Murder in the Smokies Read Free Page B

and their work crews. It had also become a favorite place of anyone who worked a night shift, as the coffee was always hot and strong and the prices reasonable.
    Ivy and Sutton bought coffee at the counter and took the drinks to an empty booth near the back of the diner. Sutton’s lips curved slightly as he sat across from her, reminding her just why she’d fallen so hard for him back when she was just a kid. When he smiled, he could take a girl’s breath away.
    “When we were kids, this place was the place to eat, remember? Everybody with two dimes to rub together came here to get Maisey Ledbetter’s peach cobbler.” He took a sip of coffee and made a soft sound of contentment that traveled all the way down Ivy’s nervous system to make her toes tingle.
    She noted her reaction with a combination of dismay and resignation. What had she expected? There’d never been a time she could remember when she hadn’t been completely susceptible to Sutton Calhoun’s charms.
    “With homemade vanilla ice cream,” she added with a reluctant smile. “The redneck equivalent of lunch at Spago.”
    Sutton’s laugh was tinged with surprise. “What do you know about Spago?”
    “You think just because I stuck around this hick little town I can’t use the internet? Or maybe even travel now and then?” She’d planned her words to come out light and teasing, but she just sounded defensive. Exactly the opposite of what she’d intended.
    “Of course not.”
    She pasted on a smile. “I’ll admit I’ve only been to L.A. once. And I didn’t get anywhere near Spago.”
    “Same here.” He shot her a disarming grin that made her feel as if she was about to melt into a puddle on the booth bench.
    She had to get a grip. She wasn’t ready to forgive Sutton Calhoun for abandoning her when she’d needed him most. And she sure as hell couldn’t afford to trust him again.
    “But you didn’t invite me here to talk about travel or even peach cobbler, did you?” He took another long drink of coffee, meeting her gaze over the rim of the cup.
    “Why did you really come back here?”
    “I told you. I was hired to look into an unsolved murder.”
    She took a sip of coffee and swallowed, letting the pause linger before she casually asked, “Since when does Cooper Security do private investigations?”
    His dark eyebrows arched. “What do you know about Cooper Security, Ivy Hawkins?”
    “Top-notch risk management firm. Stellar reputation for doing the tough, scary jobs that a lot of firms would never take on. Specializes in corporate risk training and dangerous security jobs.” She hid a smile at the hint of admiration in his expression. “But I’ve never heard of them doing any private investigation before.”
    “We’re branching out.”
    “Sounds more like a step down from all that excitement.”
    “Depends on the case. We only take cases where we think we can make a real difference.” He set his cup of coffee down, running his finger over the rim. “It was our chopper pilot’s idea, actually.”
    “Your chopper pilot?”
    “One of the company owner’s cousins. His wife was murdered a long time ago. It took him over a decade to finally find her killer. Last year, he mentioned in passing that he wished he’d had the Cooper Security resources to work with back when the case hadn’t been quite so cold.”
    “And your boss decided to open an investigations division from that one offhand remark?” She didn’t hide her skepticism. It seemed like a pretty random way to make a huge corporate decision.
    “I imagine Jesse had already been considering the possibility.” This time, Sutton was the one who sounded defensive. She could tell that he respected his boss and the company. “J.D.’s remark probably just crystallized the whole idea for him.”
    “So you’re here as a P.I., then. You know, it might have been nice to give the local law a heads-up.”
    “Might have been,” he conceded with an unrepentant