Earth Angel by Linda Cajio Read Free Book Online Page A

Sighing, he admitted his wasn’t the bed he’d been hoping to wind up in. Despite that, he couldn’t help feeling he’d made quite a bit of progress with Catherine that night. She had opened up to him, especially about her failed wedding.
    He made a face at the thought of her disappearing fiancé. The stupid, self-righteous bastard. He would love to have the man in front of him right now for making such a mess in Catherine’s life. Mike Tyson would be envious of the result. He’d always thought Catherine deserved better than her fiancé, but he never would have wished for her to be hurt like that. She must have been humiliated.
    A wave of protectiveness rose in him, deeper and stronger than any he’d felt before. He wouldn’t have expected to feel protective of Catherine. She didn’t seem to need it. He wondered, though, just how much hurt she hid under her armor.
    He sensed that despite her easiness with him during the evening, some barriers were nowhere near ready to come down. It would take a long time at this rate. Maybe his grandmother was on the right track about helping Catherine find the codicil. Miles grinned.
    It would be interesting to see just how grateful Catherine would be.
    •     •     •
    Catherine carefully examined the sideview mirrors for any early morning traffic on the back road, then slowly drove the truck into the brush. The small dump truck made its own track through the wooded area, crushing bushes and underbrush under its large-tread tires. She silently begged forgiveness for the destruction, but knew the woods would cover her “road” within a week.
    She had thought sleep would come easily that night, after her evening with Miles ended so precipitately. But she’d tossed and turned, Miles Kitteridge at every view. She decided in the early hours of the morning that if she couldn’t sleep, she might as well get moving on Earth Angel’s next assignment.
    Damn that man, she thought. The whole evening had backfired on her. First she’d lost the controlling hand, then she’d nearly lost control of herself. If she hadn’t uttered those mindless words …
    Miles could hurt her badly and walk away without a backward glance. There was a calculating coldness under his charm. He was only interested in her because he had a second opportunity with her, and she had denied him once before.
    He was up to something about Wagner Oil, she mused. Who did he think he was fooling with all those supposedly innocent questions? He was the banker. He
had
to know what her uncle was doing. She bet her salary he was in cahoots with Byrne.
    She reached the creek before she expected to, and had to stand on the brakes when the bank came up in a rush.
    The two-ton truck stopped with plenty of room to spare. Catherine got out and observed her objective. The creek narrowed nicely at the bend in front of her. She was about a half mile down from Wagner’s Wissahickon paint subsidiary, outside Philadelphia. The previous week, the county had detected leakage farther down the creek, nearer the city. There were enough businesses and sewage treatment plants along the banks that they weren’t able to trace the culprit before the toxins were diluted by the water.
    Catherine smiled grimly. Earth Angel knew.
    She climbed into the cab again, grateful that the dump truck, even fully loaded, was only slightly harder to handle than a pickup. She carefully backed it around, weaving in and out of the trees. Even more carefully, she brought the rear end of the truck nearly to the bank.
    She got out of the cab and walked to the back of the truck, humming the “1812 Overture.” When she reached the part where the cannons fired, she pressed a button.
    The truck bed rose into the air, its load of clean dirt hanging precariously at a forty-five-degree angle. Rivulets dribbled off the earthen slope.
    “Dadada-
de
-dadada-
de
-dada!” she sang out, and hit another button.
    The dirt whoosed out of the dropping tailgate