Read Online Final Scream by Lisa Jackson - Free Book Online Page A

the main house. There’s a few bulbs out in the chandelier.”
    “You want me to bring in a ladder?” He nearly laughed because it seemed like such a lame excuse to make conversation with him.
    She smiled. “Not me. My stepmother. And it doesn’t matter if it’s you or someone else. You’re just the first hand I saw.” She flipped her hair over her shoulder and glanced at his boots, covered with dirt and dung from the barn. “You might want to take those off before you go inside. Dena’s a stickler for keeping things tidy.” With a wink, she turned and strutted away, her hips swaying in perfect rhythm to the bob of her ponytail and the swing of her arms.
    He found a tall stepladder in the garage and kicked off his boots before he climbed up the stairs of the back porch. Carefully he finagled the ladder through the kitchen and into the foyer, where a crystal and brass chandelier hung some fifteen feet above the polished marble floor.
    Dena was fretting. Company was coming over and a few bulbs were dim or had flickered out altogether. “I don’t know how this could have happened,” Dena said, little lines of irritation forming around the corners of her mouth. “The cleaning service should have told me.” She glanced at Brig and there was a faint flaring of her nostrils, the hint of disdain in her cool eyes as she slid her gaze down his body to land on his socks and the holes in the dingy white cotton.
    Brig didn’t let her snobbery affect him as he set up the ladder. Dena Miller came from poor roots herself, though she didn’t have a Gypsy or a Native American in her bloodlines as far as he knew. But she’d been the daughter of a farmer and a seamstress and had put herself through business college. After graduation, she’d taken a job with Buchanan Logging and had been Rex’s personal secretary for years. When Rex’s adored first wife had died, Dena had been around to pick up the pieces of Rex Buchanan’s shattered life. The old man had been a shambles. Dena had seen her opportunity and gone for it. They were married less than a year after Lucretia Buchanan had been buried, and barely eight months later, Cassidy had been born. Dena Miller had seen plenty of tattered socks in her life.
    He changed the bulbs and was conscious of the women watching him. Dena with hardly suppressed contempt, Angie with interest, and Cassidy, who thought she was hidden on the second-floor landing, with curiosity. She’d been avoiding him for a couple of days, ever since their conversation near the stable and now, as he finished screwing in the final bulb, he tilted back his head, caught her surprised gaze and winked at her.
    She swallowed hard, and though she looked as startled as a rabbit caught in the beams of headlights at night, she held his stare, refusing to ease back into the shadows.
    She had pluck, he’d give her that.
    He dropped back to the ground and snapped the ladder together. Angie, probably just to bother her stepmother, laid her hand on his arm. “Thanks,” she said with a soft smile. “Maybe we should repay you with a cold drink. Coke? Or if you want something stronger, my dad keeps a stash of Coors in the refrigerator.”
    “Mr. McKenzie’s still working.”
    He felt rather than saw Dena stiffen, but her words were meant to make him understand his station. He offered Angie a grin. “I think I’ll pass. Work to do,” he drawled, then glanced back at Dena. “Maybe I’ll take a rain check.”
    Angie lifted an elegant eyebrow. “And I’ll hold you to it,” she said, touching the tip of her finger to the front of his shirt. Beneath the cotton his skin seemed to ignite by the gentle pressure of her flesh, so close to his. He wondered if Cassidy saw the display, decided he didn’t care and carried the ladder out the back door. He couldn’t help but notice the sleek Corvette parked near the garage. The car’s red exterior looked liquid in the afternoon light, and two boys, Bobby Alonzo and Jed