Wine Astray: Spirit of the Soul Wine Shop Mystery (A Rysen Morris Mystery Book 1) by K.J. Emrick Read Free Book Online

better."
    "All right.  Well, goodnight."
    She was about to say goodbye and end the call when he added, "It was good seeing you again, Ry.  I didn't realize I missed you until you walked into the flower shop."
    Then he hung up before she could form a coherent thought.
    Rysen tossed her phone on the table and went right up to bed.  She just wasn't in the mood for a bath anymore.  Or wine.
    Not without someone to share them with.
    ***
    Brandon had seen the number of the shipping company's truck at the top of the invoice Christina had at the shop.  When she met up with him at six in the morning the next day, he was wearing a smile as big as a cat who had just swallowed a canary.
    He was wearing a very tight-fitting v-neck shirt, too, but she tried not to notice it.
    She had tossed and turned all night, barely getting a few hours of sleep before her alarm had gone off at five-thirty.  If she hadn't had to stay up so late comforting Christina it might have gone differently.  Then again, maybe it wouldn't have.  Part of the reason she couldn't get to sleep had been a dream about Josh and her back in school, sneaking into an empty classroom to flirt and touch and kiss, like they used to do.  Only, when she'd opened her eyes in the dream after a passionate moment that had made her heart race, the face she saw hadn't been Josh's.  In the dream, it had been Brandon.
    She didn't need help understanding where that had come from.
    Yawning, dressed in the first shirt and pair of jeans she'd found in her dresser drawers, she stopped in front of her sister's shop and waited for Brandon to come out to her.  She'd insisted on driving them on this little mission.  He might be the smart-guy security expert, but it was her sister in trouble here.
    And maybe it was crazy to try and follow her sister's next shipment on its route, but if the police and the shipping company weren't going to help them, then Rysen was going to do it herself.
    Well.  With Brandon's help, of course.
    "I got the information we need," he told her.  "Took that shipping information and worked a few of my contacts.  I've got the route, and the number of stops, and such.  Even got the driver's name."
    "Good for you," she said brusquely.
    He eyed her with mild surprise on his face.  "What's with you?  I thought you'd be all happy like to hear that."
    "Look…"  She trailed off.  What was she going to say?  Stop haunting my dreams, you big strong mysterious man?  "Just never mind.  Tell me where I'm going."

Chapter 5
     
    Rysen followed Brandon's directions for twenty minutes, up toward Modesto, well out of Cambria, until they pulled off the highway at an exit that led them to a maze of surface streets.  Brandon consulted a list of notes he'd brought with him and then pointed her down a series of turns that brought her to a massive factory with tall smokestacks and at least three long warehouses.  Rows of white trucks were lined up out front in the light of dawn.  Even at this early hour men in white shirted uniforms scurried about. 
    Rysen had seen a WalMart distribution center once.  This was just about the same size of that.  She let out a low whistle as she slowed the car to a stop on the side of the street opposite the parked big rigs, on the other side of a chain-link fence that surrounded the property.
    "Too right," Brandon said.  "One of the biggest wine distributors in Southern California.  Has an honest reputation from everything I've learned.  Trouble is, they're big enough that if they lose a few shipments now and then they don't care.  Your sister's shop losing a few crates of wine is nothing to them."
    "Well it's everything to us.  So what's our move?"
    He smiled at her with his eyes.  "Listen to you.  Sound just like a real detective."
    "Isn't that your job?"
    "No.  I'm no detective, Miss Rysen.  I'm a security consultant.  I teach people how to keep their homes or businesses or goodies safe from theft.  I advise, and I help