Flirting With Disaster Read Online Free PDF Page B

many women really started to worry. That they were too old now. That they hadn’t married or had children. That this was their
last chance
to really live
.
    Isabelle didn’t feel as though this was her last chance. She felt as though she was finally free. Capable. Happy with herself. Comfortable with her body. And allowed to say anything she wanted to out loud, even if it made a grown man blush. Maybe especially if it did.
    She loved it. She couldn’t wait to be forty. She was going to own that shit. And then at fifty, when strangers would stop hinting that it was time to settle down and have some babies, and just start looking at her with pity? That would be glorious.
    So she grinned at Tom Duncan and took an extra-large piece of pie and didn’t bother stifling her moan of pleasure at the taste. Tonight she was almost sure she was safe, her mouth was sweet and tart with juicy red cherries, and tomorrow she would paint. She had every reason to moan.
    * * *
    I SABELLE W EST WASN ’ T only a mystery. She was also a distraction. First, there was that threadbare shirt, pale blue but marred with paint, and stretched too tight across her breasts whenever she reached for her glass. The shirt looked old enough to be turned into rags, and he’d been very afraid that one of those buttons was going to give way at any moment. So afraid that he’d constantly found himself checking to be sure it was still closed.
    Then there was her glare, suspicious and narrow and almost as distracting as the smile she’d finally settled into toward the end of the meal. The cool smile was as interesting as the glare, as if she had a secret to go with every emotion.
    Curiosity paced inside his brain like a caged lion. Who was she? Instincts weren’t everything, but Tom had learned to trust his own, and he would’ve bet quite a bit of money that she wasn’t a criminal. But she wasn’t innocent, either. Innocent women didn’t press themselves into a corner to hide and listen the way she’d done at Jill’s house.
    “I’d better get going,” she said drowsily from the couch. She was curled up with the last of the wine and didn’t look as if she wanted to leave. “I’ll be painting for hours tomorrow.”
    “At least it’s not summer,” Jill said. “You can sleep until eight and still get the morning light.”
    “So true. And I’m going to sleep like a baby tonight. A drunk baby.”
    Tom stood. “All right, drunk baby, come on. I’ll walk you home.”
    Her languidness vanished in an instant. “I don’t need you to walk me home,” she snapped. “I’ve walked home a hundred times in the dark.”
    “I’m sure you have. But this time, there might be an armed fugitive hiding in the woods. And I’m leaving anyway. I can either walk you or I can follow behind you. Your choice.”
    “Walk her home,” Jill cut in. “Isabelle, put your prickliness away and be nice. Maybe you’ll like the feeling.”
    “I doubt it,” Isabelle answered, but she shrugged. “And he already asked to walk me home. Apparently, he likes his girls mean and feral.”
    “All the more reason to walk home with him, then.”
    Isabelle huffed out a laugh at that then winked in his direction, completely confusing him. His mental state wasn’t helped when she reached to shrug on her coat and her blouse threatened to split in two and reveal the pink bra peeking out underneath.
    He spun and walked toward the entryway where he’d left his own coat, but there was no relief there. Isabelle followed close behind to tug on her tall snow boots, leaning over so that her shirt gaped to show the generous rise of her breasts. Tom just shook his head and made himself look elsewhere until she’d finished her task. He, in fact, didn’t like his girls mean and feral. She was not the girl for him.
    Then again, he still wasn’t sure he had a read on Isabelle West yet. He wouldn’t say she was mean, exactly. But as for feral...well, there was something a little wild about