Sleeping with Anemone Read Free Page A

the concert.”
    The agenda unfolds. “You want us to escort you? Why?”
    “Because Mom and Dad won’t let me go unless I’m chaperoned, and you and Macho Marco are cool enough that I won’t look like the biggest nimrod ever.” Tara clasped her hands together. “Please, Aunt Abby? I can’t tell you how much it would mean to me.”
    I studied her hopeful little face and felt a tug at my heart-strings. Tara was so much like me—blunt-cut, shoulder-length red hair, pert nose, freckles, short stature, and already showing signs of having curves—how could I resist her? In her acid-washed skinny jeans, banded-bottom flutter-sleeve plum top over a white turtleneck, and turquoise Blowfish ankle boots, she looked like a mini-model.
    “I want written permission from your parents first.”
    “Awesome. I’ll text Mom right now.” Her thumbs worked her cell phone at warp speed.
    Bored out of my mind, I glanced at my watch. It was ten thirty in the morning, an hour and a half into the show, and I’d gotten a meager fifteen signatures for my petition. Tara was absolutely right: I had to do better than that if I hoped to have any leverage at all when I went to court to ask for an injunction against Uniworld.
    More people were coming up the aisle, so I rose to deliver my jelly bean pitch. As I stepped out from behind the booth, I caught sight of a lean, so-blond-he-was-almost-albino guy watching me from across the way. In his mid-thirties, he had a clean-cut Scandinavian look about him and was dressed as though he’d just stepped out of an IKEA ad. A decent-looking guy, I decided, until his hostile gaze met mine. Did he have a problem with me?
    I smiled, hoping to disarm him, but it didn’t work, so I turned my back on him and began coaxing people to sign the petition. After collecting a few more signatures, I returned to my seat beside Tara and tried to pretend I wasn’t aware that the guy was still watching.
    “Spook Face over there is weirding me out,” Tara whispered.
    “Ignore him. He’ll go away sooner or later.”
    “Um, Aunt Abby?” She nodded in the man’s direction.
    Crap. He was heading toward us, sidestepping browsers with the easy stealth of a leopard.
    “Call Special Ops Salvare,” Tara whispered frantically. “We need backup.”
    I shushed her as the man approached. He picked up a cow photo for a closer look, put it down, then bent over the clipboard, running his finger down the list of names. Tara nudged me just as the man straightened, pinning me with his ice blue gaze.
    “Good morning,” he said in a smooth voice that registered a Germanic background. “I’m curious about this petition you have here.”
    My inner antennae quivered a warning. Something about him set my teeth on edge. “I’m collecting signatures to halt Uniworld’s—”
    “Stop, please,” he said at once. “You misunderstand. I’m curious as to what your petition is doing here , in this hall.”
    I decided to play it cool, find out whom I was dealing with before I went on the defensive. “Okay. First of all, let me introduce myself. I’m Abby—”
    “Yes, I know who you are, Ms. Knight.”
    He knew who I was? My inner antennae were vibrating like crazy now. Trying not to appear nervous, I pasted a smile on my face. “How do you know me?”
    “Your name is on the sign taped to your table.”
    Oh, right.
    “I’m Nils Raand,” he said curtly, “the local representative of Uniworld Food Corporation.”
    No wonder he was hostile. “Then I don’t need to explain my petition, because you already know about your company’s criminal treatment of their animals.”
    “Excuse me, Ms. Knight, but I must lodge a protest. We do nothing criminal to our animals. Everything is FDA approved. Check your facts before making false accusations.”
    I jabbed a finger at one of the photos. “So you’re defending the practice of injecting cows with hormones to increase milk production, regardless of the cost to animal or human