Read Dead Hot Shot (Loon Lake Fishing Mysteries) for Free Online Page A

fly rods, all of which slid sideways and tumbled to the floor, “I am very flattered but I should have told you — I am very, very involved with another woman. Very involved.” He shook his head up and down to emphasize how incredibly involved he was.
    “Oh, her.” Kathleen waved a dismissive hand. “You mean that Lewellyn Ferris? She’s not right for you, Paul. She’s so. so rugged, so northwoods — and — and she doesn’t have a graduate degree. I’m a social historian — you and I have so much in common: we’re professionals. You’re probably attracted to her because maybe she looks like your mother.”
    “What’s wrong with ‘northwoods’? I’m ‘northwoods,’ Kathleen. As far as my mother goes — she died when I was six. I barely remember her. How could Lewellyn Ferris possibly look like my mother?”
    “I just said ‘maybe,’ Paul. But even her name is wrong — Lewellyn? That’s a man’s name. Now, Paul, it’ll take time for us to work this out, I know. But I’m willing to wait, I feel so deeply for you.” The pug face swung back and forth.
    “I’ve asked Lewellyn to marry me,” said Osborne in a blurt of desperation. What he didn’t say was that he had asked in jest and Lew had refused on the grounds that he had yet to set the hook in a twenty-two-inch brown. But the statement did the trick.
    Kathleen stepped back. Her eyes narrowed. Obviously this was his mistake, not hers. “I wish you had told me.”
    “I know, I know, I should have,” said Osborne, eyes sad and head shaking up and down as he did his best to take full responsibility for this horrible error. “But our plans are confidential — not even my daughters know. And I am so sorry if I have misled you.”
    “Well, you did. The way you listened to me with that deep, dark look in your eyes.”
    “You’re an educated, interesting woman, Kathleen. Perhaps at another time in our lives we might have — ” He struggled for a kind way to say “no, no and NO.”
    The back door banged shut just then. “Have you told Fred?” whispered Osborne.
    Kathleen shook her head. “I was hoping we would do that together.” She moved sideways to let him pass.
    Osborne, medical bag in hand, ran through the kitchen past Fred, who gave him a quizzical smile as he said, “Paul, did Kathleen tell you we’ve rented a cabin? Heard it advertised on ‘Help Your Neighbor’ and it comes with a heated workshop where I can build my rods — ”
    “She did — that’s terrific, Fred.” Osborne was out the back door. “I gotta rush — got an emergency down the road. Leave the dog in the yard — he’s fine. Bye!” The door slammed shut behind Osborne. Never had he been so glad to have somewhere to go.
    Minutes later, driving, he mulled over those painful moments with Kathleen. but Fred was so friendly — hardly the attitude of a man suspecting Osborne of having an affair with his wife. Kathleen must have made that up.

CHAPTER 7
    Eight feet high and crowned with a brass “R,” a wrought iron gate bordered with stone pillars guarded the entrance to the Reece estate. A security box with a dial pad and blinking lights hung over the drive, a warning to anyone looking to enter — but the gate stood open. So Osborne drove through, twisting along a narrow road that passed a tennis court, a shooting range and a putting green before ending in a circle in front of the Reece mansion.
    The house — high, wide and rustic — had been restored in the style of the grand hunting lodges favored by the lumber barons of the late 1800s. But if the style was late 1800s, the materials were strictly post-2000.
    What appeared to be a slate roof was in fact concrete, which Osborne recognized immediately. Mary Lee had desperately wanted just such a roof as a bragging point for their home. It took months of arguments, pouts and tears before she agreed that concrete was, for them, too costly. Not for the Reece family. As if to emphasize that expense, the