Best-Kept Lies Read Online Free PDF Page B

time since he’d kissed a woman and he’d been thinking about how it would feel to kiss Randi McCafferty for weeks. Last night, he’d found out. He’d wrapped his arms around her and as a gasp slipped from between her lips, he’d slanted his mouth over hers and felt his blood heat. Her arms had instinctively climbed to his shoulders and her body had fitted tight against him.
    Warning bells had clanged in his mind, but he’d ignored them as his tongue had slipped between her teeth and his erection had pressed hard against his fly. She was warm and tasted of lingering coffee. His fingers splayed across her back and as she moaned against him, he slowly started inching her nightgown upward, bunching the soft flannel in his fingers as her hemline climbed up her calves and thighs. It seemed the most natural thing in the world to use his weight to carry them both to the rug in front of the dying fire…
    Now, as he sat in his pickup with the rain beating against his windshield, Striker scowled at the thought of what he’d done. He’d known better than to kiss her, had sensed it wouldn’t stop there. He didn’t need the complications of a woman.
    He hazarded a glance at the third finger of his left hand where he could still see the deep impression a ring had made as it had cut into his skin. The muscles in the back of his neck tightened and a few dark thoughts skated through his mind. Thoughts of another woman…another beautiful woman and a little girl…
    Angry with the turn of his thoughts, he forced his gaze to Randi’s condominium. This particular grouping of units rested on a hillside overlooking Lake Washington. He’d parked across the street where he had a clear view of her front door, the only way in or out of the condo, unless she decided to sneak out a window. Even then, he’d see her Jeep leaving. Unless she was traveling on foot, he’d be able to follow her.
    He glanced at his watch. She had forty-seven minutes to cool off and get herself together. And so did he. Leaning across the seat, he grabbed his battered briefcase and reached inside where he kept an accordionfolder on the McCafferty case. With one eye on the condominium, he riffled through the pages of notes, pictures and columns he’d clipped out of the Seattle Clarion, columns with a byline of Randi McCafferty and accompanied by a smiling picture of the author.
    “Solo,” by Randi McCafferty.
    Hers was an advice column for singles, from the confirmed bachelors to the newly divorced, the recently widowed or anyone else who wrote in, claimed not to be married and asked for her opinion. Striker reread a few of his favorites. In one, she advised a woman suffering from abuse to leave the relationship immediately and file charges. In another she told an overly protective single mother to give her teenage daughter “breathing space” while keeping in touch. In still another, she suggested a widower join a grief-support group and take up ballroom dancing, something he and his wife had always wanted to do. Her columns were often empathetic, but sometimes caustic. She told one woman who couldn’t decide between two men and was lying to them both to “grow up,” while she advised another young single to “quit whining” about his new girlfriend, who sometimes parked in “his” spot while staying over. Within each bit of advice, Randi often added a little humor. It was no wonder the column had been syndicated and picked up in other markets.
    Yet there were rumors of trouble at the Clarion. Randi McCafferty and her editor, Bill Withers, were supposedly feuding. Striker hadn’t figured out why. Yet. But he would. Randi had also written some articles for magazines under the name of R. J. McKay. Then there was her unfinished tell-all book on the rodeo circuit, one she wouldn’t talk much about. A lot going on with Ms.McCafferty. Yep, he thought, leaning back and staring at the front door of her place, she was an interesting woman, and one definitely