A Steal of a Deal (28 page)

She falters. “I’m smarter than you think. So far, no one’s got a thing on me—”

I duck, then dive for her knees. “Max—RUN!”

But he doesn’t take direction well. He goes for Glory too.

The gun blasts off a shot with a muffled “hiss.”

The three of us land in a tangle of arms and legs, roll around on the blacktop, and I never stop screaming at the top of my lungs.

I grab Glory’s gun hand. And scream.

She fights back, flailing the arm with the gun. She’s more dangerous now than when she’d aimed. I let out another scream.

Dirt grinds into my bare arms, my cheekbone.

She smashes Max’s head with the gun.

He grunts.

I scream. My throat aches from the nonstop screaming, but I don’t let up. Glory bangs my head against the ground.

Max thrashes his large body down between us and keeps wrestling her for the gun.

I scream some more.

Then, with my last ounce of strength, I launch myself over Max and land on top of Glory, use my body to pin her to the ground, fist my fingers in her sleek, dark hair, and hold on for dear life.

That’s when the swarm of cops I’d predicted shows up. One officer picks me up as if I were no more than a fly. Another drops down next to Max, and minutes later, they’ve collared Glory. Silver flashes when handcuffs catch the glow of the streetlights nearby. Before I know it, the officer leads her into the building, those brand-new bracelets shackling Glory into submission.

I collapse. The cop kneels at my side. “Are you hurt? Did she shoot you?”

My teeth chatter, my throat tightens, my vocal cords refuse to work. I shake my head.

Max comes to my side. “It’s okay,” he murmurs, and then he does the most unexpected thing. He picks me up in those muscular arms of his, presses me tight against his chest, and whispers a prayer.

“Thank you, Father. She’s still alive.” He glances down and lets a smile curve his lips. “And she’s finally shut up.”

I shudder. “You . . . you—”

“See?” he tells the cop. “She’s going to be fine. Lead the way. We have a ton of questions to answer, don’t we?”

With both fists, I pummel my knight in gravel-encrusted summer-wear. The blows don’t even begin to faze him. “Put me down, you great big jerk.”

What does the great big jerk do? Put me down and help me inside? No. Not Max. He stuns the breath out of me. Again.

He laughs. And then he kisses me.

Long and hard.

On the lips.

Oh, my . . .

Ginny Aiken
, a former newspaper reporter, lives in Pennsylvania with her engineer husband and their three youngest sons—the oldest is married and has flown the coop. Born in Havana, Cuba, and raised in Valencia and Caracas, Venezuela, Ginny discovered books at an early age. She wrote her first novel at age fifteen while she trained with the Ballets de Caracas, later to be known as the Venezuelan National Ballet. She burned that tome when she turned a “mature” sixteen. An eclectic list of jobs—including stints as reporter, paralegal, choreographer, language teacher, retail salesperson, wife, mother of four boys, and herder of their numerous and assorted friends, including soccer teams and the 135 members of first the Crossmen and then the Bluecoats Drum and Bugle Corps—brought her back to books in search of her sanity. She is now the author of twenty-seven published works, but she hasn’t caught up with that elusive sanity yet.

Stunning jewels, endless shopping,
exotic travel—
what woman could resist?

“Ginny Aiken’s gift: masterful storytelling, witty dialogue,
and characters you will never forget.”
—Lori Copeland, author of
Simple Gifts
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