She doesn’t look too good.”
    Vega’s tongue felt like it weighed a ton. She wanted to speak, to demand the woman’s help, but her damned tongue just wouldn’t cooperate. And the pain. Oh God, she couldn’t seem to push through the searing raw pain where Grayson was pinching her shoulder. It kept her mind from working right.
    “She’s fine.” She heard Grayson answer. His voice sounded vaguely distant. She fought to hold onto consciousness as she watched a wad of her cash being pushed across the counter and disappearing into the clerk’s hands. “The bullets?”
    “Might have something in the back.” The clerk slipped through a narrow door.
    “I won’t let you kill me,” Vega finally managed to get out through the blurring pain. “I’m a far cry from dead.”
    He answered with an emotionless stare. “I’m thirsty. Let’s go look at what they have in the cooler.” Without giving her a choice, he pulled her toward