Mischief in Mudbug by Jana DeLeon Read Free Book Online

form a clear picture. Sitting across from him in the café, she’d felt a tug that she’d never felt before…a desire to know this man, inside and out. But with her life hanging in the balance, the last thing Sabine was going to do was complicate an already impossible situation by developing feelings for a man she might not be around to see grow old. It wasn’t fair…not to her and especially not to him. She turned off the lamp and lay down, hoping she dreamed about anything besides death, ghosts, family, and the good-looking man who would never know she was interested.
    It felt like she’d barely fallen asleep when Sabine bolted upright in her bed, her pulse racing. There was noise downstairs in her shop. She glanced at the alarm clock and saw it was just after midnight. Much, much too late for anyone to need anything legitimate. And with the attempted break-in that morning, she wasn’t about to take any chances. She eased out of bed and pulled open her nightstand drawer. Within easy reach and already loaded rested the nine millimeter she’d purchased years before.
    Mudbug might be a small town, but Sabine was a single woman living alone. Residents of Mudbug may call her crazy, but no one was going to call her stupid. She lifted the pistol from the drawer and crept out of the bedroom. The stairwell door creaked just a bit as she eased it open, and she froze. The only sound she could hear was the ticking of the old clock in her living room.
    Then she heard rustling downstairs and knew whoever it was hadn’t fled. Which wasn’t good. When faced with the possibility of a homeowner in a small town in Louisiana, most thieves would flee—unless they were on drugs. But then, most thieves didn’t try to break into buildings in broad daylight, either, even if it was the back door.
    Unless theft wasn’t their primary objective.
    Clutching the pistol, she crept down the stairs, hoping they didn’t creak under her weight. She reached the bottom without incident and peered around the corner into the shop. A silhouette stood silently by the cash register. She squinted in the dark, trying to make out the figure, and as her vision shifted just a bit, she realized the person wasn’t trying to break into the register, as she’d originally thought, but was instead writing something on the pad of paper she usually kept under the counter.
    Now or never. Please God, don’t let him have a gun, too.
    She took a deep breath and tightened her grip on the pistol. Her heart pounded in her chest, making the silence seem ever more sinister, more empty. With a silent prayer, she flipped on the shop lights and stepped around the corner, her gun aimed directly at the figure. It took a moment for her to focus and realize that the man standing at her counter was someone she knew.
    “Jesus, Hank! You scared the shit out of me. What in the world are you doing in my shop in the middle of the night? For that matter, what are you doing in Mudbug at all?”
    Hank Henry, disappearing husband extraordinaire, remained frozen in surprise and fright, his hands inthe air. Finally, he found his voice. “You’re not going to shoot me, are you?”
    “No…well, probably not.” Sabine looked closely at him, trying to figure out what he was up to, but all she saw was the good-looking guy Maryse had been unfortunate enough to fall for and marry.
    He stared a moment more, then apparently deciding she probably wouldn’t shoot him, he lowered his hands and sucked in a breath. “Jesus yourself, Sabine. I already got shot once in the last month. I’d really like to avoid it again if I could.”
    Sabine tried to hold in a smile but only partially managed to. Hank, in an unusual fit of heroism, had taken a bullet that wasn’t meant for him. It had definitely improved his rating with Maryse and Sabine, but Hank was far from out of the woods. There was still that two-year disappearance, and Sabine wasn’t yet ready to forgive Hank completely for all the