Own the Night Read Online Free PDF

place like Sadie’s.
    “Ma’am, that wasn’t the question. You could be hiding a flask under that jacket for all I care.”
    Her lips parted and she blinked. Then she startled him by grabbing her lapels and pulling open her blazer. “No flask, no nothing. That’s my point. Everything. Is. Gone.”
    He wouldn’t say “nothing.” She had a nice rack. Noah cleared his throat, forced his gaze away from her breasts and back to the blank incident report he’d pulled out of his desk drawer. “Please describe for me what happened.”
    She heaved an annoyed sigh, and he couldn’t help but glance surreptitiously at her chest again. Her blouse was made out of some kind of light silk and he saw that her bra was lacy.... “I was on my way here, rolling my luggage behind me, and just after I passed the bar—”
    “Let’s back up. You were on your way here, to my office?”
    “Yes, I, um…” She flushed slightly, started to avert her gaze, then lifted her chin and looked at him dead-on. “I was coming to find out how I could get to the Sundance.”
    He frowned. She could’ve asked anyone for directions. “Why take your luggage out of the car?”
    “I don’t have a car. My ride left me at the edge of town.”
    That made no sense. “Why didn’t you go straight to the Sundance?”
    “What does that have to do with anything? I was robbed on your main street. You think I stole my own property?”
    “No, ma’am, I don’t. Just trying to get a clear picture.” He offered her a conciliatory smile. It appeared she really was a victim, and he’d jumped to the wrong conclusion the moment she’d walked in. He’d gotten too used to the flimsy excuses the Sundance ladies had been throwing his way, trying to get his attention. “I haven’t asked your name.”
    “Alana.”
    He waited for her last name.
    “Look, Sheriff, I don’t understand how this could’ve happened in broad daylight. I only looked away for a moment. In New York I wouldn’t dare, but I figured in a small town like this…” She shrugged her slim shoulders, then slumped back with a sigh. “I understand it was my error. I should’ve been more careful.”
    “You’re from New York, then?”
    She hesitated, a flicker of alarm in her eyes that also made no sense. “Yes.”
    “I didn’t catch your last name.”
    There it was again—that same wariness that had her shoulders tensing and straightening. After a long pause she said, “Richardson.”
    He slowly printed her name on the report, his cop’s sixth sense on full alert. “How did you hear about the Sundance?”
    She leaned forward. “Could it be someone playing a prank? I saw kids on the street earlier. Crime can’t be much of a problem around here.”
    “You said you passed the Watering Hole?”
    “That’s right.”
    “Today is payday for most of the ranch hands. They were swarming outside the place, last I saw.”
    “Yes, there were quite a few cowboys hanging around.”
    Noah stopped writing and stared at her. “And that’s where your things disappeared?”
    She nodded. “An older gentleman stopped me, and it happened while I was talking to him. That’s why I looked away.”
    “Did you get his name?”
    “Gunderson.”
    Noah threw down his pen and leaned back. “What did Gunderson want with you?”
    “He asked if I was staying at the Sundance. And then…” She made a face, appeared to reconsider what she’d been about to say. “I think he was just being nosy.”
    Noah reckoned she was probably right about that. Gunderson had always had it in for the McAllisters, but since they’d opened the dude ranch and were raking in money, he’d been especially ill-tempered. Their success meant they were unlikely to sell him that strip of land he wanted so badly.
    “All those men out there…they would’ve noticed you,” Noah said. “Someone had to have seen something.”
    “They were too busy to notice me,” she said quietly.
    “I doubt that.”
    Her startled expression