Free Renegade Alpha (ALPHA 5) by Carole Mortimer Page B

gun and stand outside, prepared and ready in case he needed assistance.
    Just making that decision made her feel less helpless.
    Two minutes later, Callie was standing out on the tree-dappled street, in Georgetown, America, leaning against the side of the car with a .44 Magnum in her hand. A .44 Magnum, for God’s sake! Lijah really did like to live the part, didn’t he.
    She held back a snort of hysterical laughter at the ridiculousness of this situation.
    Reminding her of that throaty chuckle Lijah had given a few minutes ago. He looked younger when he smiled, laughter lines fanning out from his eyes and beside that deliciously sensual mouth, with his teeth very white in the darkness and his eyes gleaming a lighter blue.
    So where was he?
    It must have taken her at least five of the ten minutes Lijah had allocated to being safe for her to get out of the car and find the gun and bullets in the bottom of his bag. That had been an experience in itself. She now knew that Lijah favored black fitted boxers as underwear.
    So where is he ?
    No shots had been fired to alert her of any danger. No lights had come on inside the house either, but maybe that was because someone had hit Lijah over the head the moment he stepped inside? Maybe, while she was chuckling at how ridiculous she must look standing out here with a loaded .44 Magnum in her hand, Lijah was lying on the floor inside the house surrounded by a rapidly increasing pool of blood—
    “When I tell you to stay put, I expect you to fucking stay put!”
    Callie turned with a gasp at the sound of Lijah’s growl directly behind her. “Don’t sneak up on me like that!” She raised her free hand to her rapidly beating heart. “I could have shot you by mistake!”
    His eyes glittered in the darkness. “And landed on your ass for your trouble. The kickback on the .44 would have knocked you off your feet. It is loaded, I take it?”
    “Well, of course it’s loaded.” She glared, both for the fright he had just given her and for doubting her ability to actually put bullets in the gun she was holding.  
    “Give me that.” He easily took the gun out of her hand before deftly removing the bullets and then pushing the gun into the waistband at the back of his jeans.
    “Did you find my father, or any evidence that he’s been here?” she prompted anxiously.
    “None.”
    “Oh.”
    “Would you have used the Magnum if you had to?” Lijah ignored her obvious disappointment, his eyes narrowed. “If the person who sneaked up behind you just now hadn’t been me but one of the men involved in Hammond’s death six months ago, would you have shot him?”
    Would she? It was one thing to learn how to load and shoot a gun, another thing entirely to actually aim and fire it at a living person.
    “Obviously not,” Lijah rasped disgustedly. “So you’re telling me you stood out here, at midnight in the middle of Georgetown, with a loaded gun in your hand and no intention of actually using it?”
    Callie felt the warmth heating her cheeks at Lijah’s accusing tone even as she bit back the disappointment she felt over her father not being here after all.
    She also knew the evenness of Lijah’s tone was in no way indicative of his emotions, not when the streetlight a short way down the street allowed her to see the black clouds of anger swirling stormily in his eyes.
    Would she have fired the gun if Lijah had been in danger?
    Of course she would.
    Probably.
    Maybe…
    Her father had taken her to a shooting range on base and taught her to shoot, and to shoot well. But learning to shoot and actually seeing the result of a bullet entering human flesh— living the result, as she had six months ago when Michael had been shot—was completely different to theory. Bullets killed. Snuffed out a person’s life forever.
    Could she have done that if she thought Lijah was in danger?
    “Well?”
    “Don’t snarl at me, you—you overgrown baboon—Lijah!” The last came out as a squeal