Page 5 of Dangerous Secrets

Yes!Nick felt a surge of energy that had nothing to do with the mission and everything to do with the woman in front of him.

“Well . . .” Nick smiled, all affable, utterly safe, utterly reliable businessman, “I was wondering whether you wouldn’t mind going now. I found this fabulous Italian place near Rockville. It has a really nice bar area and I thought we might talk over a drink while waiting for our dinner.”

“Da Emilio’s,” Charity said. “It’s a very nice place and the food is excellent.” She looked down at herself, frowning. “But I’m not dressed for a dinner out. I should go home and change.”

She was wearing a light blue-gray sweater that exactly matched the color of her eyes and hugged round breasts and a narrow waist, a slim black skirt, shiny black stockings and pretty ankle boots. Pearl necklace and pearl earrings. She was the classiest-looking dame he’d seen in a long while, even in her work clothes.

“You look—”Perfect. Sexy as hell. He bit his jaws closed on the words. Ireland, roughneck soldier that he was, could say something like that, but Ames, sophisticated businessman, sure as hell couldn’t. Even if it was God’s own truth. “Fine. You look just fine. You could go to dinner at the White House dressed like that.”

It made her smile, which was what he wanted. Her smile was like a secret weapon. She sighed. “Okay. I’ll just need to lock up here.”

Locking up entailed pulling the library door closed and turning a key once in the lock.

Nick waited. Charity looked up at him, a tiny frown between her brows when she saw his scowl. “Is something wrong?”

“That’s it? That’s locking up? Turning the key once in the lock?”

She smiled gently. “This isn’t the big bad city, Mr. Ames.”

“My friends call me Nick.”

“Okay, Nick. I don’t know if you’ve had a chance to walk around town. This isn’t New York or even Burlington. The library, in case you haven’t noticed, is full of books and not much else besides some scuffed tables. What would there be to steal? And anyway, I don’t remember the last time a crime was committed in Parker’s Ridge.”

The elation Nick felt at the thought of an evening with Charity Prewitt dissipated.

Parker’s Ridge housed one of the world’s most dangerous criminals. An evil man. A man directly responsible for hundreds of lives lost, for untold misery and suffering.

And he was Charity Prewitt’s best friend.

Chapter Two

Adate. She, Charity Prewitt, was actually going out on adate!Charity hadn’t been out on a date in . . . God, she couldn’t even remember the last date she’d been on.

There were ten bachelors in Parker’s Ridge, not counting Vassily, of course, who was 74 years old and horribly scarred from his time in a Soviet prison camp as a young man. Each and every bachelor within a radius of forty miles had asked her out, repeatedly. Each and every bachelor was lacking in something important—teeth, a faculty, a job. Certainly all of them were lacking in a sense of humor.

And the surrounding towns weren’t too much better. Most of the bachelors there were bachelors for a good reason. And one date was more or less enough to figure out what that something was.

Charity might even have gone further afield, but ever since Mary Conway had gone on maternity leave and then quit when her child was a preemie with problems, Charity had been more or less on her own in the library. The retired Chief Librarian, old Mrs. Lambert, would come in for an emergency, but she was 72 and almost deaf. And the town council kept putting off budgeting for another librarian. So Charity was more or less it.

Plus, of course, Uncle Franklin and her ailing Aunt Vera required her constant presence and help. So Charity had a range of about forty miles and desirable bachelors—even only bachelors that weren’t repugnant—were not exactly thick on the ground in that radius.

So being asked out by Mr. Nicholas call-me-Nick Ames, who was the most handsome man she’d ever seen—and who clearly had all his own teeth, all his own limbs, and seemed to be independently wealthy—well, it was like Christmas a month early.

He’d come in that morning to do some research on the area, saying he was thinking of making some investments. Charity had been impressed by how much he knew about the area already, but she supposed that businessmen had to be well informed. He’d let discreetly slip that he’d retired early after some very good years with a brokerage firm and was looking to open an investment firm of his own.

He was so outrageously handsome. Charity kept sneaking glances at him while he wasn’t looking. Tall, midnight-black hair, deep blue eyes surrounded by ridiculously long lashes, straight narrow nose, firm mouth.

Hard body.

Wow.

In Charity’s experience, businessmen were soft and pale. All that time spent behind a desk, making money. Or losing it, depending. Nick Ames didn’t look like he had wasted much time losing money.

He had all the visible accoutrements of prosperous businessmandom. The elegant midnight-blue suit—Hugo Boss was her guess—the glossy shoes, the expensive leather briefcase, the manicured nails, the flat, expensive watch.

But that was where the resemblance to a typical businessman stopped. Underneath the elegant suit was clearly a very strong,very fit body, with amazingly broad shoulders. So at odds with the amount of time he must spend analyzing data, crunching data and peering into his crystal ball—or whatever it was stockbrokers did.

It was a lovely evening. Very cold—but that was a given for November in Vermont. The snowstorm all the weather forecasters had been talking about was still holding off and the night sky was bright with brilliant cold stars. Charity loved these clear frozen nights, and it was a good thing, too, she often thought, since moving somewhere warm was out of the question. Even a long weekend in Aruba was out of the question. Certainly as long as Aunt Vera was so sick.

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