Parker And The Gypsy Read Online Free PDF Page A

the corner.
    Mike’s office wasn’t exactly located at one of the swankier addresses in the city. He caught himself tensing, watching until Sara managed to hail herself a cab and was spirited safely away.
    Not, he assured himself gruffly, because he cared in the least what happened to Little Miss Blue Eyes. He just wanted to make sure she was really gone. Mike let the blind fall back into place and turned away from the window with a dismissive shake of his head.
    Now that he’d had a chance to calm down, he was pretty convinced that Sara had been acting all on her own, that she was nothing more than she seemed, a harmless kook, an angel with her halo screwed on a little too tight.
    But she really had you going for a minute there, didn’t she, Parker? a voice inside him taunted. In more ways than one.
    â€œThe hell she did,” Mike growled, seeking to deny both the surge of attraction he’d felt for Sara and the fact that she’d managed to shake him. Not even in that one moment when she’d seemed to look straight through him, her blue eyes so clear and honest and searching?
    No, not even then. But Mike did admit to an uncomfortable twinge. He had no objection to a woman trying to see through his clothes, but he didn’t want anyone probing deeper than that. There were places in the dark, murky backwaters of his mind even he didn’t want to go, memories he didn’t want dredged out into the light of day.
    But Sara Holyfield was no mind reader—not even close. She was about as psychic as...as the wilted plant his secretary had insisted upon leaving on his windowsill to die.
    All right, then. So how’d she know about your old wound?
    Mike shrugged. A certain knack for perception and a few good hunches. Maybe Sara had even felt the outline of his scar when they had been locked in that clinch. His T-shirt was thin enough. And how’d she known about the knife? A lucky guess, that was all.
    And as for all that stuff she’d spouted about him being such a miserable and bitter man... The lady was completely off the mark there. Hell, he was doing better now than he had in the two years since he’d quit his job at the police force. Business was good, at least good enough that he could now afford to have a secretary—when Rosa bothered to show up. And his divorce had become final last fall. He was a free man again, free to go out cruising for gorgeous honeys, free to get lucky every night if he wanted to.
    Which didn’t help to explain why he’d reacted to Sara like a man stranded for years on a desert island, pulling her into his arms and kissing her that way. Or why when Mike tried to dismiss the whole episode, he couldn’t seem to get Sara out of his mind.
    Settling back into his chair, he reached for the report he’d been working on, but somehow he kept seeing Sara’s woebegone face when he shoved her into the outer office and slammed the door closed.
    â€œI came to you because I honestly needed your help, Mr. Parker.”
    Mike experienced a brief twinge of conscience. He supposed he hadn’t needed to get that rough with the poor kid, but she could always find some other investigator. There was bound to be someone who would be happy to play ghost hunt with her and sucker her out of her money.
    Another unpleasant thought. Mike thrust it ruthlessly aside. No, he’d done right by getting rid of Sara and forgetting about her.
    Because a woman who thought she could read minds and see ghosts, well she was bound to be nothing but trouble. Especially packaged the way Sara was. Her pretty face all vulnerable and innocent, filling a man’s head with stupid noble impulses to fight the baser urges her body was arousing in him.
    And what a body. Mike stretched back in his chair, latching his hands behind his head. Good thing he’d resolved to stop thinking about Sara. Because if he closed his eyes, he could still remember how tempting her