Carolyn G. Hart Read Online Free PDF Page B

dropped down, spattering sand.
    “What took you three months?”
    He shoved a hand through his thick, tangly blond hair, and rolled over on his elbow to stare down with ink-blueeyes. “Didn’t your mother ever tell you it was rude to ask direct questions?”
    She struggled to a sitting position and fished a sand-filmed bottle of Hawaiian Tropic from her beach bag. Studiously ignoring both Max’s body and his eyes, she began slapping the coconut-scented oil on her legs, overlooking his appreciative “m-mm.”
    “Why three months?” she repeated brusquely.
    “You didn’t call to tell me where you were.”
    “No.”
    “Why?”
    Annie looked up at him, and it was suddenly hard to breathe. “Dammit, Max, I was afraid you’d persuade me to come back to New York.”
    “Would that be so bad?”
    This side of Broward’s Rock faced out into the Atlantic. A clear, softly blue sky arched overhead. The air carried the pungent scents of salt water, tar, seaweed, and Annie’s coconut-scented suntan oil. The water stretched endlessly to the east, as richly green as pea soup; a gentle surf strummed a seven-mile length of oyster-gray sand. There was a sprinkling of sunbathers and swimmers scattered up and down the beach, enjoying the eighty-degree day, but no one was near them. This stretch of beach was all their own.
    “Max, it won’t work.
You
don’t work. Life is just a joke to you—a compendium of one-liners.”
    “So you’d like me better if I were earnest.” He frowned, then the corners of his mouth twitched. “Let’s see. What sufficiently important career could I pursue?” He leaned back on his elbows, staring pensively at the horizon.
    Annie fought down a disquieting desire to touch the mat of hair on his chest, glistening a light gold in the sunlight.
    Sitting bolt upright, he slapped his palm down and sand sprayed against her oiled legs. “I know. Annie, would you love me if I were a priest?”
    “Max!”
    He grinned. “Anglican, of course.”
    “Max.” She used both hands to shove him backward, but he caught her as he fell, and they rolled together in the sand.
    *   *   *
    Max, who had helped brew the coffee, sniffed with theatrical appreciation when Annie poured him a mug. Lifting it to drink, he paused to look at the inscription in red cursive letters against the white background. “The Listening House. Do houses listen?”
    “That’s a title. If you looked on the bottom, you’d find the author’s name.”
    Obediently, he raised the mug high enough to see the bottom. “Mabel Seeley.”
    Annie waved her hand abstractedly toward the rows of mugs shelved behind the coffee bar as she filled the cream pitcher. “Each mug has the title of a book which is considered important in the history of mystery novels.” She put the cream pitcher beside the sugar bowl and reached for the corkscrew to open the bottles of sauvignon blanc.
    Max moved behind the coffee bar and called out an occasional name that attracted him.
“The Mystery of Dr. Fu-Manchu, The Thirty-Nine Steps, The Rasp, The Tragedy of Y, The Cape Cod Mystery, Rebecca, Home Sweet Homicide.”
He turned to look at her. “Where did you find these?”
    “Oh, I did them.”
    “In your little home kiln?”
    She laughed. “No, silly. I didn’t
make
them. I painted the titles.”
    “Annie, I learn something new about you all the time. It never occurred to me that you could paint as well as act.”
    “I’m not exactly a threat to Van Gogh,” she pointed out crisply.
    He started to count the mugs stacked on the shelves behind the coffee bar but his attention soon strayed. “You haven’t read all those books, have you?”
    “Nope. But lots of them.”
    “A misspent youth, obviously.”
    “I suppose you were busy with Saint Augustine’s
Confessions
?”
    “Oh, in a manner of speaking. I suspect old Auggie would have been a
Playboy
man himself.”
    “The point is, he changed his ways.”
    “But not altogether for the