Read Beckett's Convenient Bride for Free Online Page B

scruffier-looking creatures. Four-legged ones. Besides, her home was within shouting distance of practically everyone in the village. “It’s not much, but at least you can rest up until you feel like telling me what this is all about.” The man knew her name. She wanted to know what else he knew about her. “You can rest on the couch until you’re feeling better. It opens up and I can let you have a spare pillow.”
    Carson wanted to refuse. Hell, he wanted to be back in Charleston in his own bed, with the telephone off the hook and a solid week to do nothing but sleep.
    At the moment, though, if she’d offered him a doormat, he would gratefully have accepted. “Need to talk anyway,” he said. He could rest up for a few minutes, speak his piece, hand over the goods and by that time he’d be good to go.
    Good enough, at any rate.
    â€œYou wait here,” she said. “I’ll move my car off theroad—nobody’ll bother it. I can drive a stick shift, you don’t have to worry about that.”
    He shook his head, winced and said, “Automatic.”
    â€œWhatever. I just don’t want you on my conscience. You’re in no shape to drive and my car will be all right here. There’s no crime around these parts.”
    Hearing her own words, Kit wondered just when she had stepped through the looking glass. How about murder? And no matter how peaceful it might look on the surface, Gilbert’s Point saw it’s share of drug traffic, not to mention the occasional Saturday night celebration that got out of hand. So far as she knew, the Coast Guard took care of the drug runners and a night in jail took care of the boozers. But murder—that was scary.
    â€œGive me the keys,” she growled. “I’ll help you in and—”
    He helped himself in, moving as if he’d been stretched on a rack, but moving under his own steam. That was encouraging.
    â€œYou can take a nap if you want to, I don’t have to be at work until five and it’s only four-twenty. Are you allergic to aspirin? How about chicken soup? Jeff at the Crab House makes really good chicken soup.”
    She could hear her mother now. “Katherine, do you have to drag home every stray creature in the world? I’m not running a zoo, you know,” she would say. At least, she would when she was sober enough. Or when she was home. Perhaps if she’d been home more often, or sober more often, Kit wouldn’t have adopted every stray she saw, from homeless cats to tailless lizards to broken-wing birds.
    It had never worked out, anyway. Her father had seen to that. He made her watch once while he stuffed a litterof abandoned kittens into a sack and drowned them in the Chesapeake Bay.
    And then she’d had to serve her term in the closet for defying his orders. It was usually only a matter of a few hours, but once, after one of her strays had infested the house with fleas and they’d had to get the exterminator in, she’d been locked in the closet for twelve hours straight. She had cried herself sick, then she’d begun making up stories.
    She probably had her father to thank for her career.
    â€œHot tea’s supposed to be good for colds, too. And onions. Not together, of course, but…”
    Carson let her babble. All he wanted to do was lie down and close his eyes. He never got sick, never. Been busted up a time or two, but he’d never caught any of the bugs going around. Until now.
    By the time she stopped the car in front of a house that was about the same vintage as his own, it was all he could do to slide out of the car. His overnight bag was in the back, but he lacked the motivation to reach for it.
    Passing by an assortment of bowls and pans on the front porch, she opened the door and pointed toward the back of the house. “Bathroom’s back there, last door on the left. Couch is through there, help yourself. I’ll put the