Shadow's Lady (A Pajaro Bay Cozy Mystery + Sweet Romance) by Barbara Cool Lee Read Free Book Online Page A

away from the dog, down at the ground, not wanting a repeat of her last apparition-induced seizure.
    "Grrrr."
    Grrrr? She heard the distinctively canine growl and realized she had completely forgotten about the howl that had driven her outside in the first place. Ghosts, particularly fictional ghosts created by tricks of light, did not make noise.
    She looked up to find herself staring at, not a ghost, not even a dog, but what could only be a man-eating wolf, huge and shaggy black, with a menacing expression in its deadly black eyes.
    "Grrrr," it said again, then bounded straight toward them.
    "Look out!" Lori tried to push the injured man behind her, to protect him from the attacking creature.
    But the dog ran past her to jump up on the man.
    The man hugged the big beast to him, looking like he was about to cry with relief. "I thought you were drowned," he whispered into the dog's fur. The canine licked his face, as if to say, "I thought you were, too."
    This was getting weirder by the minute.
    Seeing it up close she did have to admit that it was just a normal, if large, pet dog, and not a wild wolf. And maybe it wasn't as evil as it had first appeared. It frolicked around in the mud, barking happily, and feigning leaps at the man as if begging to play. And the man was actually grinning. He was swaying dangerously in a losing effort to stay upright, and he was shaking like a leaf, but he was grinning.
    The beast came toward her and she backed up. "Keep it away from me!"
    He frowned. "He's not going to hurt you. He's a really friendly dog."
    "I don't like animals," she said.
    He started to ask about that, but she stopped him. "Not now. I hate to break up this reunion," she said, trying to slow the pounding of her heart, "but the lightning's getting closer, and you've got another ten yards to hop."

    •••

    Ophelia was waiting when they entered the kitchen. Her expression upon seeing Lori and the semi-conscious, wetsuit-clad man was one of pure shock. When the dog trotted through the door in their wake and sat down in the middle of the floor Lori swore Ophie's jaw actually dropped open.
    "I told you so," Lori told the cat.
    Ophelia, puffed up into a fluffy gray fuzzball, hissed in response.
    Lori plopped the man down unceremoniously on the floor next to the Aga. The dog sprawled next to him with a sigh of relief, then promptly started snoring.
    The cat expressed her displeasure at this turn of events with a growl louder than the thunder outside, then shot past them and headed for a hiding place under a chair in the adjoining sitting room. She crouched there and glared at them, growling all the while. "Knock it off, Ophie," Lori said.
    "Ophie?" the man whispered.
    "Her name's Ophelia. And like her namesake, she's gone insane."
    Lori, halfway to the kitchen sink, could have sworn the man muttered something like "How long hath she been thus?" But that was highly unlikely, since dumb jocks didn't generally quote Hamlet from memory.
    It was done. He was inside, out of the drenching, chilling storm, and he was safe. Her whole body was shaking, she was soaked with as much sweat as rain, and her head throbbed like a really lousy dancer was auditioning on her cerebral cortex. But her anonymous pirate was alive. She splashed cold water on her face and hair, then toweled off with one of Aunt Zee's vintage royal family tea towels, leaving a swipe of mud across Queen Elizabeth's face.
    The man hadn't moved.
    "We'll have the Coast Guard here in a few minutes," she said reassuringly.
    She started to walk past where he lay on the floor, but he grabbed her leg with that iron grip of his. "Blanket?" he asked.
    "In a minute," she answered gently. "I'm going to call the Coast Guard. It might take them some time to get here in this weather."
    He wouldn't let go of her leg. That grip of his was awful. She couldn't move. "You have to let go," she said as patiently as she could. She bent down to try to pry off his fingers, but she couldn't. He