Free The Legend of Smuggler's Cave by Paula Graves

aunt has been watching Logan while I’m at work, but she can’t deal with him with her arm broken the way it is.”
    “I took the liberty of calling Laney this morning to discuss the options.” He left the counter and walked over to the refrigerator.
    “Yeah?”
    He pulled a jug of milk from the refrigerator and looked at the expiration date. Wincing, he put it back into the refrigerator and turned to look at her, his expression apologetic. “Will water be okay?”
    “Water’s fine,” she answered, hiding a smile. “What did Laney have to say?”
    “My work keeps me in the office until six most nights. It’s a ten-minute commute from Barrowville to here, so I can be home by six-fifteen or six-twenty at the latest. I assume you’d need to leave for work around four-thirty in order to have time to change into your uniform and gear, so we’re talking about less than a two-hour window of time we need to cover, correct?”
    “I suppose so.”
    “How well behaved is Logan? In general?”
    “He’s a three-year-old boy. He’s impatient and rowdy, but he’s not particularly disobedient. It helps if he likes you.”
    Dalton set a small cup of water in front of Logan and bent to look him in the eye. “You like me pretty well, don’t you, Logan?”
    Logan looked up at him as if considering the question. “Ice cream?”
    “Cupboard love,” Briar murmured.
    “What I’m thinking is you could leave a little early and drive him by my office when you’re ready to go to work. Laney and I can take turns watching him until it’s time to leave the office.”
    “I don’t know about that—” Briar began.
    “I can set up a place for him to play. I’ll buy him some coloring books and picture books—is he starting to learn to read?”
    She nodded. “He has a few favorite books. I brought them with me.”
    “I can buy duplicates for the office, then. So he’ll have the things that are familiar to him.”
    “You don’t have to do that. I can pack them in his little backpack to take with him. But are you sure you want to do this? I don’t want him to interfere with your work.”
    “I’m sure. It’s the only thing that makes any sense. The point of bringing him here is to protect him from the people trying to use him against you. Hiring a babysitter neither of us knows isn’t going to work, is it?”
    She shook her head quickly. “No.”
    “Do you trust me with him, Briar?” His green eyes were darkly intense as he met her troubled gaze. “Do you trust that I will protect him for you?”
    There was no good reason why she should, she knew. He was little more than a stranger to her, and his motives were anything but unselfish. He was bitter and angry at his life at the moment, and even when he wasn’t, he possessed the sort of driving ambition that could make a man grow self-focused and myopic.
    But for some reason, she found herself nodding in answer to his question. “I do. I trust you to protect him.”
    “Then it’s settled? At least until we try the system and find it wanting?”
    “Yes,” she said. “But I have a condition.”
    His eyes narrowed warily. “Another one?”
    “Yes. You need to learn how to shoot a gun the right way. No more of that aiming at the ground and hoping nothing bad happens.” She allowed herself a little smile at his expense. “If you’re going to try to look like a good ol’ boy to win an election, the least you owe your constituents is to walk the walk as well as you talk the talk.”

Chapter Six
    “How long have you been shooting?” Dalton asked a couple of hours later as he peered at the rather sad results of his first target-practice round. He’d hoped to acquit himself better, but he wasn’t surprised to see how badly he’d failed.
    Briar tucked an errant curl behind her ear and cocked her head as she studied the holes in the target. “My uncle Corey gave me my cousin Dan’s .22 when I turned eight. Dan was getting a bigger one, and Uncle Corey knew