Not the Marrying Kind (Destiny Bay Romances - Forever Yours) Read Online Free PDF Page A

waitress quickly followed, serving them tea and bowing gracefully as she backed away.
    “Now,” Michael said firmly, leaning forward to look deeply into her eyes, “tell me all about yourself. How does a psychologist come to be so afraid of unfamiliar foods?”
    She stared back at him, thrown off-guard by his direct approach. It wasn't really true. On the whole she was as ready as anyone for new experiences. Wasn't she? Suddenly she realized just how long she'd been caught up in her work, totally immersed in it. Maybe it was time she took a little pause for reassessment. But this was hardly the time to think about that.
    So instead of answering, she came through with a counterpunch. “First you explain to me how a shoplifter comes to be so buddy-buddy with the police,” she asked tartly.
    His laugh was soft and low. “Criminals and cops have a symbiotic relationship. Just like those little birds that live on top of hippos in the wild. We couldn't do without each other.”
    There was more to it than that. She'd sensed it before, and she could see it in his eyes now. She wanted to know.   She needed to know.
    “You're not really a shoplifter, are you?” she guessed, narrowing her eyes as she studied him. “What were you really doing in that department store today?”
    His smile faded a bit. “I hope the man I created that charade for isn't as perceptive as you are,” he answered. “If he is, all will have been in vain.”  
    “Ah-hah,” she pounced. “So it was for show. But why?”
    He stretched back in his seat, a smile on his face. “Send a thief to catch a thief, they always say. There was a man—his identity is unimportant— working on that floor, who badly needed proof that I have sticky fingers. And so I was providing it for him.” He chuckled. “You wouldn't believe how many things I picked up right under people's noses, and no one said a thing. Until I found you.”
    A light went off in her memory. “He was the one you were looking for when you made me wait before accusing you out loud.”
    He grinned. “And you waited too. That surprised me. One look at your determined face and I thought the show was going to be all over before the audience arrived.”
    The waitress appeared at their table with the food, giving Shelley a reprieve from having to explain how he'd fascinated her, how she'd been consumed with curiosity about him and his strange activities. She sat back in the seat, watching with wary apprehension as the waitress set a beautiful black lacquer tray in front of Michael. Strange things were sitting in little mounds on the tray, and she avoided looking directly at them. She felt almost as though she were sitting across from someone who was gleefully looking forward to consuming live ants on a stick, followed by a chaser of wriggling earthworms.
    “For you,” the delicate waitress said, bowing as she set a small porcelain dish before Shelley. In the center, artfully surrounded by slivers of white vegetable and coils of orange ginger, lay a long, black cylinder, cut across into slices like a very small jelly roll.  
    “California roll,” she announced with aplomb.  
    Shelley recoiled, ready to insist that she wasn't hungry and was not about to touch anything in this restaurant, but when her eyes met the hopeful gaze of the waitress, she swallowed her words.  
    “I'm sure I’ll love it,” she replied weakly. “Thank you.”
    Michael was grinning at her as the waitress departed. “Don't worry,” he said. “Not a piece of raw fish has even breathed near that roll. If you'll look carefully, you'll see nothing more threatening than nice pink, well-cooked shrimp and green avocado.”
    She looked down and saw what he was talking about. “That may be,” she said suspiciously, “but what about the seaweed wrapped on the outside?”
    A vague shadow passed over his face. “Just taste it and ...”
    Shelley gave him a look of long-suffering patience. She poked at a slice of it with a