Run Wild With Me Read Online Free PDF Page B

The sound of snoring in the back drew her attention, and she realized that the city’s handyman–meter reader, Brad Dixon, was sleeping off a binge in one of the cells, as was his habit.
    Buck didn’t return. The phone rang constantly.
    “Andy, what time is choir practice?”
    “How’s Buck doing?”
    Every question was followed by a casual reference to Sam Farley. By the time she’d answered the eight call, her mood hovered somewhere between exasperation and total frustration. Sam Farley didn’t deserve this much attention. He was just a man, a vagabond carpenter who told stories of faraway places she’d never seen and didn’t want to, a drifter who’d kissed her.
    She didn’t mean anything to him, and neither had the kiss. She was just the next girl down the road on the way to all those places he hadn’t seen yet. He was simply passing through.
    Andrea didn’t want to think about how he’d made her feel or the way his voice had sounded when he called her Stormy. She sprang to her feetand marched back to Brad Dixon’s cell. It was long past time for him to be up and pretending to earn the salary the city paid him.
    “Brad! Brad, wake up! You’ve got water meters to read.” Andrea rousted the half-asleep employee out of the cell and headed him toward the barber shop for a morning-after cold shower and black coffee.
    Andrea glanced toward the café. Buck appeared to be taking the morning off. Well, she had city business to carry out. There was still the problem of Sam Farley’s identification to be settled. She climbed into the patrol car and cut down a side street that passed the old cotton gin and the post office. She was going out to the Hines place, and she was taking the back road.

Three
    In the daylight Mamie’s house no longer looked frightening. With its peeling paint and sagging porch it just seemed faded and tired.
    The walk up the driveway was easier this time. Andrea didn’t know why she’d been so spooked the previous night. She loved this sprawling old house, and Mamie’s grandson was welcome in her town.
    She knocked lightly at the back-porch door, listening for some indication of movement inside. When there was no response, she pushed against the screen. It was locked, and the rip in the screen had been covered with a block of wood.
    “Hello? Sam? Mr. Farley? Are you there?” She shaded her eyes from the bright glare of morning sun, peered into the screened-in porch, and knocked again.
    “And what can I do for the chief of police this morning?”
    Her eyes adjusted to the darkness, and she saw him, rumpled from sleep, wearing nothing but jeans that rode low on his hips. He was leaning against the doorframe between the kitchen and the porch, drinking coffee from one of Louise Roberts’s orange mugs.
    “You’ve locked the door,” she said. “Are you afraid?”
    “No, ma’am. I’m hiding from your welcome wagon. It started with some little woman you-hooing at my door before I was up. Why are you here, Chief?”
    Andrea stiffened. Sam Farley was angry. She didn’t know what she’d expected, but it hadn’t been anger. Where was the fun-loving rogue who’d wanted pizza and beer the night before? She couldn’t decide what it was about the man that irritated her so. Maybe she wasn’t the only one having second thoughts about what had happened between them. When she walked up the drive, she’d expected more teasing, more tales of adventure maybe. But not antagonism.
    She made her voice light and friendly. “People are just curious about you. You’ve never lived in a small town before, have you, Sam?”
    “Once,” he said wryly. “I won’t be so stupid a second time. Besides, I don’t know what your caring town did to my mother, and I’m not taking any chances on finding out. So let’s just get to the point.”
    Sam knew that he was being deliberately cruel to someone who didn’t deserve it. He didn’t understand his actions. But spending the night in the house had had