The Complete Mackenzie Collection Read online

  “We have apple pie,” he complained. “Why do we need apples?”

  “I’m going to throw them at you,” she said. “Or better yet, shoot them off your head.”

  “If you come near me with an apple, I’ll scream,” he warned. “And pickled beets? Excuse me, but who eats pickled beets?”

  She shrugged. “Someone does, or they wouldn’t be on the shelves.”

  “Have you ever eaten pickled beets?” he asked suspiciously.

  “Once. They were nasty.” She wrinkled her nose at him.

  “Then why in hell did you buy them?” he shouted.

  “I wanted you to try them.”

  He should be used to it by now, he thought, but sometimes she still left him speechless. Muttering to himself, he stowed the groceries—including the pickled beets—in the back of the Explorer.

  God, he was going to miss her.

  She rolled down the window and let the wind blow through her bright hair. She had a happy smile on her face as she looked at everything they passed. Even service stations seemed to interest her, as did the old lady walking a Chihuahua that was so fat its belly almost kept its feet from touching the ground. Sunny giggled about the fat little dog for five minutes.

  If it made her laugh like that, he thought, he would eat the damn pickled beets. But he’d damn sure eat something else afterward, because if he got shot, he didn’t want pickled beets to be the last thing he tasted.

  The late August afternoon was hot when he pulled off the road. A tree-studded field stretched before them. “Let’s walk to those trees over there,” he said, nodding to a line of trees about a hundred yards away. “See how they’re growing, in a line like that? There might be a little creek there.”

  She looked around. “Shouldn’t we ask permission?”

  He raised his eyebrows. “Do you see a house anywhere? Who do we ask?”

  “Well, all right, but if we get in trouble, it’s your fault.”

  He carried the cooler and most of the food. Sunny slung her backpack on her shoulders, then took charge of the ground cloth and the jar of pickled beets. “I’d better carry these,” she said. “You might drop them.”

  “You could take something else, too,” he grunted. This stuff was heavy.

  She stretched up to peek in the grocery bag. The apple pie was perched on top of the other stuff. “Nah, you won’t drop the pie.”

  He grumbled all the way to their picnic site, more because she enjoyed it than any other reason. This was the last day she would ever tease him, or he would see that smile, hear that laugh.

  “Oh, there is a creek!” she exclaimed when they reached the trees. She carefully set the jar of beets down and unfolded the ground cloth, snapping it open in that brisk, economical movement all women seemed to have, and letting it settle on the thick, overgrown grass. Alight breeze was blowing, so she anchored the cloth with her backpack on one corner and the jar of beets on the another.

  Chance set the cooler and food down and sprawled out on the cloth. “I’m too tired now to enjoy myself,” he complained.

  She leaned over and kissed him. “You think I don’t know what you’re up to? Next thing I know you’ll get something in your eye, and I’ll have to get really, really close to see it. Then your back will need scratching, and you’ll have to take off your shirt. Before I know it, we’ll both be naked and it’ll be time to leave, and we won’t have had a bite to eat.”

  He gave her a quizzical look. “You have this all planned out, don’t you?”

  “Down to the last detail.”

  “Suits me.” He reached for her, but with a spurt of laughter she scooted out of reach. She picked up the jar of beets and looked at him expectantly.

  He flopped back with a groan. “Oh, man. Don’t tell me you expect me to try them now.”

  “No, I want you to open the jar so I can eat them.”

  “I thought you said they were nasty.”

  “They are. I want to see if they’re as nasty as I remember.” She handed him the jar. “If you’ll open them for me, I’ll let you eat fried chicken and potato salad to build up your strength before I wring you out and hang you up to dry.”

  He sat up and took the jar. “In your dreams, little miss ‘don’t-touch-me-again-you-lech.”’ He put some muscle behind the effort, twisting the lid free.

  “I’ve been sandbagging,” she said. “This time, don’t even bother begging for mercy.”

  She reached for the jar. The loosened lid came off, and the jar slipped from her hands. He dived for it, not wanting beets all over everything. Just as he moved, the tree beside him exploded, and a millisecond later he heard the blast of the shot.

  He twisted in midair, throwing himself on top of Sunny and rolling with her behind the cover of the tree.

  Chapter 13

  “Stay down!” Chance barked, shoving her face into the grass.

  Sunny couldn’t have moved even if she had wanted to, even if his two hundred-plus pounds hadn’t been lying on top of her. She was paralyzed, terror freezing in her veins as she realized her worst nightmare had come true; her father had found them, and Chance was nothing more than an obstacle to be destroyed. That bullet hadn’t been aimed at her. If she hadn’t dropped the jar of beets, if Chance hadn’t lunged for it, the slug that blew chunks of wood out of the tree would have blown off half his head.

  “Son of a bitch,” he muttered above her, his breath stirring her hair. “Sniper.”

  The earth exploded two inches from her head, clods of dirt flying in her face, tiny pieces of gravel stinging her like bees. Chance literally threw her to the side, rolling with her again; the ground dropped out from beneath her, and her stomach gave a sickening lurch. As suddenly as the fall began, it stopped. She landed hard in three inches of sluggish water.

  He had rolled them into the creek, where the banks afforded them more cover. A twist of his powerful body and he was off her, his big pistol in his hand as he flattened himself against the shallow bank. Sunny managed to get to her knees, slipped on the slimy creek bottom, and clambered on her hands and knees to a spot beside him. She felt numb, as if her arms and legs didn’t belong to her, yet they were working, moving.

  This wasn’t real. It couldn’t be. How had he found them?

  She closed her eyes, fighting the terror. She was a liability to Chance unless she got herself under control. She’d had close calls before and handled herself just fine, but she had never before seen the man she loved almost get killed in front of her. She had never before been pregnant, with so much to lose.

  Her teeth were chattering. She clamped her jaw together.

  Silence fell over the field. She heard a car drive by on the road, and for a wild moment she wondered why it didn’t stop. But why would it? There was nothing the average passerby would notice, no bodies lying around on the highway, no haze of gun smoke hanging over the green grass. There was only silence, as if even the insects had frozen in place, the birds stopped singing; even the breeze had stopped rustling the leaves. It was as if nature held its breath, shocked by the sudden violence.

  The shot had come from the direction of the road, but she hadn’t seen anyone drive up. They had only just arrived themselves; it was as if whoever had shot at them had already been here, waiting. But that was impossible, wasn’t it? The picnic was an impulse, and the location sheer chance; they could just as well have stopped at a park.

  The only other explanation that occurred to her was if the shooter had nothing to do with her father. Maybe it was a crazy landowner who shot at trespassers.

  If only she had brought her cell phone! But Margreta wasn’t due to call her for several more days, and even if she had brought the phone, it would be in her backpack, which was still lying on the ground cloth. The distance of a few yards might as well be a mile. Her pistol was also in the pack; though a pistol was useless against a sniper, she would feel better if she had some means of protection.

  Chance hadn’t fired; he knew the futility of i