The Fountain of Infinite Wishes (Dare River Book 5) Read Online Free PDF Page A

alley a stone’s throw from one of Nashville’s bottom-feeder music venues, the kind of place where washed out, hopeless musicians went to play and drink themselves to death, bemoaning their lost dreams.  
    The police report suggested his father had been undercover, looking into the selling of illegal substances onsite, and had been discovered somehow. No witnesses had ever surfaced. No prints were found on or around the body. And the murder weapon—a GLOCK 17—was never recovered.
    “I was afraid you’d say that.”
    He was always reassuring her, but part of him liked that she cared enough to worry. Neither one of them had had much of that growing up.
    “The girls were pretty,” Charlie said in that practical way of hers.
    “Were they?” he bluffed and immediately realized his mistake.
    Before he could even register it, she was moving, and her hands were on his shoulders, turning him toward her. Her strength always surprised him since she was five foot nothing and weighed a mere one hundred and ten pounds, mostly muscle.
    “Holy shit!” she said, staring into his eyes. “You’re attracted to one of them. You really need to give me the case now.”
    He frowned at her.
    “The slightly older one, right? I’d peg them for Irish twins, but there’s still an older/younger sister thing going on.”
    What the hell was he supposed to say? He’d felt that pull as soon as Shelby came striding through the door, trying to act like their appointment was just another business meeting.
    “ Vander. ”
    “Fine, she’s hot,” he said, brushing his shoulder. “But it’s not a problem. Charlie, you know me. I wouldn’t take the case otherwise. Shelby might be gorgeous, but I didn’t like her much.”
    “Why not?” Charlie asked, studying him.
    “Do you always have to ask so many questions?” he asked her in exasperation. “Forget I said that. Of course you do. It’s your job.” He’d best say it before she did.
    “You’re really riled up,” she said, trying not to laugh. “What did this Shelby do to make you dislike her? Besides igniting some weird male attraction in you. Yuck. I think I need to wash my mouth out for saying that.”
    “Ditto for hearing it.” But he decided to answer. “The younger sister, Sadie, has a soft heart, and I didn’t like how Shelby treated her.”
    “Sadie cried, didn’t she?”
    “Yes, she did,” he said, remembering how bravely the woman had tried to hide it in the beginning.
    It pissed him off that Shelby had tried to stop her. The pain of losing a father was immeasurable, and his mother hadn’t done him any favors by telling him to keep it locked up inside like his hurt heart was a bank vault. Her way of dealing with grief was to pretend none of it had happened. She’d moved them back to her rich family in Boston, who hadn’t approved of her marrying a Nashville native, especially one who’d decided to go into law enforcement over the law.  
    His mother had soon fallen back into his grandparents’ mentality and had done everything in her power to beat the Southern out of him, even going as far as to make him take voice classes until all trace of his accent was eradicated.
    For years, he’d fought the anger and the fathomless sorrow, but he’d erupted in high school, running wild, flirting with the law, all but daring his mother to throw him out like he felt she’d done emotionally.
    It had taken his social studies teacher—also his lacrosse coach—pretty much busting his balls to get him back on track. Ruining his life wouldn’t bring back his father, Mr. Hawkins had told him. Nor would it make his father happy if he was in heaven like people said. Why not position himself for a better life, so he could make his own choices once he turned eighteen? That advice had finally penetrated Vander’s thick skull.  
    He’d stopped partying with the rough crowd, turned around his failing grades, and gotten into Vanderbilt University as a way to reconnect with