Sea of Suspicion Read Online Free PDF Page B

The guy was Lily’s boyfriend, but he made her intensely aware of every part of her body and every possible escape route.
    “What you’d call a liquor store.” Nick pushed aside the garlic bread, slid the box of beer and wine onto the counter next to Susie. Their shoulders brushed, but she didn’t flinch. She forced herself to remain still even though he was invading her personal space. He gifted her with a half smile when she didn’t flee.
    Dangerous and pushy.
    Leanne’s eyes sparkled. “Dr. Susie Cooper, meet Detective Inspector Nick Archer. Susie and I go way back. She just got a lectureship at the Gatty.”
    “You’re a cop? ” Susie knew her mouth was hanging open, but she couldn’t believe Nick Archer was anything peaceable or law-abiding.
    His quick smile told her she’d made a common mistake. People must often figure him for a bad boy, a renegade, whereas apparently the opposite was true—he was a twenty-first century knight. Still, he emitted hazard like a pheromone, and instinct told her Nick Archer would be ruthless at getting what he wanted. Poor Lily.
    Yeah, right. Lily ate policemen for breakfast.
    He inclined his head. “At your service, Dr. Cooper.” His eyes drifted over Mickey Mouse’s ears, letting her know exactly the sort of service he had in mind.
    “How’s Lily?” she asked pointedly, conscious of the effort it took to hold his gaze. She wasn’t falling for the charm or pretending she didn’t know he already had a girlfriend.
    The kitchen suddenly felt as though it had been dropped into liquid nitrogen. Every particle of oxygen was sucked out of her lungs by the rapid chill.
    Leanne slapped herself on the forehead, at the same time rescuing the cheese sauce she’d made for the lobster thermidor. “I forgot you two had a connection.” Leanne wasn’t paying a whole lot of attention to dynamics; she was now looking for a corkscrew. “You’re getting a taxi home, by the way, unless you want a sleepover.” She waved vaguely over at Susie, or it could have been Nick, or both.
    “A connection?” Susie frowned.
    “Lily is Nick’s sister-in-law, or I should say…” Leanne paused, looking uncomfortable, a rare thing for the self-confident girl who’d grown up dirt-poor and desperate. “ Former sister-in-law?”
    Rays of light cut oblique angles through the old farmhouse window and highlighted tense skin around Nick’s mouth. When he spoke, there was an odd glint in his eyes that was more complex than sorrow. “Lily was the flower girl at our wedding.”
    “You’re divorced?”
    “My wife is dead.”
    Oh, crap . Susie blinded herself with the sunset rather than look at him. “I’m sorry.” Discovering Nick Archer was a widower shifted her perspective like a handbrake on black ice. She’d just assumed he and Lily were lovers. Jeez.
    He picked up two beers from the box, tossed one to Dougie before opening his and taking a deep swallow. When he came up for air, he said, “It happened a long time ago.” Then shrugged, each movement carefully staged to look as if he didn’t give a damn, but the tendons in the back of his hand jutted through the skin and his smile was scalpel sharp.
    Leanne looked up from where she had the wine bottle braced between her knees and the silence screamed with tension.
    “So who won the football?” Nick asked Dougie, spinning the beer-cap into the recycling bin before striding into the den followed by a miserable-looking Dougie.
    Susie pulled a face at Leanne, then rescued the salad, dumping it into a waiting bowl. “Sorry.”
    “How were you supposed to know?” Leanne popped the cork on the bottle and put the wine on the counter beside the glasses.
    “Dougie told me what happened when we first met.” Leanne kept her voice low so the men wouldn’t hear them gossiping. “Lily’s sister, I don’t even know her name, was one of Jake Sizemore’s Ph.D. students. She got killed by sharks doing fieldwork off the coast of South Africa when