Read Online Tasting Fear by Shannon McKenna - Free Book Online Page A

What kind of mom just sort of forgets to mention that little detail to her daughters, even if they are adopted?”
    Liam waited patiently. People were starting to peek. She was making a scene. She hunched down over her coffee cup. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Flipping out on you in public. The breakfast date from hell.”
    “You’re a great breakfast date,” Liam said. “We’re talking constant entertainment. I’m in no danger of boredom when I hang out with you. It’s just one humdinger after another. I can’t wait for the car chase.”
    She exploded in shaky, snorting giggles that splattered coffee over the table, and to her horror, over her blouse as well. But when she peeked up from sponging her collar, he looked pleased with himself.
    “You know what freaks me out the most?” She tried to keep her voice down. “It’s the responsibility”. I have nothing to help the cops. Just hints about a secret, and some mysterious, sinister ‘thing’ that I’ve never heard of. I don’t know what or where it is, just that somebody appears to want it. And that somebody might have…might have killed my mother.”
    There it was. She let out a long, shaky breath. She’d said the unsayable, and Liam just accepted her words calmly, without reacting to them or negating them. She hid her face with hands that shook. “If somebody hurt Lucia, I have to do something about it. I can’t just lie down, let it go. But what? And to whom?”
    He was quiet for a long time before he spoke again. “What’s with the necklaces?” he asked. “Do you know what she’s referring to?”
    Nancy held up the pendant that glittered at her throat. “I assume she’s referring to these. They came the day before yesterday. Special hand delivery from the jeweler’s shop. Evidently she’d commissioned them for us before she…before it happened. Mine’s an N , for Nancy. Nell has an A , for Antonella, and Vivi has a V , of course.”
    He leaned forward, peering at the pendant, and she unclasped it and handed it to him. He examined it from every angle and passed it back to her. “Very pretty,” he commented.
    “Thank you,” she said, reclasping it. “That’s what I thought. It’s just pretty. No mysterious keys that I can see. And it was probably expensive, but not outrageously so. Several hundred dollars, maybe.”
    He drummed his fingers thoughtfully on the table. “It might be worth a try to talk to the jeweler,” he said.
    She nodded. “Yes. I most certainly will. Today.”
    “I’ll take you,” he said.
    “Oh, no, don’t worry about it,” she said quickly. “I have my car, and you must have all kinds of things to do, so—”
    “Nope. Nothing. I was going to work on Lucia’s house today. I can’t, so I’m just kicking my heels. And I wouldn’t miss it. So really. Don’t fight me on this. Trust me. You’ll lose.”
    Whew. There it was, a naked challenge. Right out there in the open. She blinked as she looked at his set jaw, his narrowed eyes. Ahem. There he was, Mr. Alpha Dog. Woof. This was the part in the script where she crisply gave him to understand that he was not the boss here, and that he was not dealing with a fluttery pushover, and that her decisions were entirely her own, thank you very much. Buh-bye.
    The words just didn’t come out. A strangled silence took their place. Having company today would be so very nice. Having big, tough, hard-muscled, keen-eyed protective company would be even better.
    So. Maybe…just maybe she would let him have this one. A chunk of meat for a hungry wolf. Just this once, mind. Never again.
    “Um. Let’s…let’s talk about something else,” she said.
    He lifted his teacup, eyes smiling at her over the rim. Pleased with himself. “Whatever you like,” he said magnanimously. “Be my guest.”
    His expression made her squirm on the plastic cushion.
    “So what do we talk about, then?” she demanded.
    His lips twitched. “Anything you like. You were the one who