Smitten by Janet Evanovich Read Free Book Online

boys needed to have male friends. She would have preferred someone without a tattoo advocating sex with the animal kingdom, but she wasn’t in the mood to quibble. She stared at her fork, wondering if she had the strength to pick it up.
    â€œSoccer? That sounds like fun,” she said absently. “I could use some exercise.” She could use some exercise in the year 2009. Anything before that was going to be a major imposition.
    Not to worry, she thought. Soccer was at least a half hour away. Right now she had more immediate problems. She needed to figure out a way to eat her ham. Cutting and chewing seemed like insurmountable obstacles.
    â€œSomething wrong with the ham?” Elsie asked Lizabeth. “You keep staring at it.”
    â€œIt’s fine, but I’m thinking of becoming a vegetarian. I’m worried about my cholesterol.”
    â€œDon’t be a ninny,” Elsie said. “You’re nothing but skin and bones, and you have bags under your eyes. You need meat. How do you think I’ve kept my looks all these years? I eat right.Except for that time when I tried living in the old people’s home. Worst food I’ve ever seen. Everything got squeezed through a strainer.”
    â€œYuck!” Jason said. “Like baby food.” He accidentally tipped over his milk, and it spread, like a flash flood, across the table.
    Elsie jumped to her feet and ran for a kitchen towel. Lizabeth mopped up milk with her napkin. And Ferguson seized upon the opportunity to run off with the remainder of the ham.
    â€œFerguson’s got the ham!” Billy shouted. He reached out for the dog, caught his elbow on the gravy boat, and the gravy boat slid into Matt’s plate and smashed, dumping a cup and a half of semicongealed goo into Matt’s lap.
    â€œOh, gross,” Jason said. “One time Ferguson got sick and made a mess on the rug and it looked just like that.”
    Elsie watched dinner disappear around the corner. “There goes tomorrow’s lunch,” she said. “Damned if you don’t have to be on your toes in this house.”
    â€œI guess we should postpone the soccer game until tomorrow,” Matt said. “If I play soccer in these clothes, I’ll have every dog in the neighborhood following me.”
    Lizabeth leaned back in her chair and managed a weak smile. She was saved. God bless Ferguson.
    Â 
    There were four bedrooms on the top floor of the old Victorian. Lizabeth had chosen a back bedroom for herself and had meagerly furnished it with a double bed and a secondhand oak dresser. One window looked out at the side yard, the view partially obscured by a mature stand of Douglas firs that served as a privacy fence. The other window in Lizabeth’s room overlooked the backyard, which was, for the most part, packed dirt.
    Ferguson had littered the yard with punctured footballs, soccer balls, half-chewed baseballs, and a few mangled shoes. A redwood picnic table and two benches had been left by the previous owner. The table was seldom used for picnics, since Lizabeth didn’t have a grill. Instead, it served as the collection point for half-filled jars of soap bubbles, used boxes of crayons, a handful of Matchbox cars, empty juice glasses, plastic water pistols, and whatever other flotsam accumulated from two boys at play.
    Since the yard was dominated by several large trees, it was continuously cast in shade. By moonlight the yard seemed solemn and spooky, and usually only Carol the Cat ventured into its black shadows.
    This evening a human form picked its way around the footballs, soccer balls, and baseballs. He cursed when he stepped on a shoe and stood still for a minute to get his bearings. He moved back a few feet and took a handful of small stones from his coat pocket.
    As Lizabeth pulled herself up from the drowse of sleep, she thought it must be sleeting. She lay absolutely still, very quietly listening to the tik tik tik of