Breaking Free: A Colorado High Country Crossover Novel by Pamela Clare (well read books .TXT) 📗

for the invitation, but don’t you want to hang with your family?”

“I’ll probably visit Naomi and the baby, say hello to her parents, check on Grandpa, and then reheat Jack’s chili. You can come with me or just hang out at my place and watch TV. I have cable.”

“It’s a good thing I brought my gear. I’ll call McBride and let him know.”

Jason followed Winona into her house, the sweet scent of her skin teasing him, her windblown hair making his fingers itch to touch it.

Why had he done this to himself? Staying overnight with her was putting himself in the danger zone. It had been six months since he’d been with a woman, and Winona was everything he’d love to get his hands on. She was intelligent, beautiful, compassionate—and attracted to him.

Nah, man, forget it.

He’d learned long ago that casual sex wasn’t worth it. It took the edge off his sexual need, but instead of contentment afterward, there was only emptiness. Besides, there was too much of a chance of someone mistaking physical pleasure for love and getting hurt.

Winona deserved better than that. All women did.

She set her backpack down inside the door and put the chili Jack had given them in her refrigerator. “Just make yourself at home.”

“Thanks.”

She led him to the spare bedroom, showed him where to find towels and washcloths, then gave him a quick tour of the kitchen. “Glasses are here. The coffee is in here. There’s wood outside the back door if you want to start a fire. The remote is on the coffee table, and my wireless password is taped to the fridge. I’ll be gone for about an hour, maybe an hour and a half.”

“Don’t worry about me.”

“You’ve got my cell number, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Call if you need anything. See you in a bit.” She hurried out the door, locking the deadbolt behind her.

Jason took out his laptop and caught up on his email. An update about Ren’s condition. A reminder that the premium on his auto policy was coming due. And something from his supervisor—a notice of his disciplinary hearing date.

Shit.

He closed his computer, gave McBride a call, and explained the situation.

“West never asked us to spend the night.” McBride sounded hurt.

“You jealous?”

“Hell, yes.” McBride chuckled. “So, you and Winona?”

“It’s not like that.”

“That’s what you keep saying.”

“Hey, she offered me her spare room to save me time in the morning.”

“Right.”

Jason changed the subject. “She told me that you helped catch a guy who held a gun to her head.”

“Yeah. That was five years ago, I think.”

Jason didn’t think it was his place to ask what had happened, but McBride shared the story anyway.

“The asshole robbed a bank and got badly burned when the dye pack in the money bag exploded. He went to her clinic and forced her to give him medical care at gunpoint, then injected her with a lethal overdose of ketamine.”

“Jesus.”

“From the reports I read, he got ugly with her before he injected her, made all kinds of violent sexual and racist threats. I think the worst part of it for her was knowing that the dose he was giving her would kill her. If her friend Lexi hadn’t wandered in and gotten a call off to the police, Winona would have died on the clinic floor.”

Good God.

Jason could only imagine how terrifying that must have been. “Tell me you’re the one who killed this son of a bitch.”

“Nah, man. I didn’t have to. The bastard abducted Lexi and dragged her with him into an abandoned mine shaft. Chaska helped us track them. We’d just found them when the shaft collapsed. He died, but Lexi survived with the help of a tommyknocker—or so she claims. The Team got her out.”

“There are some sick fuckers out there.” Jason had spent his life tracking them.

“True that.”

Jason finished the conversation, got to his feet, and went out back for firewood, the details McBride had shared running through this mind. It sickened him to think of some asshole taking advantage of Winona’s skills and repaying her by trying to take her life. She’d drifted into unconsciousness, believing she was dying.

Fucking bastard.

Jason knew so many Native women whose lives had been destroyed by violence—child abuse, partner violence, sexual assault, murder. He’d rescued dozens of Indigenous women and children from trafficking operations. He’d witnessed their helplessness, their terror, their desperation. All he’d been able to do was bust the bad guys, one by one.

It didn’t feel like enough. It was never enough.

Jason wasn’t especially religious. He didn’t attend Mass regularly. But he had no trouble believing that evil was real and alive in the world.

When the fire was going, he turned on the TV, but he was too restless to sit. He carried in more wood, then found a pot and set Jack’s chili on the stove to reheat. While that simmered, he sorted through his gear and checked his Glock, making sure he was ready for tomorrow’s hunt.

He’d just put the pistol back in its case when he heard Winona’s key slip into the lock. Certain the sight of his pistol would unnerve her, he tucked it into his pack.

She stepped inside, a bright smile on her face. “Hey.”

He got to his feet. “Hey.”

“Oh! You started dinner.”

“I can’t claim any glory. I just dumped the leftover chili into a pot.” Still, he liked the way her eyes lit up.

“Look what I got you.” She held up a six-pack of amber bottles. “I saw that you liked the beer at Knockers, so I brought you this—Golden Aspen IPA.”

“Thanks.” Jason thought he just might be in love.

Chapter 8

While Jason washed up, Winona got dinner on the table—an easy task when it was already made. She set butter next to the warmed cornbread, got a glass out for Jason’s beer, poured seltzer water over ice for herself, and set out an old plastic coffee can lid for the spirit plate.

She’d never actually had a man over for dinner—if you didn’t count her brother or her