All He Wants Read Online Free PDF Page B

in this world in which he was going to let her be alone this weekend. Whether or not she was contractually obligated to having a security detail didn’t really matter. Billy Marshall was not going to leave her side until this was resolved. She knew that as surely as she knew that the sky was blue and rain was wet.
    Which meant he was going to be at her condo. They would be alone. As much as she liked to pride herself on the ability to ignore his constant flirting, his charm, his subtle and not so subtle innuendoes, the walls she’d built were only so strong, and she feared that large doses of uninterrupted time with Billy Marshall would send them crumbling into a heap.
    And then where would she be?
    But what was the alternative? There was no way that she could possibly convince him to back off…and did she even want that? Did she really want to be alone with everything that was going on?
    Her mind raced as she thought of everything that had led to her being in this situation, and it sent a cold chill racing down her spine.
    Of course her knee-jerk reaction had been to minimize the circumstances. In the back of her mind, she’d been holding onto the notion that there was only one person that was truly a threat to her, and he was still behind bars. At least, she was ninety-nine percent sure that he was. She still hadn’t heard back from the prison. But if it wasn’t him, she might need to face the fact that whoever this was might actually mean business.
    “If he doesn’t already know,” Jessie Sloan’s voice snapped her out of her inner dialog, “he will after Detective Grover speaks to him.”
    “What? Why?” Maxi had spent several hours this morning with the detective assigned to her case. He hadn’t said anything about contacting her father. “Why would Detective Grover speak to my dad?”
    “I’m sure that he’ll want to interview everyone that’s close to you.” Jessie spoke as if it was just common sense.
    And maybe it was. Maybe she should’ve drawn the same conclusion. Maybe if she could think straight, she would have.
    “I have to go,” she stood. Her dad couldn’t find out about all of this from a police officer. She had to be the one to tell him.
    A large, warm hand wrapped around her wrist and she sucked in a breath at the ripple of tingles that Billy’s roughened fingertips caused. Her mind knew that the contact was innocent, her body however had all kinds of other ideas about his touch.
    “Charlie’s up at Whisper Lake with The Colonel until Sunday night. They’re fishing. I talked to him this morning when I landed. He’s planning on being home for Sunday dinner. We can bring him up to speed on everything then. It will be better if he hears it in person. From both of us. We can let him know that the police want to talk to him. I spoke to Grover on my drive into the city and he’s agreed to hold off contacting your dad until Monday.”
    The deep timbre of his voice vibrated through her body. It took a moment for his baritone words to register in her consciousness. Once they did, she sat back down. Her legs were shaking. She had no idea if her wobbly limbs were a side effect of the emotional roller coaster that she’d been strapped to for the past six weeks, or if they were due to the relief that Billy knew, and that Billy was being Billy and taking control. She wasn’t alone. This wasn’t all on her shoulders anymore.
    He’d thought of how and when they would tell her dad. He’d known where her dad was. He’d spoken to the detective.
    This was not going to help her prince, knight-in-shining-armor fantasies.
    “That’s right.” Jessie shifted in her chair. “I remember Sophie mentioning that Grandpa J was going fishing this weekend.”
    Grandpa J, aka The Colonel, was Jessie’s cousin-in-law’s actual blood relative, but he’d been adopted by everyone in Harper’s Crossing, the small town where Jessie was from. It also happened to be the current residence of one Billy