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“Did I do what you expected?”
“You did what I hoped.” Penny glanced at Kadin, not having to explain that he’d melted into the kiss right along with her.
“What did you mean by what you said?”
That he didn’t have to worry? That she wasn’t the settling-down type? “Exactly what it sounded like.”
“I wasn’t hitting on you,” he said.
Was he worried he’d somehow encouraged her?
“No, silly, I hit on you. And it worked.” She smiled.
“Penny… I don’t want you to get the wrong idea.”
So professional. She bet he hung on to that like a badge, his ready defense whenever a woman got too close.
“I don’t have the wrong idea. You kissed me back.” Oh, God, was she really doing this? Flirting with fire? This wasn’t ordinary flirting. This was war. She stopped and made him face her. “Look, whatever happens, happens. There are no rules when you’re with me.””
* * *
Be sure to check out the next books in this series.
Cold Case Detectives: Powerful investigations, unexpected passion.
A Wanted Man
Jennifer Morey
Two-time RITA® Award nominee and Golden Quill Award winner JENNIFER MOREY writes single-title contemporary romance and page-turning romantic suspense. She has a geology degree and has managed export programs in compliance with the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) for the aerospace industry. She lives at the feet of the Rocky Mountains in Denver, Colorado, and loves to hear from readers through her website, www.jennifermorey.com, or Facebook.
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For Mom,
who loved a good murder mystery.
Contents
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Penny Darden saw the old, rickety barn through the arch of tree branches and cold nostalgia gripped her. She stopped walking. Tall wildflowers swayed down the center of the curving one-lane dirt road. Beautiful. Picturesque. But full of a secret past.
Growing up on a Midwestern farm, Penny hadn’t escaped fast enough to city life. Metropolitan bike paths and noisy, multilane highways were her thing now. The barn, with its lonely mystery of fading red paint and old, splintering fences, tapped into the girl who’d loved to explore wild, rolling hills and abandoned buildings. She’d long ago left that life—and the girl—behind.
Resuming her walk, she emerged from the trees and spotted a Colonial-style house that stood just as neglected as the barn, door and windows boarded up, just like the farmhouse of her childhood. After her mother sold the place, it had gone to disrepair. She hadn’t understood how lonely her childhood had been until her senior year in high school. That realization had driven her away from Midwestern life.
Jax hadn’t told her there were historic buildings on his property. Maybe half the source of her unwanted curiosity stemmed from that. Her boyfriend had said the only difference between his second home in this remote area of the Wasatch Mountains and his upscale apartment in Salt Lake City was the view. How wrong he’d been.
Reaching the double doors of the weathered barn, she lifted the heavy, awkward latch securing one of the doors and pushed.
Dust particles drifted through the newly disturbed air, sparkling in sunlight. The smell of old hay took her back in time. Old everything. Old wood. Old leather. Old hides. She used to love playing in hay, getting dirty all day and fighting her mother when told to take a shower.
A white pickup truck parked at the far end stopped her short. Partially hidden by stacked hay, it seemed so out of place. She walked to the clean, new vehicle and saw a dent in the driver’s-side door. Peering through the window, she noticed nothing odd except newness and cleanliness. Immaculate cleanliness. She tried the door handle. Locked.
What was a nice truck doing in an old barn like this? Had the previous owner left it? That didn’t seem likely. Why leave a vehicle that was worth something? Maybe the engine blew up. Walking to the front, she saw no plate. Nothing on the back, either. Someone had just dumped it here.
While that struck her as unusual, Penny supposed there must be an explanation. As she turned away, a tack room drew her back to her childhood again. She and her best friend had ridden horses almost every weekend. She fingered