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Slowly, ever so slowly, Nick brought up one leg and then the other

‘Don’t move, I said!’

‘I have to My head’s bleeding’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Positive’ Nick touched his scalp gingerly, expecting to feel the ware buet to a doctor’

‘No! I et you a compress After I call the…’ Oh, Lord She couldn’t call anybody She couldn’t even tie the intruder up, without rope And hoas she going to search for rope? Was she going to ask him, politely, to just lie still and wait until she made a circuit of the cabin?

Nick’s eyes narrowed Call whom? Did the kid have an accomplice?

‘Look,’ he said carefully, ‘I’ his breath, he shifted his weight again ‘I don’t knoho you are and I don’t care You just turn around, walk out the door, and we’ll pretend this never happened’

‘Me? Walk out the door? Youout into that blizzard, either’

‘Think it over, kid’ Carefully, ever so slowly, Nick began lifting hiuy see hiive you es if you—’

‘You won’t press charges? For what?’

‘For breaking and entering For putting a hole in un’

‘You really are crazy! I didn’t break or enter anything As forthe men—’

A scream broke fro burst of speed She turned to flee but he was across the room and on her before she’d had the chance to take a step

‘Okay, kid,’ he snarled

The phone went flying as he wrapped his ar, fro rooainst a table and careened into the sofa Theacross his body and into his lap

‘The police are co,’ Holly panted ‘I called the in’

‘You didn’t call anybody, punk’ Nick wrestled the kid’s hands over his head, rolled over and pinned the slight body beneath his ‘And ould you, when you’re the one who’s done the breaking in?’

‘Get off le free of the hard body above her The hard, ely familiar…

‘Forget it, kid,’ Nick growled