Page 3 of The Claiming of the Shrew
“Me?” Leah asked. She fell into step with Hester, following Mauro and Joy toward the lodge. “No problem, but ... I really don’t do anything with the bakery, that’s Joy’s area.”
“No, it’s your expertise I need.”
“Really?” Leah perked up. “About what?”
“The theater group. Joy says you’ve been with the group for a while, so they must know you pretty well, right?”
“I guess so? I mean, yes.”
Hester glanced around again. She lowered her voice.
“We’ve had a few complaints about valuable items, jewelry and such, going missing from guests in the lodge.” Seeing Leah huff up indignantly, she hastily went on. “I’m not blaming anyone in the theater group. Actually, I overheard a couple of actors talking about someone misplacing a watch, so it might be happening there too.”
“You have a thief at the lodge?” Leah asked, her interest perking up.
“I don’t know. We’ve only had complaints the last week or so, that I know of. And there are a lot of new people here, with the campground full and many of the rooms in the hotel occupied as well. I can’t really do much myself, at least not discreetly, but if you’ll be spending time with the theater people, I wondered if you might?—”
“Oh, oh! Do you want me to investigate?” Leah asked eagerly. “Because I can! I would love to! I always thought I would make agreatdetective.”
“No!” Hester said, looking alarmed. “I mean—not exactly. I was just hoping you could maybe keep an eye and an ear out, for people showing off jewelry they didn’t have before, or stray gossip, someone bragging, someone who might have seen something, that kind of thing. I’m not an insider, and if I started nosing around, I would just scare people off.”
Leah saluted. “Detective Shrew is on the job, ma’am!”
“Yes, thank you .... but keep it on the down-low, please. I really don’t want anyone to think I’m accusing them.”
Leah turned away, already thinking about how exactly she might direct conversations to sudden windfalls of money or small missing items, when she ran headlong into something solid and large that she had been too busy thinking about her future detective career to notice.
The Something moved and lightly caught her upper arms as she nearly lost her balance
“Whoa, are you okay?”
Leah looked up into an image of swoon-worthy masculinity. Eyes: gray, framed with thick lashes. Hair: dark. Cheekbones you could cut yourself on. Fake leather jacket accentuating a pair of shoulders to die for.
And something about him caught and held her—well, beyond the fact that he’d already caught and held her. Leah’s inner shrew let out one long scream of pure shrewish delight.
AAAAAAAAAAAAA!
“Are you my ma—?” she began.
“No!” the image of male loveliness interrupted.
“What?” said Leah, but he had already let go of her with a suddenness that was one step from pushing her away, wheeled and went off at a swift stride toward the hotel. He vanished through the doors.
“What?” Leah said again. All she could do was stare after him as he disappeared. “Uh, who was that, please?”
“Oh, that was one of the other guests,” Hester said, putting a hand on her arm to steady her. “Sorry, I thought you saw him there. Are you all right?”
“I don’t mind,” Leah said, still staring in the direction he had gone. “I don’t mind at all.” That was the most suspicious thing she had ever seen anyone do. Also, she wanted very badly to talk to him again. “Who is he?”
“I’m not sure I’m supposed to tell you that. In fact, I know I shouldn’t.”
“If—whenI run into him in the restaurant or lounge or trees or ski trails,” Leah said, already planning to do exactly that, “I’ll just ask him anyway. It would speed things up a bit. Also, he’s currently my top suspect.”
“He’s—you just met him,” Hester said.
“Yes, and he took one look at me and sped off like a velocipede.”
“A bicycle?”
