And Then Came You Read Free

wished to hell Mike had brought back a gallon of the stuff.
    “But well-paid misery, and isn’t that the important part?” Mike lifted her coffee cup in silent salute as she tossed Bear a piece of her muffin.
    Yeah, Sam thought. But wasn’t there a steep price when you traded your soul for gold? “God, it’s going to be a long summer,” she moaned.
    “Is
no one
going to ask why Tina quit her job?” Disgusted, Jo looked from one to the other of her sisters.
    “Fine.” Sam straightened up, willing to talk about absolutely anything besides Grace Van Horn and the coming headaches. “I’ll bite. Why’d she quit?”
    “Cash Hunter.”
    “Him again?” Mike squirmed in her chair, planted her forearms on the table and leaned toward her sister. “He got to another one?”
    Cash Hunter, mysterious carpenter, man of all work, and apparently the champion Woman Whisperer of all time. One night with this guy and women were liningup to go off and be Dr. Schweitzer, Madame Curie, and Mother Teresa all rolled into one. He’d been in town only a little over six months and already he’d become a legend.
    “Tina told me she was leaving town. Going back home to Georgia to work for Habitat for Humanity.”
    Sam winced. “Well, you can’t fault her for wanting to do a good thing.”
    “I didn’t say that,” Jo snapped, throwing her hands wide. “Sure, it’s nice. But what is it about this guy that can make women take sharp right turns with their lives? I mean, before this, the closest Tina’s ever come to altruistic was
not
asking for change when she handed the Salvation Army Santa five dollars last Christmas.”
    “What happened to Lisa?” Sam wondered aloud, as she flipped through her mental list, trying to recall the other women Cash had charmed into sainthood.
    “She moved to L.A.,” Mike said around a mouthful of muffin. “She’s working with the Literacy Foundation. Really loving it.”
    Jo nodded, waved one hand at her. “And Paula?”
    “Oh, I know this one,” Sam said, perking right up. “Paula’s living in Chechnya now. Working for a foundation that arranges adoption for war orphans.”
    “Cash Hunter must be stopped,” Jo muttered darkly. “This guy is like a master hypnotist or something. Is he drugging them?”
    “Oh,” Mike said. “That’s good. Now he’s an evil scientist.”
    “Well, he’s
something
. I don’t get it. Just don’t get how a man can make a woman come all unglued.”
    Mike snorted. “Apparently you have
not
been meeting the right men.”
    “Funny.” Jo shifted a look at Sam. “Seriously though, what is this guy up to? What is he doing that’s so fabulous it makes women want to turn their lives around?”
    “I volunteer to find out,” Mike said, grinning.
    “You stay the hell away from him,” Jo said, offering some of her muffin to Bear.
    Sam laughed and shook her head. “No wonder that dog’s getting fat. And stop taking Cash so personal, Jo.”
    “The dog’s not fat. And the Cash thing is just weird.”
    “Fine,” Mike offered. “You want me to stay away from him,
you
go sleep with him. But report back to us before you run off to join a convent.”
    “You just get funnier and funnier.”
    “I try hard.”
    “Not hard enough,” Jo muttered, then ignored Mike to shoot a look at Sam. “We’re gonna need a new secretary.”
    A curl of worry unwound in the pit of Sam’s stomach. “Don’t look at me.”
    “Why not? You’d be great.”
    Sam glared at Mike. “Thanks, I don’t think so.”
    “Come on, you’re perfect for it. You’ll be dealing with Grace anyway and—”
    The imaginary gargoyles Sam had entertained earlier perched on her shoulder and howled. “Why’m I going to be dealing with her?”
    Jo and Mike exchanged a quick, secretive look that told Sam that this had already been discussed and she’d been chosen. She choked on a gulp of coffee and coughed hard enough that she was pretty sure her eyeballs were going to pop out of her