Lightning That Lingers by Sharon Curtis, Tom Curtis Read Free Book Online

the overnight book drop—discovering an accidentally locked book drop seemed to bring out the ferocious in people. She’d seen them leave books on the library’s front steps in a rainstorm.
    She hurried to the back hallway, dragged her camel stadium coat from the hook and zipped it on quickly, fumbling for the brown tweed mittens from the pocket and pulling the matching cuff hat down over her hair and ears.
    The bitter cold outside made her clench her muscles and stamp her feet as she engineered the heavy locks on the service door. Somewhere behind her an engine ran reassuringly. She turned, expecting to race toward the Gremlin. But the Gremlin was gone.
    Spent light drifted over the library walls from a distant streetlamp and the reflected gleam of the three-quarter moon on the frozen lake beyondcarved out an area from the darkness, like a barely lit stage. And within that stage she saw that the only car in the desolate lot was an aging station wagon. And leaning on the front of it, one leather boot up on the bumper, was the man in the cream-colored parka whom she had seen wearing so much less. She turned to ice in her tracks. Seeing her, he shoved off the bumper and walked toward her.
    Unsteady pulses thumped in strange places inside her body but she’d made a resolution the night before while she was brushing her teeth that never again would she let any man back her against a wall. Looking frantically around for Eleanor, she heard herself utter, “Mrs. Paynter …”
    “Eleanor left when I told her I was here to pick you up. She wasn’t averse since she was rushing home to catch The Maltese Falcon’ on cable.”
    The attractive voice was matter-of-fact, the stance relaxed. His moonlit features revealed no nuances. Trying to cope with the reality of his sudden appearance, she took one hard sustaining breath, feeding oxygen to her poor besieged brain. Okay, brain, what’s going on here? His casual use of the head librarian’s first name and his just-as-casual reference to Eleanor’s plans for the evening were such a severe check that she could only falter, “Eleanor left? Just like that?”
    The sensual features seemed to soften as he studied her. “You’ve been abandoned to the wolves, darling. She didn’t so much as hesitate. It helps, of course, that she’s known me since the days my eyebrows didn’t reach the top of the checkout counter and I was signing out picture books in crayon.”
    The inside of her mouth and her throat werebone dry and stinging in the cold air. She tried to swallow and couldn’t. “You just … lied to her?”
    “No.” His smile entered her senses like wine. He moved closer. “I do want to pick you up. You might as well resign yourself and come along passively.”
    His strong fingers took hold of her upper arm, propelling her toward the car, and she yelped, “Now see here.…”
    “I intend to. But not until you’re sitting in the car.” Amusement edged the easy voice. “I don’t want you to freeze the end of your stuck-up little nose.”
    Though she didn’t quite struggle, alarm made her stiffen as he bundled her into the passenger seat of the station wagon, and she was breathing in jerky little gasps as he climbed into the front seat beside her.
    “You can’t push me around,” she said, somewhat inaccurately.
    “Oh yes I can. As a matter of fact, I’m probably only one of a long line of people who can push you around.”
    She made a noble attempt to pull herself back together. “I have my moments. Of courage, that is.”
    “Yes indeed.” He shoved the key into the ignition and turned to face her, one long shapely denim-clad leg resting on the driveshaft hump. “If you recall I was treated to one of them on Saturday. It was very impressive.”
    Her gaze had wandered somehow to his mouth, and a strange feeling began to float inside her. She looked straight at him. “Is that why you’rehere? Do you plan on doing something horrible to me for revenge?”
    A