Read Online Dangerous Disguise by Marie Ferrarella - Free Book Online Page B

that huge.
    Maren turned to him once she was finished. “Okay, got that?”
    “Got it.” There was a sense of order here. If he’d been in charge, everything would have been piled up haphazardly. “Nice system. Your idea?”
    She inclined her head, brushing away the compliment. “It’s simple.” She raised her eyes to his. “I like to keep things simple.”
    She was putting him on notice, he thought. Jared took a step back from her, silently letting her know that he was giving her space. The air felt rather thick down here, as if it had sunk down. Outside, winter was crisply stirring the surroundings. Down here, each breath felt as if it was just a shade heavy. Right now, he was aware that inhaling and exhaling was harder than it should have been.
    “Understood,” he told her. He opened a couple of buttons on his shirt, noting that she looked a little wilted herself. “Maybe you should install a fan down here. It’s rather hot.”
    That wasn’t always the case. But it did feel hotter now than it should. “The cooling system keeps malfunctioning. You’d think with all the money we’re pulling in, Warren could spare some for repairs.”
    “Warren?” Was she on a first-name basis with the owner because of the time she’d put in, or was there another, far more personal reason? He pulled his thoughts back. That only made a difference if it affected his investigation, he told himself.
    Just the tiniest bit flustered, Maren corrected herself. “Mr. Shepherd.”
    “Maybe you should ask him the next time you see him.”
    “I already have.”
    The frown was small, but it was there. If she were involved with the man, wouldn’t there have been more loyalty evident on her part? He decided that there would have been. The thought buoyed him. Jared tried not to analyze why.
    “It’s like pulling teeth,” she finally told him.
    “Takes money to make money.”
    “Well, that’s a new one,” she quipped sarcastically.
    He shrugged innocently. “You said you liked things simple, remember?” And right now, the things he kept feeling were far from being classified as simple. “That’s something my grandfather used to say.”
    “Oh, really?” He watched in fascination as a smile quirked at the corners of her mouth.
    One of the reasons he did so well under cover was that he could think on his feet and be creative if the moment called for it.
    “He liked to think of himself as an entrepreneur-in-waiting.” His maternal grandfather had died before he’d been born. His father’s father had been a patrolman with thirty years on the force.
    For a moment the sadness he’d seen in her eyes abated. “What was he waiting for?” she asked.
    “Money.”
    The laugh was short, terse, but it was there. “You made that up.”
    “Maybe,” he allowed, then got to the heart of his triumph. “Got you to smile.”
    Yes, he did, she thought, but smiling was not part of what she was supposed to be doing. “I’m not down here to smile, Stevens. I’m down here to do the inventory.”
    Using the last name he’d given her just made him that much more aware of the deception he was perpetrating. “Think you can call me by my first name instead?”
    “So that you can call me Maren?”
    “No, because I like the sound of it better, coming from you, but a trade-off might be nice.”
    It was time they got back to work. Maren picked up the inventory list again and looked at the last thing she’d checked off. “Pears, Stevens. How many?”
    With a nod of his head, he turned toward the stacks and began to count.

    Because she read and he counted, it went more quickly. Just as he’d predicted. They even did a quick inventory of things that were in the large walk-in refrigerator. He noted that the lock looked defective. She’d responded that she had it on the list of things to fix that she’d given to Shepherd for his okay. It was evident to Jared that she didn’t like being placed in the position of having to wait for