Natural-Born Protector / Saved by the Monarch Read Online Free PDF Page A

with a man named Dean Lucas. He’s a mechanic. Works at Hall’s Car Haven.” He watched as she wrote the information down on her pad. Her long dark hair fell forward, looking shiny and soft, and he was surprised by his impulse to reach out and touch it.
    Throughout his relationship with Lainie, he’d learned a lot about Melody Thompson. He knew she had just turned twenty-six, that she’d been the one person Lainie had depended on and that, according to Lainie, Melody had never had a serious romantic relationship.
    He found the last hard to believe. She was gorgeous, and bright, with an underlying sensuality that was more than a little appealing. Not that he was interested. When he’d buried his wife, he’d made a vow that there would be no other woman in his life on a permanent basis…ever.
    “Who else?” she asked, pulling him from his thoughts.
    “She had problems with a guy named James O’Donnell a couple of months ago. I don’t think they were dating, but she thought he was obsessed with her. I think Lainie called the cops on him because she thought he was stalking her.”
    She wrote down that information as well, then took another sip of her coffee. “You’d better eat your pie before it gets cold.”
    He picked up his fork and cut into the pie, but the last thing on his mind was food. “Why do you want that information? I’ve already told the sheriff everything I know.”
    “Sheriff Ramsey is an idiot who couldn’t find a criminal if one came up and introduced himself,” she exclaimed, her voice rich with derision.
    “Ramsey isn’t the sheriff anymore,” Hank replied. “Zack West is sheriff now.”
    She raised one of her dark, perfectly arched brows. “Really? I didn’t know. I haven’t talked to anyone but family members since I’ve been back in town.”
    For a moment they were silent. He ate his pie and she stared down at the short list of names he’d given her.
    Lainie had been incredibly easy to read. She’d worn her emotions on her face where everyone could see them. Melody gave away little of what she was thinking or feeling. It was an easy guess that she was a far more complicated woman than her sister had been.
    “Your daughter is a little charmer,” she said, finally breaking the silence that had grown between them.
    “She’s far too smart and too outspoken for her own good. Which reminds me…” He dug into his pocket andpulled out two keys. “Here are the keys that Lainie gave us to her apartment.” He placed them on the table between them. “I don’t know who else she might have given a key to, so it might be a good idea to change the locks.”
    She nodded. “I’ll have somebody come out first thing in the morning. Is there anything else you can tell me about what was going on with Lainie around the time of her death? Anything unusual?”
    He hesitated a long moment, unsure about revealing the confidences of a woman now dead. “What?” she asked as she leaned forward.
    “Did you know she wanted a baby? That she was trying to get pregnant?” He could tell by the shocked look on her face that Lainie hadn’t shared that with her.
    A spasm of grief twisted her features and he bit his tongue, sorry that he’d told her. “That’s the last thing she needed. She couldn’t even take care of herself, let alone a baby,” she said.
    “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have told you,” he said, fighting the impulse to reach out and take her hand, offer some sort of physical support. She looked so sad, so lost.
    “No, I want you to tell me everything. If I’m going to find the person who killed her then I need to know everything.”
    He stared at her in surprise. “Don’t you think it would be best to leave the investigation to the sheriff and his men?”
    She leaned back, looking stronger than she had moments before. “I’ll let the sheriff run his investigation but I intend to run my own. If I know my sister, she liked to run with people who had at least as many