She's Gotta Be Mine Read Online Free PDF Page A

slammed next door. The serial killer looked up and over as a flurry of white fur pounded against the other side of the fence.
    “Don’t start with me, you little runt, or you’ll be next.”
    Surely he wouldn’t do anything to the little dog. He wasn’t really a serial killer. Was he?
    No, not with a voice like that. It was pure sin. Like warm syrup running along her nerve endings, it begged to be licked off.
    The dog yapped, a series of high-pitched sounds that grated like nails on a chalkboard. So much for her warm, syrupy feeling.
    The serial killer threw down his shovel and reached for a small, wrapped bundle lying at the edge of the hole he’d been digging. He leaned down to set it in the...oh my God, not a hole, but a grave. And that little bundle was some poor dead animal.
    She must have gasped because he looked up, right into her startled eyes. Now she knew how Jimmy Stewart must have felt in Rear Window when Raymond Burr caught Jimmy watching him dispose of his wife’s body parts.
     
     
    Chapter Two
     
     
    The woman from across the street edged along the side porch with some silver-wrapped casserole thing clutched to her chest like a shield. Nick stuck his thumb through a belt loop.
    Oh yeah, she’d heard the stories about him. No doubt. So what the hell was she doing in his backyard? The good ladies of Cottonmouth wouldn’t come within a hundred feet of his house, let alone venture onto his property. Maybe she was like those women who wrote letters to killers in prison, even married them. The allure of the bad boy. Or maybe she was just pure whacko.
    But a hot little whacko if ever there was one. Easing down the rickety porch stairs, she stepped closer, into a scrap of sun, her red hair dancing with brilliant prisms of light. Surely that color could only be factory born and bred, but he’d never been one to scoff at man’s ingenuity.
    Next door, the mutant mutt’s barking continued, slightly higher, slightly louder, and a whole hell of a lot more irritating. “Princess, I’m warning you...”
    “Don’t you like dogs?”
    “That’s not a dog, it’s a rodent.” Actually, he did like dogs, even had one when he was a kid. A real dog, a malamute named Dodger, who had barked instead of yipped.
    “I have to admit that Princess”—she looked to him to verify the name—“does have a nerve barking at you in your own backyard.”
    Would ya listen to that? Someone in this town actually agreed with him. Call Ripley’s Believe It or Not . Call the Guinness Book of World Records . “Maybe you should make sure Princess hears that.”
    The gutsy woman eased her death grip on the foil-covered offering and dared to take two steps closer, braving the supposed killing fields. She wasn’t young, probably around his age. Tight jeans and form-hugging sweater testified to good genes or a health club membership. Toes and nails painted to match suggested a woman out to make an impression. So again, why in the hell was she in his backyard? A woman like her could do better than the local bogey man.
    Nick picked up his shovel deliberately and began dumping dirt on top of the sheet-shrouded cat.
    “What are you doing?”
    “Burying a cat that got on my nerves.”
    He looked up to gauge her reaction. A step back or a step forward? Only her arms moved, balancing the casserole against her midriff and, in turn, accentuating a very nice pair of breasts. And a telltale impression on the ring finger of her left hand.
    “Did it meow too loudly outside your window?”
    “No, it showed up dead in my yard. I really hate that. The smell, the insects it attracts.” Not to mention nosy neighbors. He’d make an exception for this one; she was far too delectable to send away with a pat on her rump. The thought of cupping that butt made his hands twitch.
    “It just ‘showed’ up? Or did you bludgeon it to death?”
    He almost smiled, then shrugged instead. Why the hell bother to explain? He found himself doing it anyway,