Officer in Pursuit Read Online Free PDF

sight.
    “Need a hand?” Kerry was right beside
him.
    “No, I got this.” He flashed her a
smile, tried and failed not to look at her chest.
    Her swimsuit was
dry. Damn it . But
there was so much of her that was so beautiful that he kept staring
anyway, forgetting all about the sunset. It was nothing compared to
her.
    She turned away to pick up a bag full
of disposable utensils and paper plates.
    Grey watched her go, walking behind
her. She’d tied a sarong around her hips, but it didn’t disguise
the graceful shape of her body.
    They loaded the picnic supplies into
the back of Henry’s blue Dodge Ram, which was parked by the
boardwalk. Liam and Henry lifted the other coolers in, and Alicia
and Sasha handled the blankets and a couple chairs. When everything
was packed, the only remaining sign of their presence on the beach
that day was footprints in the sand.
    The group’s other vehicles – including
Grey and Kerry’s cars – waited in spaces surrounding Henry’s truck.
Grey looked at the vehicles, then at Kerry. Eventually, he shifted
his gaze to the pier that stretched out into the water,
weather-worn timber standing high above the rolling waves, framed
by the neon sunset. Still no clouds in the sky – just the water and
all that brilliant color, like a painting rolling and shimmering
around them.
    “Hey.” He turned to Kerry, not ready
to let the moment or the opportunity slip away. “Want to walk out
onto the pier and watch the sunset?”
    He felt strangely nervous as he waited
for her reply. The day had kicked ass – having breakfast with Kerry
alone, and then feeling her legs wrapped around his shoulders, all
sun-warmed skin and slim muscle. He still wasn’t sure how he’d
pulled that one off. Surely, after all that, watching the sunset
together wouldn’t be a huge deal.
    During the day, he’d felt her walls
come down just a little. He liked what he’d seen beyond
them.
    Maybe he was greedy, but he wanted to
see more, wanted to be more to her. He wasn’t ready to let the day
go yet.
    Her gaze locked with his and sent a
little electric bolt through the center of his chest.
    “I’m sorry,” she said, “I have to
go.”
     
    * * * * *
     
    September was fading fast, but summer
was lingering in the form of long, rainy days and humid heat.
Kerry’s hair was sheet-straight, completely devoid of any tendency
to curl, but even she had battled a hint of frizz that morning.
She’d smoothed her hair back into a ponytail, where it would be out
of the way as she worked.
    The light rain and accompanying fog
cast the Wisteria Plantation House and its grounds in shades of
grey. Kerry marched over the slick grass, shoes squeaking against
freshly-mown blades. She carried her purse under one arm, held the
lightest of hooded sweaters shut over her shirt as she made her way
toward the historic mansion. It was ghost-white in the brooding
fog, its porch columns rising out of the mist as they had been for
the better part of 200 years.
    The yard was deserted, overnight
guests, visitors and employees driven indoors by the
weather.
    Still, Kerry wasn’t alone.
    The same mist that clung to her cheeks
eddied around a figure in front of the porch, toward the right. She
stood in the same place each morning, as predictable as the rising
sun. A familiar figure in white that blended with the fog, she was
dark-haired and bare-headed, a beauty exposed to the elements that
couldn’t touch her. The Lady in White. Elizabeth.
    Kerry liked to think of her by her
name. Not as a legend or someone who’d been dehumanized by the
nature of her death and the many years gone by, but a woman who had
lived and loved and had had it all torn brutally away from her. A
person, just like anyone else … even if she had been dead for well
over a century.
    Kerry stared, just for a second. She
always did – never quite got used to seeing someone who wasn’t
supposed to be a part of this world anymore. It was an incredible
thing – so