Read Mimosa Grove for Free Online Page B

month after he’d buried his last parent, the president of the local bank had passed away. Less than a week later, Marcella Campion had approached him and asked if he was interested in taking over her portfolio. He’d done it as a favor to his mother’s old friend, then, before the year was out, he had acquired ten other clients. Between the money he made from them and the income derived from his own investments, he was sitting pretty without the hassle of a big city. The only thing lacking in his life was purpose. Living his life in the pursuit of fortune seemed a bit empty without a woman to share it with. God knows his life was lonely. And while he could have settled for any one of a number of single young locals, he wanted the life his parents had enjoyed. He wanted a wife for life, not just a partner in bed, and he had yet to fall in love. Then he thought about the woman he’d been dreaming of and frowned. If only she were real, he would be a happy man. As he sat there, it dawned on him that she’d been absent from his dreams for the past two nights. His pulse rocked slightly, then stuttered back into a normal rhythm. What if she was gone? What if she never came back?
    Sighing in disgust at his flights of fancy, he took another drink and decided he was losing his mind. Weary of his own company all the way to his soul, he upped the volume on the television just in time to hear an update on the growing scandal coming out of Washington, D.C.
    He shook his head, listening in disbelief as the news anchor began repeating what they’d learned about a well-to-do D.C. local who’d been arrested for selling military secrets to numerous enemies of the United States. But that wasn’t the biggest hook to the story. Discovering that the local, Peter McNamara, was really a man named Dimitri Chorkin, a Soviet spy who’d been planted in the United States years ago, had caused a horrible backlash between the American and Russian governments. Despite the Russian president’s reassurance that Chorkin was a man whose existence had been overlooked and forgotten by the old hard-liners and unknown to the new democratic presence in their nation’s capital, the implications of his existence were causing enough repercussions to resurrect the Cold War.
    Justin stared at the man’s picture on the screen. He looked so ordinary—so like someone who might live next door. He thought of how much he’d adored his parents and wondered how someone could give up homeland, family and friends to live a lie in a country that was not one’s own, never mind the added danger of being a spy.
    Then a series of rapid knocks sounded at his door, and the national news and Dimitri Chorkin were forgotten as he hurried to answer.
     
     
    It had been less than forty-eight hours since Laurel’s arrival at Mimosa Grove, but she felt like she’d lived there forever. She’d returned the rental car and was having Marcella’s Chrysler detailed and inspected by a local who’d given her a cold bottle of Coke and a ride home, then gladly offered to bring it out to her when he was done.
    The friendliness was so heartwarming and so unexpected that she was doing something she’d never done before—letting down her guard.
    The memories of the falsely cordial lifestyle she’d lived in Washington, D.C., were fading by the hour. The longer she was here, the more familiar her surroundings became. What had appeared strange and foreboding upon arrival now welcomed her—except, of course, Elvis the peacock, so named for his flashy garb and macho attitude. Despite all Laurel’s good intentions and offers of special treats, the young peacock would have none of her and continued to challenge her at every turn. Marie laughed aloud each time Laurel exited the house, watching with unfeigned delight as the young woman tried to make peace with the big bird.
    With a small bag of sunflower seeds in her hand and determination in every step, Laurel sneaked out the back of the