Beautiful Criminal by Shady Grace

walking into a trap, just in case.”
    They walked side by side the rest of the way, until the tree line parted before the clearing at her cabin. With the dog pen between them and the back of the cabin, they watched the surrounding scene, hidden among the trees.
    Mima noticed the dogs immediately. They were all staring at the cabin with their ears pointed. “Somebody’s here,” she whispered. “Look at the dogs. If it was only Mary they’d be excited, not curious.”
    “I know.”
    “What do we do now?”
    “We wait and see who shows their face.” He turned to her, a spark of humor in his eyes. “I don’t suppose you have a weapons stash buried out here somewhere, do you?”
    She pursed her lips at his horribly timed joke. “No, my hunting rifles are in the cabin.”
    “Fuck, I hate waiting like this. We’re either gonna freeze or get shot out here.”
    Mima smiled up at him, despite the danger they were in. “What did you do outside when you were a kid?”
    He looked at her quizzically. “Chase after girls. Why?”
    “Figures.” She smacked him in the chest. “Come on. I have something to show you.”
    She walked off the trail, thankful the tree line was thick despite winter thinning the brush. If there were dangerous people in her cabin, at least they wouldn’t be able to see them out here.
    Knowing the truth about Gabe made her uneasy, though it didn’t make her care for him any less. She wasn’t that naive to believe a bad situation would never set foot on her doorstep, but she was well aware she had to be smart. Nuisance bears and wolves were quite different than people.
    Fate had a funny way of making shit smack you in the face. Now they had to fix it, and she was determined to help in any way she could.
    “Where are you taking me?” he asked, his voice laced with annoyance. “We need to watch the cabin, not play around in the bush.”
    “When you were busy chasing after girls, my brother and I were busy building tree forts. See?” She pointed ahead to a cluster of birch trees, and, built about five feet up, was her tree fort. “Lucky for us, it’s high enough off the ground. We should be able to keep warm.”
    “I see a window in there. Pretty civilized for a tree fort, don’t you think?” His teasing grin made her giggle.
    “My father replaced a window in the cabin and put the old one in here. He wanted us to be safe, and the window faces the cabin.”
    Gabe’s eyes glinted with amusement. “My resourceful little minx. Think both of us will fit in there?”
    Mima fixed him with her best teasing grin. “It’ll be a tight fit. Think you can handle it?”
    “I can handle anything. Now get your sweet ass up there.”
    She pulled the old rope ladder down from its hook and took the first couple steps. The latch door, located beneath the fort, creaked open after a few hard shoves of her elbow. She peeked inside, suddenly thrust back to the past when she shared so many fun times with her brother. It was like looking into a time capsule.
    Once she was inside, Gabe followed. By the time he got in and latched the door on the floor, they were crammed like a couple of sardines. Funny how the fort seemed so big when she was young.
    “I haven’t been in here for years. Not since Rory and I were kids.” The sting of tears threatened too close to the surface as she remembered Rory’s comical smile.
    “Understandable,” Gabe said. “I didn’t go near a plane for a long time after my dad died.”
    “How do you do it?” She gazed at his features, remembering the many scars she’d seen on his body. He carried himself like a man on a mission, like a man knowing he walked a precarious path. She’d never understand it, but maybe she wasn’t meant to.
    “Do what?”
    “Your line of work.”
    Gabe stared out the window toward the cabin, his face an unreadable mask. “Not long after my father died in that crash, I was approached by an old friend of his. He treated me like a son and asked for