Bundle of Joy Read Free

tennis whites. The hell with old soldiers never dying, he thought with a shake of his head. Preppies seemed to go on forever.
    He stopped for a light across the street from the book store, tapping his broad fingers against the wheel. Too damn crowded in town, if you asked him. In the two years since he'd breezed into the area, he'd seen a change. Condos springing up everywhere. New construction where old farms used to be. The hand of progress everywhere you looked, generally gumming up the works and pushing civilization where it had no business going.
    The light changed to green, and he shifted his truck into gear.
    Not that he was a crusader or anything like that. He pretty much took life as he found it, not taking the problems too seriously, not letting the good times slip away from him. His years in the navy had given him a hatred of bureaucracy and a love of freedom, two attributes that made it hard for a thirty-five year old man to make it big in the United States today.
    He made a left at the next corner and angled into a parking spot behind the U-Haul van parked in front of Caroline Bradley's shop. Not for him the seven day work week, busting his behind so secretaries could dress up like socialites. Whatever it was driving Bradley on, it had paid off in spades. Even second-hand, you didn't buy the clothes she hung on her curvy little body with peanuts and, if he had any real estate smarts at all, this Princeton address came with a pricey monthly rent attached to it.
    The door to Twice Over Lightly was open. He stepped inside the quiet shop and was hit immediately with a gentle wave of perfumed air, cooled by a silent central air conditioning unit hidden somewhere out of sight. Yeah, she had bucks, no doubt about it. Big bucks. The walls were washed a smooth ivory color with a wallpaper border in some fussy, female print bisecting it where the walls met the ceiling. Pots of flowers, all pinks and violets, rested on odd tables scattered around the room, tables that sat next to chairs so delicate they looked like they'd collapse if a hummingbird perched on one of them. He could easily imagine Caroline in one of those chairs, one leg crossed over the other, as perfectly suited to her dress shop in Princeton as he was to the bar in Rocky Hill. He fingered a gold mesh gown on one of the skinny mannequins near the door. He had seen spider webs thicker than the silky threads that kept that dress together. Hell, this was probably the kind of get-up the perfect Miss Bradley wore to unload a truck. It was hard to imagine her getting her manicured hands dirty. He doubted if she'd ever worked up a sweat in her entire, pampered life.
    "Anybody here?" he called out. His voice sounded like a foghorn in the hushed, female stillness of the empty shop. He cleared his throat and tried again. "Hey! Someone could walk out with a mink coat."
    "I wouldn't try it."
    He turned in the direction of the steely, silk-coated voice. It sounded like Caroline Bradley but that was where all resemblance ended. "Caroline?"
    "Who did you expect?" Her tone was edgy. "This is my store."
    He couldn't believe he was looking at the same ultra-chic woman who'd been sitting in O'Rourke's less than an hour ago. Instead of an upswept hairdo, she wore a ponytail. The high heels and sheer hose had been replaced by bare feet and the designer dress had given way to shorts and a t-shirt. He couldn't have been more surprised if she'd appeared in a gorilla suit.
    "Close your mouth," she snapped. "Haven't you ever seen a woman in shorts before?"
    "Not on you." Not bad, he thought, gaze roaming the surprising length of her slender legs. Some interesting surprises had been hidden by those high-fashion threads she usually wore.
    She ignored the quasi-compliment and peered out at the street. "Where's Murphy?"
    "The A-Team's busy," Charlie said. "If you don't need the help, say the word and I'm out of here." He sure as hell didn't want to be where he wasn't wanted. He noted with