The Officer's Girl Read Online Free PDF Page A

anything.
    Curiosity got the best of him when he saw a cardboard box labeled with the broad strokes of a Magic Marker. He lifted one corner of the lid. The box contained what it said it did and elicited an honest chuckle. Were s’mores something Stephanie Bryant could not afford to lose? Or did she consider sweets one of the four basic food groups? Eitherway, the items she’d packed told him he might have misjudged the petite brunette.
    The sound of soft footsteps behind him made him drop the lid faster than a hot shell casing. How the woman had snuck up on him he did not know. He hadn’t even heard her front door open. Irritation knifed through him at letting her catch him with his guard down and he plastered on a hasty smile to cover his guilty look. He spun toward her.
    “Want some help?”
    “Sure,” she answered. The look she tossed his way lit up her face. “If you could put these in the car for me, I’ll lock the door.”
    Brett’s smile lost some of its underpinnings when he saw what she carried. In one hand, the soon-to-be-evacuee toted a perfectly acceptable black leather briefcase. From the buffed and groomed fingers of the other dangled a plastic contraption built like a multi-tiered wedding cake. An avocado-green wedding cake filled with a drugstore’s entire cosmetic aisle. On its bottom shelf, jars, tubes and cotton swabs crowded behind a guardrail. Brushes and nail files bristled from the top. In between, an army of polish bottles rallied for the call to paint the world baby-doll-pink.
    “Huh,” Brett groused. So much for misjudging the girl. It was time for him to quit sending mixed signals and strike a professional pose.
    He grabbed the briefcase and manicure stand and turned his back on her. The pebbles on the porch made a gritty sound as he pictured Ms. Bryant’s weight shifting from one slim ankle to another. She was probably trying to figure out what was going on. He couldn’t blame her. He sort of wondered the same thing until he remembered his whole reason forbeing here. With a hurricane nearing the coast, the barometer was sinking like a lead weight at the end of a fishing line. The change had to be messing with both their heads.
    Slipping the briefcase into an empty spot, he paused to consider his next move. The stand did not fit into the tiny space left in her trunk so he was forced to move things around a bit. A nudge to one of the plastic bins revealed a Space Tech logo plastered across its top. The sight sent Brett’s stomach into free fall. The remnants of his smile went with it. The files she deemed so important, the things she “couldn’t afford to lose,” were all work-related. As far as he was concerned, that did it.
    Ms. Stephanie Bryant was exactly what he did not need—a self-centered career girl, a girl whose designer labels read Ms. Wrong.
    “Ready?” he growled. He didn’t bother to turn and face her.
    “All set.”
    He waited until he heard keys jingle and the light tap of her heels. “Did you pack a cot or a sleeping bag? You’ll need one.”
    Like the hurricane building off the coast, her answer drew all the moisture from the air. “I don’t know about the hotels you stay in, Officer Lincoln, but the Marriott provides linens.”
    Brett quirked one eyebrow. “Every hotel within a hundred miles of here is filled to capacity,” he said. “You have to go to a shelter.”
    “A shelter?” she snorted. “You’ve got to be kidding. I’m not homeless.”
    Too bad she was not his type. He would have enjoyed trading verbal jabs with the feisty little beauty. “A storm shelter,” he corrected as he slammed the trunk closed. “The closest one with any openings is in Orlando.”
    Her incredulous look told him the woman still did not believe Hurricane Arlene was within striking distance. If she didn’t believe, she wouldn’t run. Something she needed to do. And fast. He latched on to the task.
    “Look. See those dark clouds out there?” He pointed to a spot