Free The Spy Who Saved Christmas by Dana Marton Page A

last-ditch effort, not looking too surprised when she took the passenger seat without bothering to answer.
    One of the cops ran over.
    “I’m taking her to another, more secure location,” Reid told him. “Looks like you’re done here. Thanks, guys.”
    For a while, he drove in silence. And she worked herself into a frenzy of worry. Because so many things could go wrong here.
    She wished the kidnappers would call back already. She couldn’t stand not knowing what was happening with the boys. She was gripping the laptop hard enough to make the plastic creak, so she peeled her fingers off and wrapped her arms around herself.
    “Why me?” Reid asked out of the blue.
    A few seconds passed before she could pull her thoughts away from her worries and focus on him. “You what?”
    “You obviously don’t sleep around. So, two years ago in Hopeville, why did you choose me?”

Chapter Six
    Not a question Lara wanted to address in any great detail. Or at all. For, say, the next hundred years. “I’m fine. You don’t need to distract me.”
    “You’re not fine. And I want an answer.”
    Great. How was she supposed to explain?
    “You were my first flight lesson,” she said at last, after she’d managed to pull her thoughts together. “Your what?”
    She drew a slow, deep breath. “My grandmother, Granny Jordan,” she clarified, “was a member of the Ninety-nines. Not a founding member. I mean later.”
    “A sports team?” he guessed, looking puzzled.
    “An organization of women pilots founded by Amelia Earhart.”
    “You’re kidding.”
    “She was brave and wild and had a life fit for the movies. My mom didn’t like her. Probably because my father idolized her. Mom didn’t get the whole flying high on the wings of freedom concept.”
    “But your grandmother was your hero.”
    “Right. So Dad died when I was twelve, same year as Granny Jordan, and Mom had even more rules after that. I think she was scared of raising a teenage girl alone. It was like living in a nunnery. Then I went away to college and saw a little freedom for like five minutes before she got sick and I went home to take care of her. Then she died, and I was in a daze for a while. Then my uncle retired to Florida and gave me his butcher shop in Hopeville.”
    “Why you?”
    “He doesn’t have any kids. He’s too old to do the work. He said he didn’t mind if I sold it, but he didn’t have the heart to. And I wanted to do that, but then I came to Hopeville, and… Even the name. It had starting over written all over it. It was scary. It was something my mother would have never done, and Granny Jordan would have taken on in the blink of an eye.”
    He nodded. “So where do I come into the picture?”
    “I was going to live a life of excitement like my grandmother. You were my first wild adventure.” She bit her lip. “And then I learned my lesson.”
    He gave her a thoughtful look. “I don’t think an adventuring spirit can be silenced that easily.”
    Oh, yes it can. “Mine was,” she said to make sure he understood. “Silenced. Dead and buried.”
    He shook his head. “Is that why, instead of staying at a safe house under protection, you insisted on coming with me to steal a deadly virus from a bunch of terrorists?” For a second, he took his eyes off the road to look at her.
    And what she saw in his gaze confused her. There was warmth there and appreciation and, for a second, a distinct flair of desire.
    She swallowed hard and looked away, out the side window at the houses flying by them.
    “What if you were born to be wild?” he asked, his voice like a warm, gooey cinnamon roll all of a sudden.
    She remembered that voice. It had been her undoing two years ago. She’d had no defenses against it then. She better damn well find some now. And fast.
    What did he know about her, anyway?
    She was not born to be wild. She wasn’t even attracted to wild. She might have been at one point. But definitely not anymore. Life had