Moonlight on My Mind Read Online Free PDF

capable of murder.
    “It’s a half-mile walk.” Channing’s gaze roved downward and settled on the exposed heel of one of her boots. “Try not to twist something en route, Miss Baxter. Because I assure you, I’d rather carry the dog.”

Chapter 2
    J ulianne. Bloody. Baxter.
    She was here. In Moraig. About as far as a body could go in Britain and not plunge into the Atlantic. Which was really where he’d like to toss her, those tottering heels and fetching red curls be damned.
    He still couldn’t believe she was following him home. It was a foolish risk for a woman to take, particularly after the terrible crime she herself had accused him of. It was an even more foolish risk for him to invite her. But surely it was better than leaving the impetuous chit standing in the street. It would have taken all of thirty seconds for her to start poking about the afternoon crowd at the Blue Gander public house, asking questions, spilling secrets. No one in Moraig knew of the circumstances of his past, not even his best friends. Until he knew what his future might hold, he preferred to keep it that way.
    Patrick knew there were those in England who still bayed like hounds on the trail of a fox, demanding his blood and justice. He assumed Miss Baxter was of the same mind as his detractors, especially given the nature of their last encounter. Several of his own relatives had called for an inquest into his brother’s death, no matter his father’s firm insistence it was naught but a terrible accident. The most recent correspondence he had received from his father had been a month or more ago, and unless today’s letter carried some vital new information, it was not yet time for Patrick to return.
    Miss Baxter’s unexpected appearance, however, might just force his hand.
    With the unconscious dog in his arms and those disturbing thoughts in his head, Patrick kicked open the door to his derelict house-turned-clinic. He hadn’t needed to kick the door, of course. The latch didn’t catch properly, just one of a hundred things that needed fixing about the tumbledown place where he laid his head and stitched up the odd farm animal. He could bump it open with his hip, and frequently did so when his arms were full. But the extreme physical reaction and the satisfying thud of his boot against the wood improved his black mood.
    Better still, it made the woman trailing beside him jump like a bird flushed from the heather, and that made him glad, for no other reason than it gave him a brief upper hand in this situation bound for nowhere good.
    As he stepped inside, a ball of yellow fur came hurtling down the steps and wrapped itself around Patrick’s legs. Excited barking filled the air.
    “Down, Gemmy.” He skirted the exuberant and slightly off-balance antics of his pet, the very first animal he had treated upon arriving in Moraig. “Sit,” he told the dog.
    Gemmy stood.
    His tail beat a furious rhythm in the air, and his pink tongue lolled happily. Miss Baxter removed her gloves, then crouched to rub the terrier’s ears. “Who is this ill-behaved beast?”
    “The mail coach’s first victim,” Patrick said dryly.
    The dog’s eyes all but closed on a satisfied groan as Miss Baxter’s bare fingers worked some kind of female magic on him. Patrick stared in perplexed irritation. Gemmy had always struck him as a loyal dog, a man’s dog. He liked to scratch himself exuberantly with his one remaining hind leg, and lick the area where his bollocks had been. He generally stayed on Patrick’s heel unless there was a chicken or rabbit in close proximity.
    But now this “man’s” dog flung himself down worshipfully and presented the decidedly unmannish Miss Baxter with three limbs aloft and a belly to rub, which she proceeded to do with a familiarity that surprised him.
    Though she bordered on slatternly this moment, with her hair falling down and her dress wrinkled beyond repair, Miss Baxter seemed a fussy sort of person, more