The Professional by Rhonda Nelson Read Free Book Online

he was on her table—and that several of the other residents liked to keep sizable amounts of cash on hand for emergencies. One resident was notorious for burying her stash in Mason jars around her lawn. The baffled groundskeeper had suspected a mole problem until the truth was revealed. Why not steal from them? Why was jewelry the only item taken?
    “I suppose you’ve seen Foy’s grandson,” Lila remarked with a smile, seemingly ready for a subject change.
    Sophie swallowed a sigh. “I have, at Cora’s insistence,” she added with a droll grin.
    Truthfully, Foy’s grandson was a topic she was getting mightily tired of—she hadn’t talked to a single person over the past two days who didn’t have something to say about the former Ranger. It was infuriating. And to make matters worse, like a bad penny, he kept showing up everywhere she went. Granted the village was relatively small, but it seemed like no matter where she was, he managed to be close by.
    She’d avoided going to the diner for lunch yesterday because she’d been certain he’d be there again, laughing and smiling and looking all brooding and mysterious and sexy. She’d packed a lunch from home and, despite the chilly weather, had opted to dine al fresco on a park bench by the lake. She’d just spooned a bite of potato soup into her mouth when she’d looked across the water and spotted him. Evidently, he’d made the same choice and, smiling, had lifted his thermos in a salute to her.
    Peevishly—hell, it wasn’t his fault that she found herself wildly, inexplicably, horribly attracted to him—she pulled a book from her bag, stuck it in front of her face and pretended to read. While hiding in plain sight, she’d inadvertently dropped a glob of soup on her right breast and accidentally let her cake slide off her plate. She was so annoyed she’d abandoned the rest of her meal, gathered up her things and left in a foul mood.
    And realizing that she’d let him put her in a foul mood had only angered her further. Where was this newfound control she was supposed to be exercising? What the hell had happened to it?
    Just because he had the unique ability to make her body mutiny and melt like a popsicle on the Fourth of July, and she’d caught him staring at her several times with that microscopic gaze as though she were an exotic specimen in a Petri dish didn’t mean that she was destined to fail at celibacy.
    It simply meant she needed to try harder.
    Honestly, for a man who was supposedly here to visit his grandfather and make notes for his memoir—that little tidbit had made its way to her this morning—he certainly didn’t spend a lot of time with Foy. If he wasn’t in the diner, then he was in the general store. If he wasn’t in the store, then he was at the pharmacy. If he wasn’t at the pharmacy, then he was at the barber shop. Or the fitness center, or the recreation room, or simply visiting someone else. She frowned. It was odd and, combined with it being physically impossible for him to be Foy’s grandson, she suspected he wasn’t being completely honest with everyone about his purpose here.
    Granted she didn’t know every branch of Foy’s family tree and if Foy said he was his grandson—which he did—then who was she to question it? Furthermore, Foy was shrewd and, of the residents here, he was the least likely to be taken advantage of.
    Ultimately, though, it didn’t matter. She just knew she needed to stay the hell away from him.
    “Speak of the devil,” Lila said, a smile in her voice.
    Sophie blinked. “Pardon?”
    A knock suddenly sounded at the front door and with a sense of impending doom, she turned and followed Lila’s gaze. The devil, indeed, Sophie thought, her mouth parching at the sight of him. He wore a black cable-knit sweater which accentuated every impressive muscle from the waist up, and a pair of faded jeans which did the same thing from the waist down. Black boots and black sunglasses completed the