From the Shadows (Buckhorn, Montana #2) - B.J. Daniels Page 0,12
hiding out in a boarded-up hotel in Buckhorn looking for a ghost. That did make him questionable, even if he was rich and eccentric. “I can’t believe the locals haven’t figured out who you are. Especially Earl Ray.”
He shrugged and grinned. “I look homeless, don’t I?” She nodded. “They’ll be surprised that you haven’t had me arrested for trespassing.”
“I’m still considering it.”
His grin broadened. Dang, but the man was gorgeous. “Their mouths will drop open when they see us together at the café. Plus, it will give me a chance to show you that I’m not dangerous. Nor a crackpot. But the townspeople don’t have to know that.” He laughed, and she actually smiled.
Still, she couldn’t help feeling skeptical as well as wary. The man had sold his business, made a fortune and disappeared, only to turn up after hiding out in this old hotel most of the winter hoping to see Megan’s ghost? That would make anyone leery of him. Nor was she sure she could believe him—let alone trust him. And to find out he’d known Megan...
No matter what he said, she sensed he was running from something. As someone who was doing her own running, she recognized the look. She told herself she should be careful because a man like that, well, he was dangerous, especially if a woman let that grin of his get to her.
But danger was relative, she thought as she considered that one of the former staff from ten years ago was probably a killer. Now they were entering the hotel on the floor below with plans to stay for the entire weekend. They’d all been suspects in Megan’s murder, her included. Right now, Finn seemed the most normal person here, and she really was hungry. “This dinner you’re suggesting... Who’s buying?”
“I think I can afford it.” His grin really did make him damned irresistible. Right now she would have considered having dinner with the devil if it meant escaping the hotel and this so-called reunion.
* * *
JENNIFER MULLEN HAD given little thought to her basic nature—until the invitation came in the mail. She was abrasive, argumentative and had a mouth on her and a questionable past. Enough people had mentioned it that she’d accepted it as true. She also carried a grudge, as any of her exes could attest.
“You’re never going to find a man if you don’t tone it down,” her mother used to tell her. Like Jen wanted or needed a man that badly that she’d been willing to change. Maybe if she ever met a man who made her want to be different...
Then she’d gotten the invitation for the Crenshaw Hotel reunion and thought about the teenage boy who’d taken more than a piece of her heart ten years ago. He’d been the rare one who’d made her wish she were capable of being someone else. Someone who might find herself married to a famous doctor named Claude Drake.
She’d thought that ship had sailed—until she got the invitation. There’d been a lot of other men since then, but Claude had been a real heartthrob. Although, he hadn’t seemed to know it. He’d been young and so innocent for someone who was brilliant in other ways. He’d skipped a bunch of grades, graduated from high school and college early and was headed for medical school at eighteen. He’d been inexperienced; that much she knew. Too much book learning and not enough street smarts, especially when it came to girls. He’d been starry-eyed with Jen. His first.
But then Megan had turned his head. Jen hadn’t blamed Claude. Megan had a way of getting what she wanted. Clearly she was rich like him and like Jason. So what had she been doing working at the Crenshaw, anyway?
Not that it mattered after ten years. She Googled Dr. Claude Drake. He was famous for coming up with a new surgical procedure. Surely he wouldn’t come back to Buckhorn for some murder reunion? What if the invitation was a joke, just one she wasn’t getting? Was there even one of them who wanted to spend any time remembering Megan? And yet she’d never forgotten her and doubted the others had, either.
What would Claude be like now? Would he remember the two of them in the woods that night? She felt her pulse tick up at just the thought of seeing him again. If this invitation was real...
She’d studied the invitation as if the answer to her future was subliminally printed on the card stock. Last