Sweet Caroline's Keeper Read Online Free PDF Page A

Aidan Colbert's death two years ago, apparently of little interest to the Peacekeepers. But since there was and had been for many years a connection between Caroline and him, he still maintained a personal interest in her and even felt affection, to a certain degree.
    Perhaps Colbert should have eliminated her that long-ago night. Even some of the other Peacekeeper agents had agreed. But in the end, there had been no need. Preston had told neither her nor her mother anything about his double life. And despite his threats, he had not bequeathed either of them the secret documents he had sworn he possessed.
    Caroline was safe. Safer now than she'd ever been in the fifteen years since her stepfather's death.

 
     
     
    Chapter 2
     
     
    When a Talbot County contractor who attended Lyle's church told Caroline that he would contribute his services for free, other church members, including a plumber and an electrician, volunteered their services to renovate the house in Baltimore. Most of the job would have to be done on Saturdays, but the workforce had turned out en masse last week, so things were moving along quicker than anticipated. This was their second Saturday, and the main focus today was stripping wallpaper and tearing out damaged Sheetrock.
    While six men worked on the main project, ripping out the mildewed walls in the two basement rooms—one used as a wine cellar years ago and the other a former minigym —Caroline and three other women stripped old wallpaper off the upstairs bedrooms. As she and her friend Roz, who had been her assistant at the studio for the past three years, concentrated their efforts on Caroline's old bedroom, Mrs. Mabry and Allison Sims worked diligently in the master suite.
    As she scraped away at the stubborn wallpaper, Caroline tried to remember only the happy times she'd spent in this house, but try as she might, bad memories kept creeping into her thoughts. Her instincts had warned her to stay away, to put as much distance between herself and the past as she possibly could. But how could she let others work to restore the house while she stayed away? She couldn't, of course.
    "Damn!" Roz cried suddenly, and stuck her index finger into her mouth.
    "What's wrong?" From where she sat perched atop the ladder, a wet sponge in one hand and a metal scrapper in the other, Caroline glanced down at her friend, who had been attacking the stubborn paper along the baseboard.
    Roz sucked on her finger, then removed it from her mouth and held it up for Caroline's inspection. "The stupid scrapper slipped and I nicked my finger on the edge."
    Caroline laid aside her equipment and climbed down the ladder. "Here, let me take a look. I've got a first aid kit in my car, if you need a bandage."
    "It's just a scratch, but you know how little cuts can hurt like the devil."
    Caroline grabbed Roz's finger and inspected it thoroughly. "It's not even bleeding."
    "Okay, so I'm a crybaby." As Roz shrugged, she rolled her eyes toward the ceiling.
    Caroline adored Rozalin Turner. Few people understood their friendship, not even Lyle, who knew Caroline so well. But she realized that poor Lyle didn't know quite what to think of the flashy, loudmouthed Roz. She wasn't the type of woman he was used to being around—nothing like Aunt Dixie or Caroline or the good ladies of the Congregational Church. Roz wasn't a Southern lady, not by the widest stretch of the imagination. Roz was. . .well, Roz was Roz. A liberated free spirit.
    Roz had come for an interview three years ago, answering an ad in the newspaper Caroline had placed for an "all-around personal assistant to a professional photographer."
    Just one look at Roz and Caroline had thought how easily her appearance might offend some of the studio's wealthier clients. Then as now, her curly bleached-blond hair had been piled atop her head, giving her a sexy, tousled look. She wore shorts, a tank top, an ankle bracelet, three toe rings, six pairs of tiny gold hoops in her