The Evasion Read Online Free PDF Page B

telling me we were in someone else’s town. These small town sheriffs don’t like us city folk busting into their business. Trust me.”
    Now he’s getting mad. She leaned in, walked two fingers up his chest and rested her head against him. Just a couple in love enjoying the fading sunlight. “We could use it as evidence for the local authorities. Think about it. If we score a counterfeit Barelli bag, we have proof someone, probably Martinson, is moving fakes through this area. And they’re probably coming through the Charleston Port Authority. That’ll be it. I promise. We’ll just hand the bag over to the sheriff.”
    He breathed in. Not once. Not twice. Three times.
    Come on, big boy, come to the dark side. Stroking his ego couldn’t hurt.
    “Please? You’re with me. I’m safe. What could go wrong?”
    He slid an arm around her shoulder, dipped his head and nuzzled her ear. “You are a pain in the ass.”
    Gotcha. “But you love me.”
    He pulled her closer, snuggled in and bit her ear. “I’m seriously rethinking that. Let’s go buy you a purse that will probably haunt me for years.”
    She patted his chest. “Thank you, honey.”
    “Screw off.”
    “Your love language is truly wonderful.”
    He opened the shop’s door with enough force that the glass panes should have shattered.
    “Helloooo!” a tiny brunette with giant hair called from behind one of the clothing racks stuffed into a shop barely bigger than Jo’s office.
    The saleslady wore a light blue, long sleeved dress tailored to fit her reed-thin body. A well-dressed woman who understood the benefits of good clothing. Excellent. Jo entered the land of hopefully forbidden fruit and waved. “Hi.”
    The woman eyed Gabe and glanced back at Jo. “My, my, my, he’s a big one.”
    Sister, if you only knew . “Don’t let him fool you. He’s a giant teddy bear.”
    “Honey,” Gabe said, “you’re killing me here.”
    That would be the warning to get this fiasco rolling. Jo spun to the front window. “I saw that lovely purse. Could I take a look at it?”
    “Of course. I’m Ellie, by the way. I own the shop. Are y’all visiting?”
    Gabe settled himself against a shelf packed with sweaters, his gaze shooting around the shop. She’d known him long enough to know he’d be taking in the details—the oak wall units, the strategically placed clothes, the jewelry and handbags—and mentally cataloguing the items.
    “It’s a Barelli,” Ellie said. “They’re such beautifully crafted bags.”
    Not this one . This one was a piece of crap. “Yes, they are.”
    Jo dragged her hand along the front of it. The buckle would pop after the second use. A Barelli buckle weighed enough to give someone a concussion. This thing would fall apart on the first swing. “What’s the price?”
    “One twenty-five.”
    For a so-called Barelli. Please. The purse Jo held in her hand, if authentic, would retail at eight hundred dollars. She turned to Gabe still leaning on the wall unit, and that beautiful mouth of his dipped into a frown.
    “Baby? What do you think?”
    He offered up an eye roll. Calling him baby might have been pushing it, but, hey, call it method acting. And she was trying to bust a counterfeiter.
    “If you want it, buy it.”
    “Oh, I want it.”
    “Wonderful,” Ellie chirped.
    Jo ran her hand over the cheap leather again, eyed it with what she hoped were lustful eyes and held the bag back to Ellie. “I’m terrible with impulse buying. Let me think about it.”
    Ellie glanced at Gabe. Without even trying, the man looked like a badass. Excellent method acting from him as well. Only he wasn’t acting.
    “Well,” Ellie said, “I don’t usually do this, but that item is scheduled to go on sale next week. I want you to have it. How about seventy-five?”
    Seventy-five. For a bag that cost less than five bucks to make. Criminal. Literally.
    Jo shoved the crappy bag at Ellie. “In that case, I’ll take it. Thank you so