Rum and Raindrops: A Blueberry Springs Chick Lit Contemporary Romance Read Online Free PDF Page B

marrying herself off, he’d given up hope and finally allowed Jen to take over the place—although not paint over the crazy wall colors left behind by his first daughter. Still, she loved the place, even if it was a bit worn down such as the locks which had broken last week and had, as a result, caused Moe to be locked out from raiding her fridge as there was no longer a spare key hidden behind the loose baseboard at the landing at the top of the street’s stairs.
    “Don’t forget to bring my keys back. You shirt’s in the kitchen.”
    He shot her a grin over his shoulder as he left the store. Moe was so easy to hang out with. No expectations. Totally laid back and, best of all, no ambition to cheat on a girl. It would take too much effort. That was a quality she’d come to admire in a man. Even if he was just a friend.
    She listened to the thumping up the steps that led from Main Street up to her apartment above the store. Waiting for Moe to return, Jen looked out the store’s front window, checking for Liz before updating herself on the status of the smoke clouds. Where the hell was all that rain she’d ordered? She leaned her forehead against the window and sighed. Her breath made small circles of fog on the glass then quickly faded. She let out another sigh and created another circle. She watched it slowly erode along the edges until it was gone. And again.
    Out of the corner of her eye, she caught a group of kids giggling at her. She pulled her head away and stuck out her tongue, sending them away laughing.
    A flicker in the other direction. Tall build. Handsome man. She flashed him a flirty smile. Why not? Today was so screwed up she may as well have some fun before she got locked in jail.
    She straightened as though someone had jerked a string attached to her spine. Hell’s bells on a rented pony. That handsome man wasn’t just some guy. It was Rob. Fire Investigator. Destiny holder.
    He entered the store, and unable to recall how to make her limbs work, Jen stared at him from her spot by the window.
    Why did she give him a flirty smile? Now he was going to think she was trying to butter him up and flirt her way out of trouble with her feminine wiles.
    Did she even have feminine wiles?
    She was doomed. With a very large D .
    “H-h-hi,” she stuttered. Why couldn’t she catch a break with him? First she was a nature guide who started forest fires on her days off, and now she was a depressed, deranged crackpot who amused people from the front window of the store. Oh, and there was the spilling coffee all over him and insisting he take her free shirt and asking him out on a hiking date.
    She bent over to stop the lightheadedness from getting worse as Wally, having heard the door’s bells jangle when Rob entered, poked his head out of the staffroom.
    “You got it, Jen?”
    She waved lazily. “You bet.” Oh, Lord. Now she had to sell something to His Holy Major Hotness, the man who determined her destiny in all the wrong ways. “Or…actually I have to get to that inventory.” She tucked her head down and hustled away.
    Rob called after her, “I came to see you.”
    She stopped dead in her tracks. He came to see her . Oh, holy. Did that sound amazing to her ears or what?
    She turned to face him, half expecting cupid to be hanging in the air above him, winking at her with a wicked cherub smile.
    Rob waved a leather zip-up folder in the air. “I have to take your statement and a few other things.”
    Not that kind of ‘came to see her.’ Of course. The stress. Totally messing with her brain.
    “But...” she protested.
    “I just need a few details.” He flashed her a smile. “First hand.”
    He shouldn’t be smiling as though he was enjoying his job. Not a nice man like him. He should be on his hands and knees all wrung out at having to pursue her case. He should automatically know she was innocent. A girl in the wrong place at the wrong time.
    He made up the ground between them and extended his