At Any Cost Read Online Free PDF Page A

brushing the tips of her breasts. Her eyes were bright hazel, greener than they were brown, and her lips were dark pink and full. A little on the pouty side. She wasn’t wearing any makeup but her face was fresh and dewy. She was like a delicate pale rosebud poking up through the snow. Even prettier in full light than she’d appeared in the dark of dawn outside.
    In a flock of black sheep like the Black Death MC, her fleece must have been as white as the snow falling outside. How in the hell had someone like her ended up with Meecum and his crew? Again, nothing seemed to add up.
    Don’t forget, looks can be deceiving.
    â€œGo ahead and sit wherever. I’ll get some water going.”
    For the first time since he’d left Seattle, Nick needed to remind himself that he was on the job. Sort of. It would be his ass if anyone at the Eastern Washington district found out that instead of taking the mandatory vacation his chief deputy had insisted on, he was hunting down a lead on Joel Meecum. The U.S. Marshals Service didn’t look kindly on deputies who didn’t follow direct orders. Then again, they were all a little wild. Crazy. Prone to making reckless and life-threatening decisions. Hell, the agency was founded on Wild West cowboy shit. And Nick wasn’t any different than any of the rest of those crazy bastards. He’d be forgiven, but only after he slapped the cuffs on that lowlife son of a bitch and crossed his name from their Top 15 Most Wanted list.
    Rather than sit down, Nick ventured into the kitchen. Livy was scooping coffee grounds into a weird glass pot. “Do you want cream and sugar?”
    â€œYeah, thanks.” He leaned against the opposite counter, careful to keep his stance relaxed. “Is Frank late this morning, or were you leaving early?”
    Livy’s brow puckered. “Huh?”
    â€œFrank?” Nick repeated. The best way to get information out of someone was to simply engage them in conversation. People often let things slip in a casual back and forth that they’d be more guarded about during an interview or interrogation. “You were yelling at him when you were digging your car out.”
    Livy’s face screwed up into a grimace and she let out a groan. Her voice was light and soft, feathers caressing his skin. “I was yelling at my shovel.” She glanced at him from the corner of her eye as though gauging his reaction as she crossed to the fridge and grabbed a container of half-and-half.
    â€œYou call your shovel Frank?” Uncharacteristic laughter bubbled in Nick’s chest. He didn’t have much of a sense of humor, but he’d never met anyone who named their snow shovel before.
    â€œYeah, and he’s a dirty, rotten jerk, too.” She set the cream on the counter along with the sugar. “I gave him some of the best years of my life and when I needed him the most, he snapped. I mean, where’s the loyalty?”
    Soft and shy with a sense of humor and a mouth that would make a sailor blush. Nick liked to think that he could read people fairly well. He’d been trained to. But Olivia Gallagher was a mystery. Was it a part she played? Maybe a new persona to match her new identity? Nick couldn’t let his guard down around her. He knew the type of people she’d kept company with. Joel Meecum was a piece-of-shit murderer and that was only one of his more unsavory traits. For all he knew, Livy was simply playing a part. Though admittedly, she played it well.
    â€œDoes the coffeepot have a name? Let me guess . . . Carl the Coffeemaker?”
    â€œNo,” Livy answered with a snort. “That would be weird.”
    Nick cocked a challenging brow but she met him with a wry smile that tugged at his chest. Damn it. Reminding himself of who she really was and why he was here might be harder than he’d thought.
    * * *
    A cop! Of course, he could’ve been lying. Or even crooked. She’d heard