On Pins and Needles by Victoria Pade Read Free Book Online

call in to Peru?” Nissa asked as shecame to sit at the table with Megan, in the same chair Josh Brimley had occupied the evening before.
    The same chair Megan had spent too much time this morning staring at and picturing him in the night before. All handsome and muscular…
    And suspicious. Don’t lose sight of that, she told herself.
    â€œI called the number the folks gave us if we needed to reach them,” Megan said when she’d leashed her thoughts. “But there’s no telling how long it will take to get the message out to them and arrange long-distance ship-to-shore contact. The person I spoke to warned me that it could be days.”
    â€œI don’t suppose the sheriff will be happy to hear that.”
    â€œYou can bet on it.” Of course he had shown a little pleasure in certain things the previous evening, but none of them had had to do with being denied his requests or a delay in doing his bidding.
    â€œHad you done his acupuncture before all this happened?” Nissa asked then.
    â€œNo, he was in the process of telling me that he thought it was hocus-pocus or voodoo or some thing.”
    â€œAh, he’s one of those.”
    â€œIt didn’t bother me at first. I thought he was just being honest about his skepticism, and that I’d win him over. But later… Well, he made me mad with his barely veiled accusations of Mom and Dad, and I changed my mind.”
    Nissa laughed. “It bothered you belatedly?”
    â€œSome thing like that. But by then everything about him bothered me.”
    â€œOh?” There was a lilt in her sister’s tone that made Nissa seem more interested in that than in anything else they’d been talking about. “What else about him bothered you?”
    â€œHis tunnel-vision. His close-mind ed ness. The fact that he has a basketful of preconceived notions about me and acupuncture and our whole family—including that Mom and Dad could be murderers, of all things. He’s definitely what I swore to myself I’d never get involved with again after Noel, that’s for sure.”
    â€œWere we talking about you getting involved with him?”
    â€œNo, I’m just saying—”
    â€œBut obviously the thought occurred to you.”
    Her sister knew her too well and Megan realized there was no sense in denying that the vague thought of some fleeting kind of involvement with Josh Brimley had flitted through her mind.
    â€œOkay, maybe, just in passing,” she conceded. “He’s a great big, good-looking guy. It would have occurred to anyone.”
    â€œSo you were attracted to him.”
    â€œI wouldn’t say attracted, no. I just did some objective observation.”
    â€œAnd came to the conclusion that he was a great big, good-looking guy,” Nissa repeated, teasing her now.
    â€œThat’s not a conclusion I needed to come to. It’s an empirical fact.”
    â€œAn empirical fact that you took note of.”
    â€œDo you want to talk about the problems this man is determined to cause us or about his appearance?”
    â€œMaybe you could flirt us out of problems with him,” Nissa joked.
    â€œYou definitely don’t know Josh Brimley.” Although there had been some flirting going on in the under currents.
    Or had she only imagined it? Maybe at the same time she’d been imagining him kissing her…
    â€œThis is serious, Nissa,” Megan claimed as if her own mind hadn’t just wandered from the weightiness of the situation. “I don’t think it’s a good idea to take it lightly.”
    Nissa shrugged again. “No matter how we take it, what can we do about it? I assume this Josh Brimley is going to investigate and find out what really happened all those years ago and who did it.”
    â€œBut will he find out the truth if he doesn’t look at any scenario that doesn’t put the blame on Mom and Dad? Because as it stands