The Guardian. Linda Winstead Jones

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ be all the better for it.”

      Dante looked confused. His eyes narrowed slightly, his nose wrinkled, and she could see the bewilderment on his face. He had always been so easy to read. For her, at least. His eyes gave away so much. “You’re…”

      “Mayor Vance.” Sara offered her hand, the one that didn’t continue to clutch a walking shoe. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. I was just on my way out for a walk.” She sat in a foyer chair, which was upholstered in a striped fabric, where she slipped on her other shoe and then bent to tie them both. It was good to break eye contact for a moment; good to take the opportunity to take a deep, calming breath. Even after all these years, Dante made her nervous. She could swear that the very air in the house had changed, grown thicker and warmer the moment he’d entered.

      As she stared at her shoelaces and pulled one more snugly into place, she said, “If you have any questions about your job here, or if you have any suggestions about the department, please feel free to stop by my office anytime.”

      It was a dismissal, one anyone in their right mind should recognize, but he didn’t move. After a painfully long moment, he said, “I’m not here to introduce myself, Mayor Vance. I’m here about the theft.”

      Sara took another long, deep breath, but it did nothing to calm her. Great. Not only had some pervert stolen her underwear, she now had to discuss the matter, in detail, with a man who made her nervous. With a drool-worthy guy who’d once had his hand up her blouse and had apparently forgotten. How unflattering. How humiliating. Again she said, “Come by my office in the morning and…”

      “Did the crime take place at your office?”

      “Of course not,” she responded.

      “Then why would I want to interview you there?”

      Interview. Of course. Dante had come to ask her about the bras and panties that had been stolen from the clothesline in her backyard. It made sense, she supposed, that he would want to question her here. She should’ve simply replaced the missing garments and moved on.

      “It was no big deal,” she said. “Really. I’m sure it was nothing more than a practical joke played by bored kids. There are lots of middle-school-age kids in the neighborhood, and it’s just the sort of prank they might think was amusing, stealing the mayor’s…underthings.”

      Dante didn’t agree with her and leave her in peace, as he should have. He didn’t take another look at her face and ask, “Don’t I know you?” The annoying man took a small notepad from his breast pocket and flipped it open. “Three bras and four pairs of panties,” he said without blushing or stammering, “valued at four hundred and twenty-five dollars.” He flipped the notebook closed with the same grace and ease with which he’d opened it. “That’s some fancy underwear, Mayor Vance.”

      Her face grew hot. She’d been raised in a conservative household, and while she had grown up in an age where almost anything was acceptable and she did not exactly embrace the conservatism of her grandparents, she also didn’t feel comfortable discussing her underwear with just anyone. She hadn’t seen Dante in eighteen years and he had forgotten her, so he was in fact, not much better than a stranger. “It was good quality, not fancy,” she responded, proud of herself for not stuttering.

      “I’m pretty sure I haven’t spent that much on underwear in my entire life.”

      Sara blinked hard. Too much information. “Actually…” She stood, feeling uncomfortable sitting while Dante—what was he these days, anyway, six foot three?—towered over her. “There’s no reason to discuss this any further. I’ve decided to drop the matter.”

      “Why?” he asked simply.

      “It’s not worth the trouble, and I feel terrible that city time and expense has been wasted on such a trivial matter. I suppose I panicked a bit when I called the police after my housekeeper discovered the…the…”

      “Underwear,” he replied when she faltered.

      “Was gone,” she finished, annoyed to realize that he could have just as easily supplied the word theft.

      “This incident is a nuisance, not worth wasting your valuable time.”

      That got a very sexy half grin out of Dante. He was older, bigger, harder, but the grin had not changed. “The way this city pays its officers, at the present my time’s not all that valuable. Mayor Vance,” he added belatedly.

      Again, he was out of bounds. “While I do appreciate your help, Sergeant Mangino, the city budget is not something you and I should be discussing,” she said primly, even though getting more money for the city’s employees was high on her wish list. The problem was, she couldn’t fabricate the money required out of thin air, and making budgetary changes was more complicated than she’d thought it would be. She’d been in office not much more than two months, and so far it was slow going. Not that she’d explain any of that to Dante Mangino.

      Two things happened at once. Dante turned his head and she got a glimpse of a tattoo creeping out of his starched shirt collar. That was new. Tattoos were pretty much mainstream these days, but they weren’t exactly commonplace among Tillman’s city employees. To have one on his neck…

      And the doorbell rang. She walked past Dante to answer, staying well out of his way, happy for the chance to walk away from him for a moment so she could regain her composure. Not much rattled her these days, and she needed to get over this silly reaction to a man who was nothing more than an old boyfriend. An old boyfriend who had forgotten her. As Sara reached for the doorknob, she hoped for the band candy or cookies she had expected when Dante had rung the doorbell.

      She threw open the door, and at first she saw nothing. No neighbor, no child selling overpriced fundraiser treats she always felt obligated to buy. Then she glanced down and saw the package sitting on the welcome mat. The smallish—no more than eight inches square—package was pretty, wrapped in bright pink paper and accented with a large silver bow and a stripe of matching ribbon. She bent and picked up the box, wondering if a delivery had mistakenly been made to the wrong house. The package was very light, she noted, but was a little heavier than an empty box of this size should be. As she turned she glanced at the small card attached to the bow. No mistake. Her name—Mayor Sarabeth Louann Vance—was written there in a neat script.

      “Your birthday?” Dante asked.

      “No.” Sara pushed the front door closed with a gentle push of her hip, then she placed the box on an antique foyer table, carefully pushing back the flower arrangement there to make room for the unexpected gift.

      “Who’s it from?” Dante asked sharply.

      “I don’t know.” She carefully opened the dangling card, which bore her name. Inside was blank, and she told him so.

      She reached for the bow, but suddenly a large, warm, strong hand clamped over her wrist, stilling her movements. Her heart seemed to catch in her chest, not because someone had left her an anonymous package, but because Dante Mangino had touched her.

      “Not a good idea, Mayor,” Dante said in a lowered, very dangerous voice that sent a shiver down her spine. He lifted her hand away from the box and dropped it, then fetched a knife from his pocket and opened it with a flick of his thumb.

      First he cut the ribbon, then he touched the blade to the end of the box where the paper gapped, barely moving the bright pink wrapping aside with the tip of СКАЧАТЬ