Swept Away Read Online Free PDF

so—you look a little on the lean side.”
    â€œI’m just lucky that way.”
    â€œIf it’s a matter of money—”
    She was startled. “I can pay,” she said, maybe a little too proudly. Truly, if he had any idea how much money was stuffed inside the Kate Spade bag that was stuffed inside the backpack, he’d be stunned. Not to mention the jewelry. The dawning came slowly. Don’t protest too much, she told herself. It was perfectly all right if people thought she was a little down on her luck. And it wasn’t as though she didn’t know the role—she was intimately acquainted with it. “I might have something in a while. I just want to warm up. And have a look at the paper.”
    â€œSure thing. Just say the word when you’re ready. Adolfo has started breakfast.”
    She drank two more cups of coffee while she combed the paper and found nothing about the Nobles or herself. How long would Nick get away with pretending his wife was out of the country? Surely someone would begin to miss Barbara! Her masseuse, for example.
    But who would miss you, Jennifer? she asked herself. Would her boss raise an alarm? Ah, her boss actually introduced her to Nick, whom he would probably call. “Nick,” he would say. “Jennifer didn’t come back to work. Do you have any idea...?” “Oh, Artie, my fault,” Nick would say. “I should’ve called you. She skipped in Las Vegas with most of the cash in my wallet. Met someone with a bigger yacht, I guess. You know these bimbos.”
    And the women in the office who didn’t like her would be just as glad she was gone. She had eschewed the friendships of women to avoid the inevitable jealousy. And, to be free of the commitments friendship brought so she could be available at the whim of her current gentleman friend. Nick, like the others before him, didn’t like to plan in advance; he expected her to be ready at a moment’s notice. She had kept herself virtually friendless. For the first time in ten years, she regretted that.
    Oh, why didn’t I go to the police right away! Too afraid. Afraid that, unable to prove anything, they wouldn’t believe her. They wouldn’t protect her, and before very long she would meet with some unfortunate accident. Or maybe she’d leave the country, like Barbara Noble....
    A shadow cast over her newspaper caused her to jump, and there he was again, coffeepot in hand. “Ah, I maybe ought to say I’m sorry. Didn’t mean to make light of your—you know—hair. Was it, ah, chemo? Something like that?”
    She had a momentary temptation to pretend to have had cancer, but she didn’t dare tempt fate that far. Her head bald, her eyes red-rimmed from crying, she probably looked horrible to the old guy. What to tell him? But then, did she have to admit to anything at all? This was a diner, for God’s sake. Not a shrink’s office or police interrogation.
    The look on his face was so sweet. “You just worry about people all the time, don’t you?”
    â€œNo, I—” He stopped and seemed to gather himself up. “I worry about people,” he admitted.
    â€œDon’t worry about me. I’m not sick and I’m not homeless.” I am merely a brainless bimbo on the run from a murderer, she wanted to add.
    â€œGood,” he said. He warmed her coffee again before turning away.
    The drizzle outside suddenly turned into a relentless splatter against the window. She walked to the front of the diner to look out and was startled to see an elderly woman with a walker and a dog struggling up the curb. The wind and rain lashed at her so hard she almost lost her footing. Jennifer bolted out the door to help her. She hadn’t even given the dog a thought, and maybe that was a good thing because she might’ve hesitated. The dog growled, but not convincingly. Jennifer grasped the woman at the elbow