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

worry that remained.
    Clenching her bag tighter, she reluctantly hurried toward the trees and eventually found what she was looking for. Armed with a large stick, she followed the deceased down the river until she was a little ahead of it. Because the stick was long enough to reach the middle of the river it was unwieldy and difficult to manoeuvre with one of her hands full of her bag, but there was no possibility of her putting it down because of the nature of the contents. As a result, she was forced to manoeuvre the stick awkwardly into the collar of the shirt and try to tug the floating corpse toward her. It was the last thing she wanted to do, mostly because she was squeamish and didn’t like the thought of what she might find should it flip over, but she did it anyway. She had no idea yet what she was going to do once she got him to the riverbank. He looked too big for her to manhandle by herself, but she couldn’t leave him where he was.
    “What then?” she mumbled as she began to tug the body toward the riverbank. “If I get him onto the bank and get someone to fetch the magistrate, he is going to want to know what a single, unchaperoned female is doing here all by herself just before dawn on a cold, autumnal morning.”
    “Now what?” she whispered. She stared at the man whose head bumped gently against the soft earth beneath her feet and tried to decide what to do now. The last thing she was ever going to do was touch him. She had never touched a dead body in her life before and had no intention of starting with this one. She couldn’t leave either. 
    “Where are you when I need you?” she whispered, glancing around hopefully for any sign of the handsome gentleman’s return. As she did so, a tendril of a thought began to unfurl in the back of her mind, and refused to relinquish its hold.
    Was the body the reason the gentleman had been in the park so early? She knew why she was there, and it wasn’t just for a walk. It seemed incredibly early in the morning for any well-to-do gentleman to take a stroll, so what was he doing there? He must have seen the body floating in the river. The white of the man’s shirt against the murky brown of the water stood out to anyone with eyes in their head. Was he the one responsible for the man’s death? Was that why he had been running away from the area with such determination?
    Unfortunately, with her options limited, partly by conscience and partly by the money she still held, Poppy had little choice but to summon the help she needed in the only way she could. Sucking in a huge breath, she opened her mouth and screamed for the second time that morning. 
     
    Luke bent over at the waist and shook his head in disgust as he stared at the retreating backs of the young children. He watched them launch themselves over the metal railings at the far end of the park and high-tail it down the road without a backward look. It was clear that they knew exactly where they were going. If only he could get there he would know where they were going too, but that woman was screaming again.
    “Damned fool woman. Can’t she scream any louder? She shouldn’t be out here all by herself for God’s sake,” he snarled in disgust.
    He contemplated just ignoring her. Whatever she had gotten into this time was her own fault. She should know better than to hang around in a park at dawn. However, that said, he had spent far too many years working within the Star Elite. It went against everything he was to ignore the cries of a damsel in distress. From the sound of it, whatever had happened to her had distressed the woman terribly. She was screaming loud enough to wake the dead. Unfortunately, there didn’t appear to be anybody but him nearby to race to her rescue, so it was down to him to bail her out of trouble – again.
    “Why am I cursed like this?” he demanded of the skies as, with one last filthy glare after the  pick-pockets, he turned around and wiped a thin sheen of sweat off