By Hook or By Crook by Linda Morris Read Free Book Online

she found the girl’s obvious attraction to Joe so grating.
    His head tilted as he studied her. Why did his green eyes see through her so easily?
    “Why should you care if I’m nice to an attractive woman?”
    “I don’t care in the least. I simply find it very predictable that the only part of her you seemed to find interesting were the two bags of silicone implanted in her chest.”
    That brought him up short, but only for a moment. “Really? You think they were fake?”
    Ivy snorted. “Of course they were fake! Real breasts don’t point due north, you know.”
    “Interesting. Still, breasts are breasts. I like ’em all, even if they are of dubious origin. Why should that bother you?”
    “It doesn’t.”
    She certainly didn’t have any interest in the man, if that’s what he thought. She liked educated introverts like herself, preferably well-heeled ones, so that she knew they weren’t after her money. Mouthy security consultants who worked for her father ranked low on her list of desirable partners.
    “So what do we do next?” she asked.
    “We wait for the fight and try to intercept them then. Pock is likely to be one of the early fights, since he’s not a headliner. The main event will be last.”
    “Shouldn’t we be out trying to find them? She said a shaman would be performing the ceremony. Surely that narrows it down.”
    Joe’s brows rose at that particular detail, but he simply shook his head. “It would be like finding a needle in a haystack. Something tells me there’s more than one shaman in Vegas who performs weddings. I think we’re better off intercepting them at the fight.”
    “But they could be getting married right now!” Ivy protested, falling into a double-time step to keep up with his pace.
    “Lucky we’re in Vegas, then. They have quickie divorces to go with their quickie weddings.”
    “Very funny. It’s not your sister’s future we’re talking about here.”
    He stopped so abruptly she stumbled, trying to stop quickly too. “If this were my sister, we wouldn’t be here, trying to stop her from doing what she wants to do with her own life.”
    His heated tone caused heads to turn throughout the lobby. Ivy flushed. She hated being the center of attention. “Shhh! Keep your voice down!” All she needed was to be recognized by some gossip columnist. “I don’t want to see this scene written up in some blog or sleazy tabloid, if it’s okay with you.”
    “Sorry,” he muttered.
    “Besides, I care about my family,” she said quietly. “If you don’t care about yours, that’s your own problem.” He didn’t even know her. His judgments about her were getting old.
    She stalked away, determined to spend the next few hours holed up in her room, avoiding Joe Dunham. After a moment, he fell into stride beside her.
    “Look, I’m sorry,” he began, looking almost repentant. “Let’s not fight. We’ve got a couple of hours to kill until the show. Want to do some gambling?”
    The out-of-the-blue offer caught her off guard. A night on the town in Vegas with one of the cool guys, the kind who’d never paid her much attention in high school? She hesitated a moment, tempted.
    “No. I have work to do.”
    She didn’t have time to waste on Joe Dunham. Her dissertation called. She needed to do something constructive to take her mind off this crazy situation. For the last twenty-four hours, when she hadn’t been worrying about her sister’s catastrophic wedding plans, she’d been smarting under Joe’s disapproval. Not that Joe needed to know, but she also wanted to check in with her dad to let him know they’d arrived. He clearly thought she needed to cut the apron strings, and she didn’t want to hear another lecture about how a woman of her age shouldn’t be so beholden to her father.
    She got on the elevator without a backward glance and pretended absorption with the satin-upholstered walls and crystal chandelier until the mirrored doors closed—with Joe on