Free QR Code Killer by Shanna Hatfield

close together. All this
thought about “will she or won’t she” made Erik feel like a junior
in high school.
    Watching Maddie walk out behind the barn,
Erik wondered what she was up to, then heard the distinctive pop of
a gun. Target practice? That definitely surprised him. Finishing up
the work he was doing, he headed her direction.
    Maddie decided if she did need to use her gun
for protection, she was going to have to get in some practice. In
the weeks she was waiting for her shoulder to heal she hadn’t shot
her gun once.
    Setting up targets behind the barn pointing
toward a fallow section of a field where no one could get hurt, she
decided to see if she could shoot one-handed, since her shoulder
was still on the mend. She didn’t want to do anything to possibly
reinjure it because a fast recovery was what she needed.
    She was glad to have her Glock with her, the
feel of the grip in her hand like the touch of an old friend.
    Bracing herself, she tried to get a feel for
it in one-hand before she sighted in on the paper target. Taking
her time, she shot at it and deliberately missed. If anyone was
watching her, she wanted them to think she couldn’t shoot.
    She was actually picking dirt clods behind
the targets and shooting them. So although she wasn’t hitting what
appeared to be her targets, she was nailing her real targets with
complete accuracy. Pleased with her progress, she was
congratulating herself on a job well done when Erik walked up
behind her.
    “Getting in some target practice?” he asked,
standing behind her.
    Looking over her shoulder she smiled then
caught her breath. He was bronzed from the summer sun and his
golden eyes burned into hers with intensity unlike anything she had
ever experienced. His T-shirt molded to his muscles and caused her
to temporarily lose the ability to think, let alone speak.
    Coming to stand close enough she could inhale
the scent of hay, after shave, and man, he brushed her arm, sending
electrical currents zinging through her. “I didn’t know you liked
to shoot.”
    “Oh, I used to. I haven’t done it for a
while,” Maddie said. That much was true. Erik, as of yet, still
didn’t know what Maddie did for a living. For his safety, and that
of her family, she knew she needed to be honest with him about what
she did as well as the danger he was in.
    “Could be challenging to relearn with one
hand,” Erik said, looking at her gun. Pointing to the weapon, he
asked “May I?”
    “Be my guest,” Maddie said, handing him the
gun and taking a step to the side.
    After admiring the Glock, Erik adjusted his
stance, raised the gun and fired five shots in rapid succession.
Maddie was caught off guard. Erik blasted five holes in one target
in a pattern that was intentional.
    Looking at him with wide eyes, he smiled at
her, reloaded the gun from the box of ammo sitting on a fence post
and handed it back to her
    “I like to shoot sometimes,” Erik said, by
way of an explanation.
    “Sometimes? I think you must have had a
little practice at it,” Maddie said with a grin.
    “Maybe, a little. I used to shoot a lot with
my friends when I was younger.”
    “Oh, well, that was pretty impressive.”
    “If you want, I could help you.”
    For the first time in her life, Maddie felt
pulled into the vortex of her feminine charms and decided to give
them free reign.
    “Could you? I mean, I’m just not sure the
best way to go about this. Maybe you could show me,” she looked up
at Erik through her thick eyelashes, but stopped short of batting
them at him.
    Erik moved behind her and put both arms
around her. Bringing up the gun, he placed his hands over hers on
the weapon, careful not to bump her injured shoulder, and leaned
down so close his jaw touched her cheek. She could feel the hint of
stubble rub on her skin and the sensation made her tingle from head
to toe.
    “If you just hold it like this,” Erik said,
inhaling the scent that was all Maddie. He shouldn’t be here