Engaged to Die Read Free Page B

hair curled, in the touch of his hand, in his smell. The phone rang. She whirled to run toward it. Jake always called in the morning….
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    Annie Darling wished she hadn’t forgotten her muffler. Maybe she was getting soft. The high would be in the forties this afternoon, and that surely wasn’t bad for January. To her it seemed as cold as the Arctic because of the drizzle and the cutting wind that swept across the water and the fact that the temperature had hit seventy only a week ago. However, in comparison with the biting cold and sleet-encrusted streets of Amarilloin January, the South Carolina sea island of Broward’s Rock was almost balmy. Thinking about winter in her hometown should have helped, but the foggy dampness still made her shiver.
    Annie glanced toward the dark window of Confidential Commissions. When Max had opened his business, he’d insisted he wasn’t running a private inquiry agency. However, anyone who read the advertisement in The Island Gazette might think differently:
    CONFIDENTIAL COMMISSIONS
    17 Harbor Walk
    Curious, Troubled, Problems?
    Ask Max
    Call Today—321-HELP
    He’d solved some interesting problems. But no one had so much as rung the phone since the week before Christmas. He’d given his secretary a couple of weeks off and announced that he would be at Annie’s disposal. Honestly, did anyone ever have a more fun husband? Of course, his idea of fun was to stay home and make love. But she couldn’t just close up shop, as she’d pointed out this morning, slithering free of his admittedly tantalizing embrace and murmuring, “Later, honey.” She prided herself on keeping Death on Demand open unless there was an evacuation order for a hurricane. The category-3 storm in October had been a big scare. They’d boarded over the windows, moved the books on bottom shelves to tall stacks on the coffee bar. At the last minute, the eye of the storm veered north and east. A near escape. She was determined to keep her regular hours at the store today despite Max’sgleaming eyes. She needed to check with Chloe on the progress of the inventory. January was always a slow month, so it was a good time to be sure of her stock. And she’d drop by the hospital to see Ingrid, who was recovering from hip surgery after a nasty fall on the slick boardwalk last week. Thank heaven for Chloe. She’d been a fixture at the store during the Christmas season for the past few years, and this holiday she’d been a huge help. Chloe and her mother had spent Christmas on the island with her mother’s stepsister until her mother’s death last December. Annie had missed seeing Chloe then. But this year, she came on her own over her college break and once again was a willing clerk during the last-minute rush. Chloe was terrific with customers. She really knew her mysteries—her favorite authors were Janet Evanovich and Sarah Strohmeyer—and she was as bubbly as vintage champagne.
    Annie was smiling as she reached for the doorknob. She admired the gilt lettering— DEATH ON DEMAND —on the front window. What a clever name. There was, of course, some competition for the best-named mystery bookstore: Remember the Alibi in San Antonio, Texas; Mystery Lovers Bookshop in Oakmont, Pennsylvania; Foul Play in Westerville, Ohio; Coffee, Tea and Mystery in Westminster, California; Book ’em in South Pasadena, California; The Poisoned Pen in Scottsdale, Arizona; The Black Orchid in New York City, and Something Wicked in Evanston, Illinois.
    As she turned the knob, Annie took an instant to admire the front window display. These five books were guaranteed to transport readers to warmer, if not necessarily more hospitable, climes: The House Without a Key, the first Earl Derr Biggers’s Charlie Chan novelset in lovely, long-ago Honolulu; Death Comes as the End, Agatha Christie’s brilliant evocation of unbridled family passions in ancient