Nickeled-And-Dimed to Death Read Online Free PDF

was routine.
    Although the bank president prepared and presented reports to the board, Noah was fairly sure it was rare for Max to telephone an individual member. It wasn’t as if he and Robinson were friends. And after Robinson had hung up, Noah still wasn’t sure why he’d called.
    What had the man said? Something about welcoming him to the board and hoping that he and Noah could work together as well as he and Mrs. Underwood had, and how much he admired Mrs. Underwood. He’d gone on and on about what a fine woman she was and how much she’d done for the community as a whole and the bank in particular.
    Wait a minute. Noah stopped mid-lift. Could Max Robinson have a crush on Nadine? Maybe the bank president had been testing the waters to see if Noah would object to him asking her out.
    Completing his ascending thrust of the barbell, Noah considered his mother dating the bank president. Robinson was probably ten years younger than she was, not that a difference in age was a big deal. He seemed like a nice enough guy. The townspeople respected him, and he certainly was a hard worker. He appeared almost to live at the bank. So why not?
    Noah finished up, wiped his face and neck with a towel, and rose from his prone position. He grabbed a bottle of Dasani from the mini fridge and downed half the contents in one gulp. As he drained the rest of the bottle, a thought occurred to him and he smiled. If his mother were dating someone, maybe she’d be too busy to poke her nose into Noah’s life.
    If things worked out with Dev, Noah definitely wanted his mother occupied with something besides her son’s love life. This might be his only chance to show Dev that he was a different person from the boy she’d known in high school. The fact that he was no longer tied to his mother’s apron strings was one of the big changes he’d made since then, and he wanted to prove it to Dev.
    Turning off the music, Noah strolled to his bedroom and into the master bath. Lucky, the Chihuahua he’d inherited from Joelle, was asleep in the sink, but he lifted his head and opened one eye when Noah turned on the shower. Sometimes Noah wondered if the little animal realized he was a dog and not a cat.
    Once he was out of the shower and dried off, Noah shaved. He was so fair-haired he probably didn’t need to worry about five o’clock shadow, but since he was hoping for a good-night kiss or two from Dev, he didn’t want to take any chances.
    After splashing on Amouage Dia Pour Homme, he walked into his bedroom and checked the clock on the nightstand. It was seven fifteen. He had half an hour before he had to pick up Dev. Plenty of time, even allowing for traffic, which was nonexistent in and around Shadow Bend.
    Once he was dressed, he went to his dresser and pulled out the polished cherrywood box in which he kept his jewelry. Rummaging among the watches and tie clips, he found the cuff links that his father had given him on his twelfth birthday, only a few months before Montgomery Underwood had died. The sterling silver discs with his initials engraved in the center were by far the most inexpensive cuff links Noah owned, but they always brought him luck. And he had a feeling he would need all the good luck he could muster in order to get Dev back again.

CHAPTER 5
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    Istood at the back door, keeping a watchful eye on the driveway. Gran had not been at all pleased to hear that Jake had stood me up or that he was on his way back to St. Louis. Luckily I had never told her that his ex-wife was his supervisor and they’d be together nearly twenty-four/seven while working cases.
    As it was, it had taken me a half hour to calm down Gran after telling her that Jake wasn’t showing up for our date. So when I dropped the second bomb—that instead of going out with the man she hoped I’d marry I was now attending a dance with a guy she hated—her ballistic reaction was fairly predictable.
    Birdie didn’t buy Noah’s claim that after breaking up