Knight in Blue Jeans Read Online Free PDF

one bit.
    Rejecting Comitatus leadership, as he and his friends had done, meant exile. Breaking one’s vow of secrecy, on top of the whole dishonor thing, could be one of those nasty, dying-by-blade offenses, depending on the circumstances.
    Yet another reason Smith carried a gun today.
    All the old lady said was, “Is nobody going to introduce us?”
    “How ill-mannered of me.” Only Arden could fit so much sarcasm into such proper words or so bright a smile. “Miz Greta, Val, please let me introduce the wholly untrustworthy Smith Donnell. Smith and I have known each other’s families since childhood. Once, during a period of temporary insanity on my part, we dated. Smith, these are Miss Greta Kaiser and Ms. Valeria Diaz. Greta teaches piano at my teen recreation center, and Valeria could kill you for fun where you stand.”
    “Gladly,” clarified Val.
    “How do you do?” Smith tried his most charming smile. He even bowed a little before seating his revolver back into its SOB holster.
    Generally, that was meant as a rhetorical question, but Valeria Diaz said, “Personally, I’m pissed that nobody’s dialing nine-one-one yet. And you?”
    Torn about what I heard from that Comitatus meeting. Too happy to be in Arden’s presence again. Worried about the dark sedan that followed you here from the rail station. “I’m feeling more than a little silly that I chose to hide in a pantry instead of taking a stairway to the whole of upstairs,” he admitted, and offered his hand in truce.
    Val deliberately ignored it.
    “Much as I’m sure you would have enjoyed rifling through Miz Greta’s private things.” Arden pushed his hand back down to his side, her own hands soft, her scent sweetly familiar. Thanks for the brush-off, Val. “I’d rather know why it’s your business whether I’m over my head, off my game or out of my mind. There’s a great deal I wouldn’t put past you, Smith. A great deal…” She widened her eyes to think of the enormity of things that included.
    “Nice vote of confidence,” Smith muttered, to drag her back on track.
    It worked. “But stalking? Why shouldn’t we call the authorities?”
    None of them expected Greta to step in. “Because if we call the police, Mr. Donnell will miss the story he risked so much to hear. Let’s all return to the parlor to deal with the larger issue at hand. Mr. Donnell, would you like some iced tea?”
    Val’s mouth dropped open in blatant amazement. Arden, being Arden, revealed her surprise with the barest of blinks—but Smith was pretty adept at reading the annoyance of those blinks, and he grinned in pure triumph. Maybe the old lady was crazy, maybe not. But he wasn’t one to look a gift horse in the mouth…especially when he’d seen so few gift horses lately.
    “Why, thank you, Miz Greta. I would love some tea…and maybe a slice of that delicious strudel?” As he accompanied his new favorite person and her gamboling, happy dog toward the front of the house, making the most of his status as a welcome guest, Smith caught Arden’s soothing murmur to Val.
    “Just take deep breaths, and it will pass. He inspires almost everyone to kill him, sooner or later.”
    She had no idea how right she was.
    The question was, how could someone as perfect as Arden have inspired similar—and all-too-real—threats?
    And why was someone with tinted windows parked just down the street, keeping watch on her?
     
    Greta Kaiser was not crazy. Nor was she completely blind, physically or emotionally. The macular degeneration gave her central blindness. That meant if she looked directly at Smith Donnell, she saw no face at all, barely a head. But she could glimpse, with her remaining peripheral vision, how Arden Leigh snuck peeks at him when she thought nobody was looking. When Greta turned her old eyes on Arden, the beautiful socialite all but vanished—but Gretagot a clearer impression of Smith Donnell beside her, a hint of strong profile and brown hair and