Demon Hunting In the Deep South by Lexi George Read Free Book Online

raised voices drew her attention to the other side of the room.
    “Out.” Willa Dean pointed toward the door. “Take your nasty little mutt and get out. Now.”
    “Evangeline.” A shiver of delight coursed from her head to her toes as he placed his fingertips beneath her chin and turned her head toward him. “Are you involved with Trey Peterson?”
    “Oh, for Pete’s sake, why do people keep asking me that? No, I’m not involved with Trey.”
    “Good.”
    Bewildered, she watched him turn and stride across the room to Mullet Woman, who was still arguing with the receptionist.
    “And I’m telling you, I ain’t leaving till I see the sheriff,” Mullet Woman said.
    The dog responded to the tension in his mistress’s voice by throwing back his head and yodeling. The cone amplified the sound like a megaphone.
    Ansgar loomed over Mullet Woman. “Give the creature to me,” he said. “You cannot converse whilst the thing makes that infernal noise.”
    Mullet Woman gazed up at him, her eyes widening in alarm. “I don’t think so, mister. Frodo don’t cotton to men.”
    Frodo confirmed this statement by trying to launch himself at Ansgar.
    “Fear not,” Ansgar said. “I will have a care to avoid the end with the teeth.”
    Mullet Woman clutched the wriggling dog tighter. “No thanks. I got enough trouble as it is.”
    “You have my word no harm shall come to the animal.”
    “It ain’t the dog I’m worried about. Frodo’s like a grizzly bear when he gets riled up.”
    “Trust me,” Ansgar said in a deep-timbral purr.
    Wowza, this guy was something else. Evie felt the seductive power of the Voice clear across the room. Poor Mullet Woman was standing at ground zero and looked like she’d been knocked upside the head with a two-by-four.
    As for Willa Dean, Evie was pretty sure the old grump just had her first Big One in twenty years. Maybe ever.
    Even Frodo the Misandrous Chihuahua shut the hell up.
    “Wow.” Mullet Woman gazed at Ansgar in awe. “Say something else. Anything. Listening to you talk makes my Happy Place go all warm and tingly. And I’d plum forgot I had a Happy Place.”
    “Congratulations. I am gratified to hear it. The dog, madam, if you please.”
    Mullet Woman sighed. “Okay, it’s your funeral.”
    She handed him the Chihuahua. Holding the writhing dog at arm’s length, Ansgar gazed into the cone. “Hear me, fiend. Sting me with thy teeth to thy everlasting regret.”
    To Evie’s surprise, Frodo subsided with a disgruntled growl. Tucking the five-pound dog under one arm, Ansgar walked across the room and stood near the door.
    “Most ridiculous thing I ever saw, that great big guy holding that itty-bitty butt-ugly dog.” Shaking her head, Willa Dean picked up the telephone and pushed a button. “Sheriff, could you come out here? There’s a woman here who insists on seeing you.”
    “What the Sam Hill’s going on?” Sheriff Whitsun said, coming out of the back a moment later. “I’m trying to talk to the forensics guy in Mobile, and I can’t hear myself think for the racket. Sounds like somebody’s scalding a bobcat out here.”
    Willa Dean pushed to her feet. “This woman wants a restraining order. I tried to tell her we don’t do that kind of thing, but nothing doing, she has to talk to you. Maybe you can talk some sense into her. It’s time for my co-cola break.”
    She flounced through the swinging door.
    Mullet Woman pounced on the startled sheriff in an earthquake of jiggling boobs. “You Sheriff Whitsun?”
    “Yes.”
    “My name is Nicole Eubanks,” she continued, panting a little. “And I need me that restraining order. Real bad.”
    The sheriff held up his hand. “One thing at a time, Ms. Eubanks. Where do you live?”
    “Quit my job at the Gas ’N Gulp and moved to Hannah last week. No choice. Me and Frodo had to get outta Baldwin County. Fast, on account of we got us a dog stalker.”
    “Hannah? Well, now, you’ll have to—” Whitsun faltered.