Read Finding Harmony (Katie & Annalise Book 3) for Free Online

her admirers. He led me through the room to a group of men at the far end of the space.
    “Who am I meeting?” I asked.
    “Petro-Mex bigwigs,” Nick said.
    Aha.
    Nick and I stepped up to the men, and before he could introduce me, they turned to us with half bows and applause . Ah, shucks.
    “Here she is, gentlemen, my wife Katie. Chanteuse by night, my assistant at Stingray by day.”
    “Katie Kovacs,” I said, stepping forward onto Nick’s foot and shifting my weight onto it. He flinched. I added, “Nick’s partner at Stingray.”
    They all spoke over each other at once.
    “Mucho gusto, Katie.”
    “Congratulaciones.”
    “Buenos noches.”
    They overwhelmed me with their good wishes and testosterone. I notoriously fell for dark macho men, my husband being the prime example, so I enjoyed the attention. A lot.
    “Nice to meet you all. I look forward to working with,” and I was careful to say with and not for , “my husband on your case.”
    “I am the director of seguridad, of security. We will be meeting tomorrow, no?” The speaker towered over his counterparts; he was Mexican, but much taller than I would have expected. He wore a powder-blue guayabera shirt with pressed ivory linen pants. His teeth sparkled. Very handsome.
    “Sí, mañana,” I said.
    “Tú hablas español. Es muy bueno!” the security director replied.
    “Gracias, señor.”
    I could feel Nick roll his eyes. Served him right for calling me his assistant.
    After a few more minutes of small talk, we bade each other farewell.
    Nick took my arm. “Are you ready to go, Señora Coqueta?”
    “Coqueta?”
    “I thought ‘tú hablas español’? I called you ‘Miss Flirt.’”
    “Oh Nick, please.” I batted my eyes. “I was just practicing my client relations.”
    “Let’s go before you get too good at them.”
    “Sí. Just let me run to the bathroom first.”
    I pushed my way through the crowd and into the stifling bathroom. The Yacht Club did not use air conditioning, which was mostly fine in the open-air areas. It was not fine in the cramped bathroom. No windows equaled no airflow. Two metal stalls and fifteen square feet of standing room in front of rust-stained porcelain sinks and a Formica countertop. No likey.
    As I stood in line, two women in their mid forties shoved in behind me. Youngsters in this crowd, probably on the prowl. Unfortunately, they recognized me.
    “Oh honey, you were so great. Can we buy you a drink?” the taller woman asked. She had pencil-thin legs topped by a paper-flat butt and had encased herself in a sequined sheath that accentuated her thick torso and cut into her cleavage. Her ample cleavage. So very ample that I worried she would tumble over with only her spindly legs to support that weight.
    “Yeah, we just loved you and that black girl,” her companion said. She’d obviously spent her money on hair and false eyelashes, as opposed to Olive Oyl’s expenditure on her breasts and liposuction. She blinked rapidly and I wasn’t sure whether she was batting her eyes or trying to see out from under the clumpy mascara. Or maybe a strand of her bleached hair had gotten caught in an eyelash when she’d teased her bouffant into place.
    I cringed with Texas shame. Before I could do more to reply than smile and say thanks, they went on.
    “I hope this line moves fast, because I have the worst case of sand fleas,” Hairdo said in what I think she intended to be her whispery-secret voice. “You would not believe.”
    I had lived on St. Marcos for three years and had never heard of sand fleas. I was quite sure I did not want to hear about them now, but something told me I had no choice.
    “I know! I brought a hairbrush to scratch mine with, but they’re in my unmentionable place, so it’s not ladylike to do it out there,” Olive Oyl said.
    To my horror, she pulled a blue-handled hairbrush out of her purse. I turned away quickly. If I were Catholic, I would have been chanting and counting my rosary