Read Online Her Charming Heartbreaker by Sonia Parin - Free Book Online Page B

comeuppance.” He took a step toward her. “You
should know—”
    Eddie chuckled. “I
sense a platitude coming my way so I’m going to exercise my right
to impose my own restrictions on what can and cannot be discussed.”
She tilted her head. “Did I just sound like you?”
    “Eddie Faydon, you are
one unique woman and despite everything, I’ll never regret coming
to Eden and meeting you.” He threw his head back and again looked
up at the sky.
    Her heart gave a
startled thump. “This sounds like goodbye.”
    After a brief silence,
he sighed. “I’ll be leaving at the end of the week.”
    A couple of days and
then everything would return to normal. Would she miss him?
Probably. In fact, she could imagine looking at her watch and
thinking he was boarding his plane. And the next day she’d think
about him arriving at his destination and how he was getting on
with his life. She’d wonder if he was thinking about her and the
people he’d met back in Eden. Meanwhile, he was spending a couple
more days here…
    “So you haven’t lost
all hope,” she said.
    “Hope?”
    “I know you don’t want
to talk about it, but I’m going to go out on a limb and say you
came looking for Claire Muldoon and it hasn’t worked out the way
you wanted it to.”
    “How did you arrive at
that conclusion?”
    By thinking too much
about him. “You haven’t been seen talking to any of the major
stakeholders in town... my brothers don’t count, and I doubt you’ve
been having clandestine meetings while out jogging, so I’m guessing
you didn’t come here on business.” Sure, he spent a lot of time on
the phone, which could be his way of doing business, but she didn’t
mention it because it would throw her theory out of whack. “All
your meal times are accounted for,” she continued, “As well as your
evenings, which you’ve spent at the pub. But there’s one exception.
Last night you were seen going into Groomingdale’s after closing
hours. The hair salon belongs to Claire Muldoon. Also, I just saw
you drive away from her house. All fingers might point to
inconclusive evidence, but it’s all I have to work with.”
    “That’s deductive
thinking at its finest. You’re a regular Miss Marple.”
    Yes, but was any of it
true? She waited for his denial, but it didn’t come. Eddie
shrugged. “I owe it to a misspent youth reading Agatha
Christie.”
    “You should never
apologize for your choice of reading material. You never know what
you’ll learn.”
    “Yeah? How do you feel
about graphic novels... you know, comic books?”
    “Superheroes?”
    She looked down at her
boots and smiled. “Zombie apocalypse.”
    He chuckled. “
The
Walking Dead
?”
    She nodded.
    “It should be included
in school reading lists. You never know when those survival skills
will come in handy.”
    His tone sounded
lighter but his jaw muscles hadn’t stopped twitching. She suspected
his neck and shoulders had hardened to steel. “If it makes you feel
better, you never really stood a chance with Claire. Her entire
life revolves around her son, Ben.”
    He pushed off the car
and slipped his hands inside his pockets. “Is he a handful?”
    “No, he’s just her
entire world. Being a single mom—”
    He snatched his
sunglasses off. “She’s not married?”
    “Did you think she
was?”
    “She’s not married?” he
asked again.
    “Are you into married
women? Like a fetish—”
    “What? No… I’m…” He
turned away from her.
    Eddie thought she heard
him swear under his breath. “She told you she was married?” Why
would Claire lie? To put him off? If he’d been pestering her, or
worse, stalking her…
    “I don’t know. You tell
me.”
    “I would, if I had more
details. Actually, if you’d opened up to us the way we encouraged
you to do, then maybe you would have found out sooner.” She
laughed. “I think that’s called irony.”
    “It’s not funny,
Eddie.”
    “Yes, it is. You must
be suffering from irony