Heaven with a Gun Read Online Free PDF

didn’t . . . You never said nothing about no wife joining you!”
    “Her arrival was unexpected.”
    The woman scowled. For a second, romantic disappointment contended with greed. Greed won. “That’ll bring your room rate up two dollars more a week.”
    “Yes, ma’am.”
    “And there’ll be no extra linens or towels.”
    “No, ma’am.”
    “No drinking.”
    “Of course not.” Amazingly he managed to say this with a straight face. He started by the landlady.
    But Mrs. Osby wasn’t done with Jim yet. She put her little taloned hands on her hips, peering intently at Gilly. She sniffed. “You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Mr. Coyne. A man your age with such a young girl.”
    “I thought to give her the advantage of a mature man’s guidance.” Gilly saw the spark of humor in his eyes.
    “Well,” Mrs. Osby began, “I say an old goat and—”
    Gilly had had enough. She linked her hands behind Jim’s neck, combing her fingers through the crisp, clean curls. “Can Big Daddy Jimmums take Baby Pookums to eat now? Baby’s hungry.”
    “How old are you, child?” Mrs. Osby demanded.
    “Oh, I’m much older than I look,” Gilly said sweetly, all the while fondling Jim’s throat and the nape of his neck. “I’ll be seventeen next month.”
    “Barely legal!” Mrs. Osby’s brows locked into a deep V above her nose. She stared purposefully at where Jim’s hand lay so close Gilly’s breast. “Mind you, no noise past ten o’clock!”
    Jim’s nostrils flared, just a fraction. Then one side of his mouth suddenly crooked up in a devil’s grin and by God if the man didn’t have dimples—long, deep dimples. “Now, Mrs. Osby, don’t tell me you expect to police that?”
    Mrs. Osby’s mouth dropped open and she gaped for air like a beached fish. With a sharp snap of starched muslin, she fled down the narrow hallway.
    Jim looked down into her bemused eyes and grinned again. She shivered. Dimples and a roguish sense of humor. She could be in real trouble here.

Chapter Four
     
     
    Why on earth would a rose-growing, Latin-spouting girl become a thief? He simply couldn’t believe it was for the money. She didn’t seem to have that much. For the thrills? He could imagine that, but it still didn’t quite fit. She looked too tired for a thrill seeker, and there was a certain wistfulness about her mouth in her few unguarded moments.
    Jim hadn’t pumped her for information during dinner. He simply enjoyed her conversation, and even though she carefully steered talk away from any personal information, he learned a lot more about her than she realized. Gilly wasn’t the sort of woman to keep an opinion to herself.
    She thought the Brooklyn Bridge currently under construction was a “monument to graft,” an opinion with which he coincidentally agreed; ergo, she kept herself apprised of New York newspapers. She thought that baseball was a fad, an opinion with which he definitely disagreed; ergo, she was completely uninformed about sports. She thought that a person “had to accept whatever destination the path they walk leads them to,” an opinion he didn’t know whether he agreed with or not; ergo, the essence of her still eluded him.
    And finally, he knew that if nothing else, her mouth should be outlawed.
    For the last twenty minutes, he hadn’t been able to concentrate. He had barely touched his own plate of steak and eggs, simply because after every few bites she cleaned the corners of her mouth with the tip of her tongue. And because when her clean white teeth bit through a crisp apple peel, her bottom lip dragged provocatively against the smooth skin of the fruit. And because when she chewed, her mouth moved and he wanted it moving on him.
    “Something wrong with your dinner?” She pointed her fork at the half pound of steak remaining on his plate.
    “No. It was fine. Just fine.”
    She took a sip of milk, leaving behind a narrow little white mustache above her upper lip, which she licked clean