Bombshell Read Free Page A

structure with a wraparound porch and what might have been an outdoor dining deck. The windows were covered with plywood and a thick blanket of weeds covered the surrounding grounds, but Annalee guessed it must have been quite a lovely place at one time.
    A half-rotted wooden signpost jutted from the weeds at a half-cocked angle:
    The Blue Lantern Café
    Est. 1890
    Open for over forty years, and now it’s gone.
    Depressing.
    The low rumble of a car engine grew louder in her ears and snapped her out of her disappointment. Annalee turned and was startled to realize the engine belonged to a police car. Two men in uniform took up the front seats and an angry monster dressed like a farmer filled the back of the car.
    The car stopped beside her and the driver, whose brass nameplate read “Calaway,” tilted his head in her direction. His eyes were like sapphire, the kind of eyes that knew her inside and out in an instant, and his lips were so handsomely shaped she could have kissed him if his presence hadn’t startled her so badly.
    Those lips curved into a crooked, slightly amused grin. “Don’t see very many platinum blondes out this way. Where you headed?”
    The deputy in the passenger seat peered around Calaway’s head to take a gander, and that was enough to raise Annalee’s growing consternation. Particularly when the deputy began to slap the sheriff’s arm with excitement. “Boss, do you know who that is?”
    Annalee leaned against the squad car’s door and gave the sheriff a flirtatious little smile. Though her temper had grown short in the summer heat, she knew it was always better to charm a man than to strong-arm him. “ ’Bout time you fellas showed up. I was starting to think you’d let me walk home all by my lonesome.”
    “Where’s home?”
    “Where’s the nearest hotel?”
    Calvin Stamp slapped at Sheriff Calaway’s arm again and leaned forward to holler out the window. “You were in that picture with Wheeler and Woolsey, weren’t you? Annalee Harrison! Lord almighty, Boss, she’s a bona fide movie star!”
    “Oh, I don’t know about all that,” she said with a chuckle. “I was always more of a singer. You know, nightclubs and orchestras and all that.”
    Earl Brown leaned forward from the back seat, the fresh lump on his forehead aglow, and gave an evil laugh. “You can come back here and sing to me all you want, baby!”
    Calvin whipped around, eyes aflame, like a man possessed. “You just sit back in your seat and shut that dirty mouth of yours, Earl. This don’t concern you!”
    Sheriff Calaway gave half a grin and shook his head. He was near thirty-five or so, she guessed, a handsome stranger with eyes so deeply blue they made her knees turn to rubber.
    She smiled, brushed a lock of hair behind her ear, and half-wished she would have at least worn some lipstick for the occasion—after all, a lady must always strive to look her best—until Kiddo gave her another swift kick to the kidney. “My car ran out of gas back on the bridge. I was hoping someone could show me the way to a service station.”
    “There ain’t but one left in town,” Calaway said.
    “Well, I would be awful grateful if you could point me in the right direction,” she said, a little surprised by the flirtatious tone in her voice. Tired and gloomy as she felt coming into yet another dying town, something in the sheriff’s eyes brought a glimmer of hope and, she forced herself to admit, cupidity, to her soul.
    Calaway glanced at the low-cut neckline of her flower-print dress and gave a nervous cough. “May I exit the vehicle, Miz Harrison, or have you attached yourself permanently?”
    “Annalee,” she said in a sweet voice and stepped back from the squad car. “And you may do anything you like, Sheriff.”
    Calaway emerged from the vehicle, and Annalee could swear the air temperature shot thirty degrees higher. He was tall, broad across the shoulders and trim at the waist, the fine physique of an