One Penny Surprise (Saved By Desire 1) Read Online Free PDF Page A

her hand and contemplated what to do. The longer she waited, the more the small hairs on the back of her neck began to stand on end. Unless her imagination was running away with her danger was afoot. She was almost certainly being watched. She could practically feel eyes boring into her back from somewhere nearby but where? Why? If it was the person she was here to meet why had he not asked for the bag? It was all deuced odd and reiterated the fact that the decision she had made to keep the money and leave was the right one.
    “Wherever you are, if you cannot come to me then you can do without,” she muttered loud enough for anyone lurking in the trees to be able to hear. After waiting for a minute more, she turned around and was about to march back down the path when something in the middle of the river captured her attention.
    “What on earth?” Her brows dipped low as she tried to figure out what it was. At first glance it appeared to be a bag of some kind, but it was too large and billowy; the material too fine. The soft clip of her footsteps faltered. Her heart rate increased the closer she got to the strange object being carried along by the gentle flow of the water. Pure gut instinct warned her she wasn’t going to like what she would discover if she ventured any further, but it was unconscionable to even think about simply turning around and walking away. There was something decidedly odd about that rather large object, and she suspected she knew what it was.
    “Oh, my word,” she whispered as the distinctive shape of a head bobbed into view before it was enveloped by the sodden material. She swallowed harshly as her gaze ran over the large cloud of what she suspected was cotton, and the white sleeve from which a ghostly hand protruded, its fingers limp and lifeless as it was carried inch by inch closer to the spot where she stood. The slow, almost ethereal way it floated and bobbed toward her was just as unnerving as the silence that surrounded her. Every instinct she possessed screamed at her to turn around and run. She wanted to scream; she wanted to cry; she wanted the handsome stranger to reappear. She wanted the man she was there to meet to turn up so she could give him the bag and just go back to the hovel, but she couldn’t. Nobody else was around.
    At the moment she couldn’t get her mind to work well enough to think clearly about anything. Her life had just descended into a pseudo world where nothing really made sense any more. She threw a worried glance back down the path behind her and almost wished the pick-pockets would return. Maybe she should go and search for them? Right now she would prefer to be in their company than left with a dead man.
    Should she run and fetch help? She couldn’t just ignore the fact that she had seen the corpse. The image alone would haunt her for the rest of her days. Her conscience wouldn’t allow her to forget that this man was, or had been a person. He must have a family or loved ones nearby waiting for him. It was unconscionable to even think about leaving the scene and simply forgetting all about it. After all, he could just float off. Having never been to this park before she had no idea where the river went. Did it merge into the Thames, several miles away, meander into a lake, or go on for miles out into the countryside somewhere? She daren’t take her eyes off it in case it vanished, floated away, and was never found again so she couldn’t really leave it and fetch help.
    “Why does this have to happen to me?” she groused with a sigh. She threw a dark, almost challenging glare toward the trees, hoping against hope that her contact would come out of the woods to meet her. Unsurprisingly though, there was no sign of him. Had he seen the body and decided to stay away?
    “Coward,” she snapped. A tendril of a thought that her contact might be responsible for the fate of the dead man in the river was quickly quashed, but it didn’t help ease the fear and