Page 8 of Deathmarch

She’d died when she’d fallen. Hit her head. Frozen to death. This was some hallucination her brain was making up as the lights were slowly blinking out in her mind…

She pinched herself under the table. Hard.

The pain was definitely not imaginary. She drew a ragged breath.

“How is the rest of the family?” she stuttered out the words, because she refused to let Rose Finnegan—or any other Finnegan, for that matter—stun her into silence.

“Jack left the Navy last year when his second daughter was born.” Rose’s lips curved into a syrupy smile. “He was a Navy SEAL. And Kennan just returned from his last tour with the Marines. Mark is still in the Army. Sean Jr. is with the National Guard. Ian works private security in Harrisburg for the governor.”

Her message could not have been clearer if she shouted it.Don’t mess with my family.

“You must be proud of them.” Allie was committed to staying nonconfrontational. No need to draw more attention than they already had.

“Damn straight.” Rose snapped up the menu from the table and marched away.

Okay. All Right.The worst was over.

Allie made herself relax and managed it for all of five seconds before some college kid who couldn’t have been more than twenty slipped into the booth across from her.

“Hey, beautiful. Are you new in town?”

He hadshort dark hair, thick dark lashes, and bedroom eyes if she’d ever seen a pair.

“Joey Murano.” His smile was the devil’s. “How about I show you around the place?”

“I left my snowshoes at home.”

He leaned forward and looked over every inch of her above the table until she became self-conscious of the way she filled out the pink sweater she’d put on for the drive. In mid-March those stubborn winter pounds still showed no sign of wanting to leave.

Neither did Joey Murano.

“Nothing nicer than Main Street and the square in falling snow. We can stop by my place to warm up if you get chilly.” He added a suggestive grin.

Rose flew by and whacked him on the back of the head with a dish towel in passing. “Don’t you start trouble, Joey. I’ll be seeing your mother in church on Sunday.”

Allie stiffened as if she’d just been slapped instead of the kid. Did Rose Finnegan think that Joey had been in danger? That Allie ruined men wherever she went? Still thought that Allie hadcontaminatedHarper, and that she was the reason he’d become the black sheep of the family back in the day?

So, fine, her fatherhadbeen the one who’d taught Harper how to hot-wire a car. And how to pick locks. Her fatherhadbeen the one who bought Harper smokes and beer whenever Harper helped him out with a “job.” But what had Allie had to do with any of that?

“Sorry,” Joey mumbled. “Was just trying to be welcoming.”

As he slunk away, Allie swallowed the injustice of other people’s opinions of her, the old hurt that bubbled right up all over again. All she’d ever wanted to be was just a regular, honest, hardworking person—someone respected. Trouble was, nobody in this town would ever believe her.

One. Single. Day.Then she could leave.

She could handle a day, she thought, one second before her high school arch nemesis, Brittany Wallingford, walked in.

Chapter Three

Harper kept his back to the squall, holding the phone to his ear with one hand while he checked the tow hitch on the back of his pickup with the other.

“You sure you don’t need help?” Murph asked on the other end of the line.

“You sure you don’t want your badge back? You seem to miss serving the public.”

“Once a cop, always a cop.”

Harper confirmed that the car in the ditch was hooked up securely, then he walked back to the cab of his pickup and hopped in so he wouldn’t have to shout over the howling wind and the crackling phone. He had one bar out there; the reception utter crap. “You ever regret leaving?”