Read Online Beckett's Convenient Bride by Dixie Browning - Free Book Online Page B

of earrings that would make any largemouth salivate. If there was a single flaw on that long, lean figure, it was well hidden. Her hair had been confined—more or less—in one long braid.
    Carson found the total package fascinating, tempting and uncomfortably young. He felt ancient in comparison.
    â€œWell? Are you?”
    Am I what, dazzled? Oh, yeah. Tempted? Ditto. Susceptible? At any other time, and under any other circumstances—like a few years added onto your age and a few subtracted from mine—that would definitely be an affirmative.
    â€œPolice detective Carson Beckett, at your service.” He thought he remembered introducing himself earlier, but he might have forgotten. And hers probably wasn’t a retentive mind. “The soup was great, by the way. I left the dishes to soak.”
    â€œOh, good. Not the dishes, I mean—well, I’m glad you liked the soup, but I mean about being a real policeman. Did you say a detective? That’s even better. Come on back inside, this time of year it gets cool once the sun goes down, and I don’t think anyone will bother it for the next few minutes.” It was probably in the low sixties. Cool was the last thing he felt.
    But she wasn’t through. “It’s been there all this time— I hated to leave it, but I didn’t know what else to do. Maybe there’s nothing wrong with it. Sometimes I tend to dramatize things.”
    That, he could believe. “You didn’t think anyone would bother what?”
    â€œThe Ladybug. Do you drink coffee at night? Do you feel up to talking, or would you rather go back to bed? Well, to couch, at least.”
    Carson had a feeling that a third party refereeing their conversation would shake his head and walk off the field. He knew he made perfect sense. She probably thought she did, too, but they might as well be speaking two different languages.
    â€œI left it there at the intersection—my car, I mean. Well, I had to get to work—there’s only one of us working a shift since Jane left to get married. I was pretty sure no one would bother it, but—”
    She whirled around and plopped down onto one of the room’s two chairs. “Oh, Lawdy, there’s so much I don’t know,” she moaned, shucking off her sneakers to massage her bare toes.
    Tell me about it, Carson thought wryly. “You want to start at the beginning?”
    â€œOh. That was this morning. You see, I do my sketches when I’m working the evening shifts, and then wait and add watercolor when I’m working mornings, because the light’s just right. In the evening. For this book, I mean. All the illustrations for Gretchen’s Ghost are set when the sun’s just gone down and there are shadows, and—well, you’re not interested in all that.”
    Interested? Carson was fascinated. Genuine oddities always captured his imagination, and he had yet to make sense of a single thing the woman had said—unless it was about the chicken soup. And she was speaking English.
    â€œYou see, it all started when I heard these two men arguing.”
    â€œWhich two men?”
    She flung out her hands. He’d noticed that about her, too—she used her hands when she talked, as if words alone couldn’t convey the full message. “Well, if I knew that, then I could have told the sheriff and none of this would have happened. I mean, not the murder, of course—that had already happened, but my car. I need to know if it could be rigged to explode, only I haven’t had time to find out. I couldn’t leave Jeff without someone to cover for me, and like I said, Jane’s married, and besides, the nearest garage is—”
    Carson held up a hand. “Whoa. Back up.”
    She frowned. On her, a frown was roughly the equivalent of a megawatt smile on any other woman. He couldalmost see the wheels spinning. “My illustrations, you mean? Oh. You