Read Online The Devil and Ms. Moody by Suzanne Forster - Free Book Online

devil himself. She didn’t need Diablo’s protection at the moment. She needed protection from him. The spark of hellfire in his eyes brought her a stark reminder of whom she was dealing with. She’d seen him in action, and she had no doubt that he was quite capable of violence if pushed too far.
    He turned to Squire, his voice grim. “I’d like a word.”
    The two men strode away, and Edwina smiled wanly. “It must have been something I said.”
    Carmen smiled sympathetically but offered no reassurance.
    As the throng dispersed and returned to the task of breaking camp, Edwina was left to her own devices. The fine hairs on her neck were still prickling from the quick fury she’d glimpsed in Diablo’s eyes, but as she watched the two men talking in Squire’s campsite nearby, she realized something. They were going to be heavily involved for a while—and that would give her the perfect opportunity to do a little detective work.
    Ordinarily Edwina was a prudent woman, one who considered alternatives, weighed options, and took risks only when the situation warranted it. ‘Better safe than sorry’ governed her decisions. Certainly in any other circumstance she wouldn’t have dreamed of doing anything as foolish as provoking an already furious male. However, with both Diablo and Squire preoccupied, she couldn’t resist.
    The risk of getting caught made her doubly cautious as she picked her way through a field strewn with sagebrush and golden California poppies. Careful to give Diablo and Squire a wide berth, she kept to the outskirts of the grounds and pretended to be taking a walk as she surreptitiously checked out members for any resemblance to Christopher Holt.
    A spindly, bearded specimen hunched under a huge sycamore tree caught Edwina’s attention. He was scribbling furiously on a newspaper, and from her distance she couldn’t tell how old he was or what he was doing, but his intensity intrigued her. And he certainly had Holt’s lanky build.
    She’d barely started toward the man when a snort of derision stopped her. Basking in the morning sun not ten feet away from her, Mad Dog was reclined against the sissy bar of his customized low rider. She’d been so intent on the seated man, she hadn’t noticed the other biker lounging by the thicket of willows.
    An insinuating smile twisted Mad Dog’s mouth, and sunlight glinted off his mirrored sunglasses. As Edwina shielded her eyes, she saw sunlight flash off another object, a rectangular chrome gadget tucked into his boot. She thought it was a weapon at first, but she didn’t see any barrels or sharp edges.
    “Like what you see, Blondie?” he asked, adjusting his pants the way macho types invariably did when they were trying to be vulgar.
    Mad Dog didn’t have to try. Edwina returned his beady stare, tossed him a quick insolent headshake, and continued her walk. Her defiant gesture was deliberate. She couldn’t afford to let a predator like him smell fear, but it would have been an even bigger mistake to let him engage her in suggestive conversation. At least he hadn’t recognized her. The spark she’d seen in his eyes wasn’t awareness; it was lust. Obviously one woman was as good as another to Mad Dog.
    The figure huddled under the sycamore was oblivious to Edwina as she approached. He was younger than she’d first thought, perhaps in his early thirties at most, and his only resemblance to the rest of the gang was a straggly beard and a Warlord’s leather jacket with the name Killer imprinted on it.
    “Bingo!” Thrusting the paper aside, he began furiously tapping out numbers on a solar calculator. He hit the total button and whistled. “Smoked the Dow Jones again!”
    A Wall Street Journal lay crumpled next to him, the stock section circled and highlighted. He was playing the market, Edwina realized. Her thoughts began to whir as she scrutinized him. Holt had just inherited his uncle’s stock-brokerage business, among other things. He would