The Care and Feeding of Unmarried Men Read Online Free PDF

other wealthy clientele because the residential area was separated from the public facilities by thick walls, guarded fences, and tight security. The guestbook was kept strictly confidential, and because of that, during the high season from October to May there was never a shortage of grateful residents recuperating from plastic surgery, a messy scandal, or simply a bad starring vehicle.
    Eve waved at the young attendant who manned the wrought-iron gate leading to the spacious cottages and one-bedroom suites. Without a key card or aninvitation, no one would make it past him, and she was pleased by the physical reminder that as long as she kept to the Kona Kai and kept her cell phone turned off, she could ignore the little two-word order on that morning’s business card from the SEC investigator. “Call me.”
    She wouldn’t.
    Her bungalow wasn’t far, along a cobbled path made almost mazelike by shoulder-high trimmed hedges of yellow hibiscus and glossy-leaved gardenias. Intersections were marked by huge clay tubs spilling over with multicolored flowering annuals. The flora looked somewhat wilted by all the rain, and you couldn’t see the usually stunning, rocky ripples of the surrounding mountains through the heavy layer of clouds weighing down on the valley, but Eve clung to an Annie-like hope that the sun would come out tomorrow.
    The creature on her front doorstep reinforced the feeling. At the sound of her footsteps, the dog-sized, ragged tomcat lifted his head from something he was investigating on the mat. As usual, his fierce expression seemed to soften.
    â€œHello, cat,” Eve murmured as he trotted toward her. Her sisters called him Adam—hah hah—because of his odd affection for Eve. He’d shown up as a stray a few weeks ago and adopted her. “We orphans have to stick together,” she said, bending to rub the crown of his orange head between one ear and the half of the other that still remained. He pushed against her ankle with his chin, almost knocking her over.
    She staggered to keep her balance and found herself staring down at the—what was it?—thing the cat had been nosing by her front door.
    Goose bumps prickled her arms again and thentumbled down her spine. The stiff and still thing was the corpse of a yellow canary.
    â€œHe brought you a gift.”
    Eve swung around at the familiar voice. Bianca Sabatino Caruso, Téa and Joey’s mother, and the person who had taken in her husband’s offspring by another woman twenty-five years ago. Eve. When his mistress had died, Salvatore Caruso had brought home his three-year-old blonde daughter, just four months younger than his oldest, to be raised by his wife.
    Now nearing fifty, Bianca was petite and slender, an elegant woman who looked more French than Italian. More Brie than Parmigiana Reggiano. Next to her dark beauty, at times growing up Eve had felt all arms, legs, and washed-out hair. Looking at Bianca and then at her dark-haired and dark-eyed half sisters, Eve had always wondered what had happened to the evidence of her own Italian descent, figuring it must have been buried beneath the genetic heft of stolid Swedish or Norwegian DNA.
    She’d felt apart, even though Bianca had never, ever treated her that way.
    â€œHe brought you a gift,” the older woman said again.
    Eve blinked. “Who?”
    Bianca gestured to the purr-er at Eve’s feet. “Adam. Cats will do that.”
    â€œOh.” Eve glanced down at the tom winding around her ankles, making like a throaty motorboat. He’d never done such a thing before, and it seemed out of character. What she liked best about the cat was that he didn’t try to curry her favor like most males who hovered in her vicinity. Gifts didn’t seem his style. He appeared to believe his presence in her life was presentenough. “I suppose the bird didn’t just fly here and knock itself out on my front