Exposed Read Online Free PDF Page B

recovered.
    As Frank crossed Long Street in front of the pavilion, a taxi pulled to a stop at the crosswalk. From the backseat emerged a petite woman, her blonde hair pulled up into some zany sort of a bun with strands of it falling loose like straws from an unkempt pile of hay. Dressed in green-khaki cargo pants, hiking boots and a huge, oversized blue sweater, she had two travel bags hanging off her shoulders and her hand hooked around the handle of a garment bag. Aviator-style sunglasses hid half her face.
    “Let me get you some extra cash for getting me here so quickly from the airport,” she said to the driver as she fished around in one of her bags, losing her grip on the garment bag. “Oh, no!” she yelped, trying to manage everything and losing the carryon bag at the same time.
    Acting out of instinct, Frank took two quick strides and grabbed both bags before they hit the pavement. “Got ’em.”
    “Oh, my God! Thank you,” the woman said, turning a relieved smile up at him as if he’d saved her from dropping a baby onto the concrete. “I don’t know what I would’ve done had that crashed on the ground.”
    She reached for the carryon bag, but he held it firm, wondering what the hell she had in it to make it so heavy, and nodded at the taxi driver behind her.
    “Oh, yes.” She handed the other man some money and took the handle of the larger suitcase from him.
    “You sure this where you want me to drop you, ma’am?” the driver asked in slightly halting English with a middle-eastern accent. He scanned around the pavilion and office buildings in the area then back at her, concern in his eyes.
    The woman laughed. Not a childish tinkling or giggling, but a husky, dark, whiskey kind of sound that caught Frank smack in the middle of his chest.
    “Yes, I’m sure,” she said, smiling at the man. “You’re probably used to your fares wanting to go to a hotel or their homes, but this is where I need to be this afternoon. It’s a wedding.”
    The driver glanced at her clothes, then over at Frank before shrugging. “Most happy felicitations to you both,” he said, then climbed into his cab once more.
    The woman started to protest, but the driver had already pulled out into traffic. She watched the taxi for a moment, then whirled on him. He’d never been trout fishing, but her open-mouthed expression of bewilderment reminded him of a fish he’d seen on one of those nature sports shows shown on Sundays before the football games aired.
    “How could he possibly think we were getting married?” she asked.
    He glanced down at the three-piece tuxedo he had on. Then, quirking one brow, he nodded at the garment bag in her hand. “I have no idea.”
    That had her lips slamming shut into a line. He imagined she was glaring at him from behind those sunglasses, which he suddenly wished were gone so he could see what color her eyes were.
    “I take it you’re here for the Whitson-Edgars wedding?” she finally asked.
    He refrained from asking if there was more than one wedding here today. He might be a bachelor, but he knew that a sarcastic comment to an already irritated woman might result in bodily injury. Instead, he just nodded.
    Suddenly her face lit up with a hundred-watt, straight-to-his-gut smile. “Oh, my God, you’ve got to be Frank. Abby’s told me all about you. A man of few words.” Letting go of her suitcase handle, she stuck her hand out to him. “I’m Sydney Peele.”
    “The photographer.” He stared at her hand as if it were a cobra ready to strike, his humor and interest in the little tornado of a woman flattened like a tire running over nails in the road.
    Her smile fading, she withdrew her hand and grabbed her suitcase once more. “Um, yes. I was…hoping to get here before the wedding party arrived.”
    “They’re not here yet.” He wanted to hand her the heavy carryon bag, which he suspected carried the cameras she used to ply her trade into people’s privacy, and distance