Devil Moon Read Online Free PDF

parents getting their butts pinched while they're watching A Midsummer Night's Dream at the next school play."
    Well, of course, when he put it that way, what could she say? Let the jocks get hurt? Still, it really frosted her that the money had been stolen from Randy's department. She didn't see the library or science departments losing any of their new computers.
    "Any more questions?" Phil asked pointedly at her.
    She shook her head, really hating his arrogance. This guy bugged her big time.
    The meeting ground on with each speaker taking a turn. Maddie had several issues to cover and carried them off with her usual competent efficiency. Yet, every time she made eye contact with Phil, she experienced a prick of warm awareness. He sat with his jock, macho smugness. She longed to bring him down a peg or two. Fortunately, she kept her cool and no one sensed her fancy emotional footwork, or so she hoped.
    When the meeting broke up, people chatted and caught up on the events of the summer. Phyllis Green made a beeline for the new coach. Broad in the beam from eating too many students' fritters and tuna pinwheels, her biological clock ticked at a furious rate. She honed in on any potential candidate for the groom's spot on the wedding cake of her dreams. Mr. Wilcox was trapped by the cloying woman with the bowl hair cut.
    Maddie smiled as she packed her briefcase, seeing him hemmed in by the husband-hungry kitchen queen. But she soon found herself fending off her own familiar unwanted suitor, Phineas Manchester.
    The tall, thin professor moved into her personal space. "Madeleine, you've had an excellent summer break, I assume? I've called you several times, but never found you home."
    Maddie mentally thanked the inventor of caller I.D. with all her heart.
    "Oh, I've been in and out. You know how it is. How's the dissertation going, Mr. Manchester?"
    "I wish you'd call me Phineas." The way his tongue waggled to the tips of his crooked, discolored teeth gave her the creeps. "It's coming along. Comparing the works of Chaucer and Stephen King is a major undertaking."
    Lord, what was that aftershave—Old Fish?
    He leaned closer. "You know, we never have had that dinner you've promised me..."
    Mercifully, Randy startled the whole room with a huge cry of pain. Maddie sighed with relief. Randy to the rescue from Phineas Manchester again. It was a game they played. Whenever Phineas had her trapped, Randy staged a diversion. Today he enacted "old war injury." Of course, Randy had never been in a war, or served in the military.
    Maddie backed away. "Excuse me, Mr. Manchester, I have to help Mr. Bailey. We'll talk later."
    Maddie grabbed her briefcase, dashed to the groaning Randy's side saying, "Put your arm around me. I've got your medicine in my office."
    Randy hooked an arm around her and supported his back with the other. "I just get these terrible, sudden spasms. I should have never jumped out of all those airplanes!"
    "I know, I know. Just lean on me." She led him out the door.
    Phil watched the scene as the pair made their dramatic exit and thought it was the biggest display of bullshit he had ever seen in his life.
    Phil wondered what she'd look like without the stiff suit, glasses and taut hairstyle. There could be a babe under the uptight facade. In the old days, he only went for the obvious bimbos, who waved T and A in everyone's face. Not that he went for this school marm, but he had a feeling there was more to her than met the eye. And what met the eye wasn't bad.
    * * *
    Maddie pulled open the blinds in her office and pushed up a window for fresh air as Randy took a seat in one of the chairs before her desk. She'd personally painted the walls a high-gloss eggshell. Landscapes chosen for their psychologically calming effect graced the walls.
    She kicked off her shoes, chuckling at him. "I thought your 'war injury' came from putting out oil well fires in Desert Storm."
    "Oh, that's right, I forgot." He swung one leg over the