Fatal Hearts by Norah Wilson Read Free Book Online Page A

asked.
    “I’m ready.” Hayden handed him her menu. “I’ll have the New Orleans salad.”
    Boyd closed his menu, having given it the briefest of glances. “Grilled salmon, but can you give me extra vegetables instead of a starch?”
    “Certainly, sir.” The server took the menus and disappeared.
    After a fortifying sip of beer, Hayden returned to the subject of Josh. “So, what is it you think I can do for you?”
    He picked up his beer and took a drink, then a larger one. “Nice. Great recommendation,” he pronounced. Then he put the mug down and met her eyes. “I want to know more about his life here. You said you two gravitated toward one another? How so?”
    “Well, at first, it was over little things. TV shows we both liked. Movies we both wanted to see. We both liked jogging. Then the more we talked, the more we realized we liked talking.”
    “Talking.” He smiled wryly. “Of course.”
    “Also, like I told you earlier, all of our married friends kept trying to throw us together for different reasons. The whole matchmaking thing.”
    He raised his eyebrows. “I bet.”
    “We both thought it was funny. I mean, Josh was a good-looking guy, so it’s not like I couldn’t see why a girl would be attracted to him.”
    His eyebrows went up even higher. “Really?” That’s when she realized that by saying Josh was good-looking, she was also saying Boyd was good-looking. She felt herself blush and took a quick sip of her beer to help hide it.
    “Well . . . yes. I guess.”
    “When did he make his move on you? Before or after you became friends?”
    “After,” she said. “If he’d done it up front, without knowing anything about me, I doubt we ever would have become friends. I have a low threshold of tolerance for men who see a woman and try to ‘hit that’right out of the gates.”
    “Understandable.”
    She called up the memory. “We’d had a few of drinks—one of the few times I’d seen him have more than two—at a friend’s engagement party. I think it wasn’t a serious pass so much as one of those reflexive things you do when you’re slightly drunk. You know, like those people who pat their pockets for a cigarette, even though they gave up the habit months ago.”
    “You’re sure?”
    His intense scrutiny made her shift in her chair. “That it wasn’t serious? Yeah, pretty sure. We laughed it off, and everything went back to normal.”
    “And normal was . . . ?”
    “He was like the big brother I never had, helping me around my apartment with the handyman stuff and keeping an eye on me. I always got the feeling that your brother was looking for something—some one . Not actively, but, you know, keeping his eyes open. I just knew his heart would be wide-open to her when she came.”
    “And you?”
    “I wasn’t looking for anyone at all. I’m still not.”
    He looked as if he was going to ask her more about her declaration, but instead he took another sip of beer. “Fair enough. You said Josh didn’t really keep you abreast of his investigation?”
    “Only in the most general of terms. It was the one thing he didn’t talk to me about.”
    “I doubt it was the only thing.”
    She blinked. “I’m sorry, what?”
    He lifted a shoulder in a shrug. “I’m just saying no one is ever a completely open book, no matter how much they might appear to be. We all have things we hold back.”
    His words were casually spoken, but when she met his eyes, they were filled with a strange intensity. Almost . . . was that accusation ? Did he think she was holding back on him?
    She lowered her own gaze quickly. “I suppose you’re right.”
    An awkward silence fell between them. This was why she hadn’t wanted to dine with him. She picked up her beer and took a swig of it. “So, what more do you want to know, Boyd?” She placed her mug down carefully instead of thumping it down like she wanted to. “I’ll try to answer as honestly and completely as I can. You know, be that