Dangerous Tease (The Layton Family 3)

Josie barely kept the instinct to swing wildly at him in check. Like a poker player, she needed to stay calm, keep emotion out of it and wait for the perfect time to make her move.

“I think I like you better now that you've finally shut the fuck up. You ready to play ball?” He was almost within reach now.

Just another step closer.

He stopped and raised an eyebrow. “Whatever you're cookin', Josie girl, you better just give it up.” His left hand whipped out and he backhanded her across the cheek.

The metallic taste of blood filled her mouth.

“That should make sure you keep your smart mouth shut.”

Josie spit the mouthful of blood to the floor, splattering Snips' snow-covered boots. “Not even close.”

She smacked the smirk off his face with an uppercut to the jaw with her right fist, followed by a haymaker utilizing the socket wrench in her left. The silver cylinder cracked against Snips' jaw and he went down hard.

“Mr. Esposito, you okay in there?” Linc peered through the slits between the boards. “What's going on in there?”

Snips moaned out an unintelligible response.

Linc wrapped his meaty fingers around a two-by-four and yanked.

Blackness ate into the edges of Josie's line of sight and she couldn't catch her breath.

A chunk

of sky appeared in the doorway and Linc reached for the next board. Two more and he'd be able to squeeze in.

Motivated by a desperate need to live another day, she patted down Snips' pants, looking for a gun, a knife, anything. She came up empty.

Another board hit the floor.

Her blood pressure spiked.

Josie sprinted to the hearth and gathered as much dirt and twigs from the animal nest as she could. She made it back to the doorway a half second after Linc tore the last board from the wall.

Without giving herself time to doubt, she tossed the debris in Linc's face.

He cried out in shock and slapped his hands to his eyes.

Before he had a chance to wipe the grime away, Josie took off out the front door. Her boots slapped across the porch and down the creaky steps. The world was awash in white, making it impossible to tell which way led back to Dry Creek and which farther into the sticks. She hit the snow-covered ground, cranked up her speed and shot toward McPherson's Bluff.

“You better find a damn good hiding place, girlie,” Snips shouted. “Because when I find you, you're going to pay with that pretty ass of yours.”

Josie heeded his warning and ran. The air burned her lungs from the inside out and every snap of frigid wind against her bare arms reminded her of just how long she'd been out in the elements without a coat or gloves. The pain beat being dead.

In better conditions and with actual running shoes, she'd clear the half mile to McPherson's Bluff in about five minutes. But with every step, her boots sank in the snow. The wind and snow picked up, bringing visibility to a few feet beyond arm's reach. Her chattering teeth had overtaken the wind's howl in the noise contest. After a few minutes, she wasn't so sure she wouldn't be better off numb.

But she tucked her chin into her chest and pushed forward. Every few steps, she glanced over her shoulder to see if Snips and Linc were on her trail. She couldn't see them or the abandoned house anymore. However, her danger detector hadn't stopped blaring a warning siren, so she continued with one foot in front of the other until she came to the bluff's base.

Rising eight hundred feet from the prairie, it stood tall and proud, unbent by time or the weather. The damn thing reminded her of Sam. When she'd left him, he'd been hurt but alive. If she could keep Snips and Linc following her, they wouldn't be able to return to Dry Creek to torment Sam.

“You still out there you shithead, Snips?” she hollered in the direction of the abandoned house. “You better find me before I find you because one of us isn't coming out of here alive.”

Not that she had any weapons to back up that threat since she’d left the socket wrench in the cabin, but since when did bravado require a strong sense of reality? Warmed with defiance, she took off around the bluff, looking for a place to hide or a path to take. She crossed her arms and shoved her hands into her armpits as great shivers racked her body. The snow had begun to slow, but the temperature hadn't left the freezing zone. She had to find somewhere to hide out quick, or hypothermia would get her before Snips ever did.

The snow disguised any easy path up the bluff. She'd trudged past the four-foot high triangle-shaped boulder twice before its meaning connected with her foggy brain. Rebecca's map had shown a similar formation next to a path. At the moment she didn't give a damn about the treasure, but a place to bury Rebecca’s Bounty could make the perfect hiding place from the wind and the men chasing her.

Another blast of wind smacked against her body, burning her with cold. Damp hair stuck to her neck and forehead. Her ears ached with pinpricks of agony as her veins constricted in her extremities to retain heat in her core. Tears sprung to her eyes, not of sadness or fright but of pain. Snow had found its way into her boots during the run and melted, turning her socks to wet cloth.