Bear Bait (9781101611548) Read Online Free PDF Page A

wondered why you didn’t comment on my appearance.”
    He blinked. “Why? Have you done something different?”
    “As well as ruining my coiffure”—she patted a few sticky strands for effect—“I banged my head and cut mytongue and lip. I’m surprised I can talk at all.” She balled up the empty coffee bag and aimed it at his nose.
    He easily caught the bag and crumpled it into a smaller sphere. “I thought you were trying to seduce me with a sexy lisp.” His last two words came out “thexy lithp.”
    So much for sympathy. She placed the double pot on the burner and turned up the heat. “Watch that, will you? When it stops hissing, it’s done. I’m off to the shower.”
    He smiled. “I’ll join you.”
    “Not this time, FBI.”
    She closed the bathroom door behind her. Her relationship with Chase Perez consisted of a kidnapping drama they’d floundered through in Utah, and a handful of encounters here in Washington State when he was passing through. They’d dated off and on for nearly ten months, but hadn’t yet progressed to mutual nakedness. Something always prevented the time from being right. Like now; filthy, thick-lipped, and headachy, she felt far from sexy.
    She pressed her face into the shower spray, wincing as the water glanced off her blistered cheek. With a liberal application of almond soap, her greasy coating of perspiration and smoke disappeared down the drain in a dark swirl.
    “So tell me about your bad hair day.” Chase’s voice came from the other side of the shower curtain, in the direction of the vanity. He probably had his handsome backside perched on the beige Formica.
    She gingerly rubbed shampoo over the sore spot at the back of her head, enjoying the vanilla scent. No wonder Mack smelled like a candy bar.
    “It was night, not day,” she told him. “You would have loved it. Just your kind of thing.” Her lower lip still felt like a block of wood. She hoped she wouldn’t dribble her coffee.
    “Murder? Mayhem? High-powered shoot-out?”
    “Definitely mayhem. Some firebugs lit a couple blazes. While we were putting out the flames, we found a body.” She shivered, remembering Lisa facedown in the ashes.
    “How old?”
    How old was Lisa Glass? No. He was asking how recently the victim had died. “This body was still alive. Barely. A girl from the trail crew. Head injury, smoke inhalation. Second- and third-degree burns.” Sam raised a hand to her own face and was reassured to find the skin was for the most part still smooth and intact, except for that dang blister on her temple. She turned off the shower and squeezed the excess water from her long rope of silver-blond hair.
    “So, what’s the story?”
    “The espresso’s done, Chase. Go take it off the burner.” She raised her hand to the shower curtain. “I’m coming out now.”
    Silence.
    “Get out of here!”
    “Spoilsport,” he mumbled. She heard the soft thud of the door closing.
    When she emerged into the kitchen, he had poured the espresso into decorated mugs, a great white shark for him and a wolf howling at the moon for her. To hers, he added a small dash of milk, just the way she liked it. He’d only seen her prepare coffee once, but his mind recorded every detail. A remarkable talent. Her thoughts constantly strayed away from the here and now like dogs that wouldn’t stay on the porch.
    His gaze traveled from the new Band-Aid on her temple down her uniform to the thick hiking socks on her feet. “You keep clothes here? You’ve moved in with Mack?”
    She raised an eyebrow at his tone. “Why not? He’s a good-looking guy and—”
    “At least a decade your junior.”
    “Watch it,” she hissed. “That gap is a piddly eight years.” She finished French-braiding her hair, secured the end with an elastic band. “Actually”—she dropped her voice to a stage whisper—“it’s not Mack I’ve got the hots for. It’s his couch.”
    The sagging, stained brown futon clearly dated from Mack’s