Perilous Christmas Reunion. Laurie Alice Eakes

down.” Chris’s voice was deep and calm behind her.

      He had swung his leg over the snowmobile seat without her realizing it.

      “You’re going to hyperventilate.”

      He wrapped his arms around her. The action was necessary to keep him aboard once they started forward, yet the contact felt like comfort.

      She prayed for protection and mercy on them both, especially Chris. Once they headed out, his back would be vulnerable to gunshots, and he had left his Kevlar vest in Ryan’s room.

      No wonder he hadn’t argued about her driving.

      “I should have opened this door by hand.” Despite him telling her to be calm, Chris’s voice now held an edge.

      Behind them, the door to the house opened and someone shouted, “They’re getting away.”

      “Go, go, go!”

      Lauren didn’t need Chris’s shout in her ear to release the brake and send the machine sailing beneath the half-risen door. They ducked just in time. The bottom edge caught the frame of the windshield. No worries. They were through.

      “Go down the drive,” Chris shouted. “And keep your head as low as you can.”

      But they couldn’t take the most direct route to the road. A monstrous black truck stood sideways across the course.

      And behind them, gunfire exploded over the roar of the snowmobile’s engine. They swayed to the side to balance against the sharp turn needed to avoid crashing into the truck. And a bullet barely missed them, hitting the frame of the windshield. It bent but didn’t break.

      Lauren’s heart stopped for so long she feared it had broken. “We’re trapped.”

      “Head for the woods,” Chris called into her ear.

      His voice, firm, decisive, settled her heart to a fast but regular rhythm. She nodded and focused on the glare of light on the snow. That light pinpointed their direction, but then, so did the roar of the engine. Unless the men after Ryan, and now them, had a snowmobile as well, she and Chris might find shelter in the woods.

      Had Ryan, after he had been to the cabin?

      Her throat closed at the idea of her big brother freezing to death in the snow and trees, the sleet and wind. He had too likely chosen to follow their father’s path, whose business practices Lauren never trusted to be legal except on the surface. Yet Ryan had been a rock to her when her parents split up, when she was afraid of her own shadow, when she chose computer science as a career path rather than social work as her grandmother had once hoped or business as her father wanted. Ryan had encouraged her to follow her dreams.

       Lord, save his life tonight and forever.

      It was a familiar prayer for her brother, stronger now than ever.

      Ahead of her, her headlight beam caught the hulking pillars of trees. She steered between them, and another bullet crashed into the windshield from a weapon powerful enough the blast shattered the safety glass.

      “Don’t stop.”

      Lauren didn’t need Chris’s command to keep going, despite icy pellets and wind now dashing full in her face without the benefit of wearing goggles. She squinted against the impact and kept the machine moving, taking a turn between two trunks so close together Chris had to clamp his legs hard against the sides of the seat to not smash his knees. He didn’t complain. He understood what she was doing.

      “Good job.” His approval was like a breath of warm air pushing back the cold.

      Stupid. Stupid. Stupid her. That bullet had shattered her windshield, not the shield around her heart that had once loved this man with his arms encircling her.

      “Where are we going?” She turned her head long enough to project her query to Chris—and cried out.

      A solitary light blazed through the trees. A moment later, she caught the roar of another snowmobile.