Molten Gold Read Free Page B

arrive and don’t miss
anything in the middle.”
    He was pleased that Adelaide furrowed her brow, clearly
thinking about exactly what he’d just said and not running on. She might be a
chatterbox, but he’d bet she didn’t miss much either. Adelaide wasn’t a woman
to talk just to fill the silence. She was a smart and curious woman who also
simply liked to chatter.
    “So that wasn’t a confirmation, but considering you’ve not
denied it, I think that’s as much of an answer as I’ll get,” she said. She
stood, and Jared made his gaze follow her face and not those long, slender,
lovely legs. He knew wearing short-shorts was a pastime in the Southern States,
but damn, Adelaide looked fine in them.
    “I’ll go get that gun,” she said.
    “And the licenses and ammunition, if you would,” he added.
    She turned back to look at him and nodded. The manner in
which she tossed her head had that straight curtain of soft-looking, gorgeous
blonde hair swaying around her slender neck. And damn, he was positive she put
a bit of extra wriggle into that luscious ass of hers as she walked away.
    This woman was trouble, he just knew it. His libido,
however, didn’t give a shit. He wanted her. Badly.
    She returned with the items and handed them to Jared. He
took a cursory look at the gun, mostly to see for himself that it was old, Army-issue.
Placing it beside him on the couch—it would seem uncouth of him to put it on
the coffee table with such a pleasant array of cookies and glasses—and studied
the certificates. He memorized the issue numbers to check them later on the
database.
    Still, everything looked aboveboard. Nothing about this
investigation of his seemed to be what he’d originally thought. The room
Adelaide had brought him into was tastefully but not expensively furnished. It
was bright and cheerful but not frilly or cluttered. It was an airy, neat,
middle-class living room that could be one of hundreds.
    There was no indication of surreptitious funds or illegal
gains.
    He was stumped.
    Adelaide poured him another glass of lemonade. His first had
been delicious, cool and tart with just a hint of sweetness lying below the
surface. He took the glass and drank another sip.
    “Thank you,” he said. “I’m sorry to harp on the same thing,
but is there anything else, anything at all, that you can think of in relation
to your uncle’s effects or younger years that would be of interest?”
    Adelaide sighed. “You’ve already asked me this,” she pointed
out reasonably. “And for the dozenth time, no. I don’t think there’s anything
dodgy in my uncle’s possessions. What’s this really about? It can’t possibly be
his gun.”
    Frustration had crept into her tone. She gesticulated,
seeming to be near the end of her patience with his vagueness.
    Jared took another swallow of his drink as an excuse for
silence. He thought quickly. One major thing his training had given him was the
ability to sum up a situation in a few moments and make the best judgment call
he could, given his intel. He put aside his physical attraction to Adelaide and
the natural instinct he had to believe that women were innocent and beyond
subterfuge. He analyzed the situation critically.
    Adelaide had a clean record—only a few speeding tickets and
nothing else in her entire thirty-two years. Her parents had had similar
spotless reputations and had passed on. Adelaide was living well within her
means—her finances and home showed that. More importantly, she’d shown no
guile, no hint of guilt or defensiveness. Indeed she’d been the epitome of
hospitality until just now, when it seemed he’d strained her patience with his
constant albeit subtle probing.
    She didn’t act like a person with secrets or any knowledge
of what he sought.
    Making his decision quickly, Jared finished his drink and
set the glass down. He moved forward so he was sitting on the edge of the couch
cushion. He leaned his elbows on his knees, ducked his head and