Driven to Distraction (Silhouette Desire S.) Read Online Free PDF Page A

ever like a fish out of water.
    Janie, Ben’s favorite so far, removed her red-framed bifocals and cleaned them with a napkin as her eyes crinkled in another smile. “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a darn. I painted my first bad watercolor before that boy was even out of diapers. Been painting them ever since.”
    It garnered a few chuckles, including Ben’s. Not that it was all that funny, but who knew better than an undercover specialist how to fit in? So far it looked like a pretty decent group, ready to lighten up for a week instead of sitting home watching their IRAs bottom out while they waited for the monthly social security stipend. Maybe he should have brought Miss Emma along. So far as he knew, the only thing she’d ever painted was her kitchen chairs, but who was to say she wouldn’t discover a latent talent?
    The desultory conversation continued with only an occasional comment from Ben. It turned out that Georgia and Janie were friends; both widows, both retired teachers. Janie and Charlie had met before, evidently having taught at the same school.
    Placing his silverware on his plate, Ben angled his chair slightly for a better view of the other diners. He was beginning to see a pattern in the enrollment. Retirees took precedence, with just enough variety, such as himself and the pair across the room, to throw off suspicion.
    On the get-acquainted roster on the hall table, morethan half the enrollees had listed Retired under occupation. Ben had put down Security, which wasn’t actually a lie. Not that he couldn’t lie with the best of them when the occasion demanded, but he preferred not to. Less to trip over.
    He glanced over at the Riley woman again. She had dressed for the occasion in a long button-front dress with a matching scarf. He couldn’t see her feet, but no doubt she was still wearing those same dumb platforms with the loop around her big toe, in spite of his good advice.
    At the moment, she was fussing about something. Now why did that not surprise him? He didn’t know much about her disposition, but it hadn’t taken him long to learn that she bristled with attitude. In a guy, he’d heard it referred to as a Napoleon complex—not necessarily a bad thing, depending on how it was used. It could turn a guy into an overachiever or make him a real pain.
    Where Riley was concerned, he had a feeling it might be the latter.
    With one last long look at her profile—short, straight nose, well-defined jaw, a tempting speck of a mole and full lips that at the moment were clamped tighter than a—
    Yeah, well…he was going to have to watch his similes, too. This place was filled with respectable grannies. His own had peeled the bark off him when he’d forgotten and let slip a few choice words the other day when a damn-fool driver nearly shaved the paint off his front fender by cutting in front of him on the way to the grocery store.
    He might not be able to recover Miss Emma’slosses, but he could make damn sure the same thing didn’t happen to anyone else’s granny. Not on his watch.
    â€œOur resident genius seems mighty interested in that table over by the kitchen,” Charlie, high school biology teacher, murmured. He nodded toward where Silver was still hanging over the two younger women. The platinum blonde with the dark roots had tossed on a white shirt over the red bra, but hadn’t bothered to button it up.
    It was the other one that held Ben’s attention. Maggie Riley. According to the roster, she was from Clemmons which, if memory served, was less than a half hour’s drive from where his grandmother lived in Mocksville. Under occupation, she’d written journalist. Interesting, he mused.
    None of your business, he reminded himself firmly. She could be a nuclear scientist and it still wouldn’t matter. It was the blue-haired ladies, including Janie, whose shoulder-length hair just happened to be pink,