Read Pinned for Murder for Free Online

up, sooner I can get it done and be on my way back home again.”
    “It must be hard to be away from them like this.”
    His eyes dulled as he nodded. “It is. But the souvenirs I bring back from each trip helps. Teaches them things, too.”
    “When could you start?” Milo asked.
    “Don’t see why I couldn’t start this very moment.”
    Tori glanced at Milo over her shoulder, recognized the look of relief in his face. Turning back to the man on the porch once again, she stepped outside. “Then you’re hired.”
    “Only instead of bunking here, you’ll be staying at my place, about six blocks away.” Milo, too, stepped onto the porch, his hand finding Doug’s and shaking it firmly.
    “And the food?” Doug asked.
    “I’ll take care of that.” Tori motioned toward the downed trees that littered Rose’s small yard. “In fact, if you start on some of these trees now, I’ll head on home and be back with a pot of soup in about an hour or so. Will that work?”
    Doug grinned. “Soup sounds mighty good, ma’am.”
    “Tori.”
    “Excuse me?”
    “That’s my name,” Tori said as she turned and placed a hand on Milo’s shoulder. “And this is Milo.”
    “It’s mighty nice to meet you. And I sure appreciate the work.”
    “Do a good job and we’ll appreciate you, too.”
    Surprised, Tori looked up at Milo, his gruff words catching her off guard. If Doug noticed though, he didn’t let it show.
    “I intend to do just that.”
    “Then everything will go just fine.” Milo waved his hand around the neighborhood, his gaze propelling hers to follow suit. “Seems you’ve got a lot of friends looking for work in this neighborhood. That’s okay provided you understand that you will be watched.”
    “They may be lookin’ for work same as me, but I don’t know any of them. I travel alone. Just me, myself, and my conscience.”
    “Then we’ll get along just fine.”
     
     
    She wasn’t sure what made her do it, what propelled her to stop at Martha Jane Barker’s house instead of going straight home. She didn’t really know the woman beyond overlapping visits to Leeson’s Market, and what she did know wasn’t necessarily the stuff that inspired an overwhelming desire to strike up a friendship. Yet the pull to stop by and offer assistance had guided her feet from Rose’s house to Martha’s front door anyway.
    There was a part of her that simply wanted to help someone through a rough patch. It had been part of her nature since she was old enough to know right from wrong. But there was also a part of her that recognized the glaring truth in a situation.
    Tori raised her fist to the door and knocked, the staccato sound a near match to the beat of her heart. Hiring Doug to get Rose’s place in order had been a smart decision, of that she had no doubt. Milo offering up his house as a bunkhouse for the man had removed any nagging worry about Rose’s safety.
    But something was still amiss. Something far bigger than shattered windows and downed trees, something more gut-wrenching than a tipped lamp and damaged sewing machine . . .
    Rose was hurting, plain and simple.
    And it wasn’t the kind of hurt that would disappear with a few whacks of a hammer or the hum of a chain saw.
    No, Rose’s heartache would be erased by one thing and one thing only. . . .
    She knocked again.
    “She’s sitting on the deck around back.”
    Tori glanced over her shoulder, her gaze falling on a solidly built man of about thirty, his high-and-tight military crew cut squaring a face that already leaned toward boxy. “Oh, hi. Are you Martha Jane’s son?”
    “No, ma’am.” The man tipped his head to the right to avoid the last of the sun’s rays. “I’m just here to get things back in order.”
    “Oh, like Doug?” she asked as she waved her hand in the direction of the house whose backyard abutted Martha Jane’s.
    He shot her a quizzical look. “Ma’am?”
    “Doug . . . the man I just . . .” She stopped, realized