Free Lisa Jackson's Bentz & Montoya Bundle: Hot Blooded, Cold Blooded, Shiver, Absolute Fear, Lost Souls, Malice, & an Exclusive Extended Excerpt From Devious by Lisa Jackson Page B

pushing a load of peat moss in her wheelbarrow. She’d been headed toward the back of the house but had stopped when she’d noticed Samantha struggling to get her trash can to the curb for the next day’s pickup.
    “What new neighbor?” Sam asked.
    “A man around thirty-five or forty, I’d say. He moved in about a quarter of a mile down from you in the old Swanson place.” Edie Killingsworth motioned a gloved hand, indicating a spot farther down the oak-lined street. “I heard he’s leased the house for the next six months.”
    “You’ve met him?”
    “Oh, yes, and he’s quite something, if you get my drift.” Gray eyebrows rose over the tops of wire-rimmed glasses held in place by a chain.
    The sun was intense. Bright. Edie Killingsworth’s photo gray lenses were nearly black. Hannibal gave up digging and trotted over to plop down at her feet, where he panted, showing off his long tongue.
    “Something? Like what?” Sam asked, realizing what was to come as she wiped her hands on her jeans. Ever since Sam had moved in three months earlier, Edie Killingsworth had taken it as her personal mission to see Sam hooked up with a suitable candidate for marriage.
    “I’d say he’s something like Harrison Ford, Tom Cruise and Clark Gable all rolled into one.”
    “And Hollywood hasn’t discovered him yet?” Sam said with a grin, as Charon ducked into the thick privacy hedge that ran on either side of her property.
    “Oh, he’s not an actor,” Edie was quick to correct. “He’s a writer who just happens to be handsome as the devil. And that east Texas drawl of his, my stars,” she fanned herself emphatically, as if the mere thought of this hunk caused her to melt inside.
    “If you say so.”
    “I know a good-looking man when I see one. And I’ll bet you dollars to doughnuts the new tenant has money, as well. Milo Swanson’s tight with a dollar, he wouldn’t rent to just anyone. You and I both know he’d charge an arm and a leg.” She nodded, the brim of her floppy hat waggling and shading her face as she reached down for the handles of her wheelbarrow. “Anyway, the man just moved in last week. You might want to go down and welcome him to the neighborhood.”
    “Maybe I could whip up some Jell-O,” Sam suggested.
    The older woman chuckled and waved Sam’s sarcasm away with one gloved hand. “A bottle of wine would be better.” She extracted a checkered handkerchief from one frayed pocket. “There’s a wonderful Pinot Noir from Oregon down at Zehlers—Molalla Vineyards makes it, and I guarantee it would be lots better than any flavor of Jell-O.”
    “Duly noted,” Sam said, as the dog sniffed at her shoes.
    “I hope so.” Edie mopped the sweat from her forehead, then picked up the handgrips of the wheelbarrow again and made her way to the back of her property. Hannibal, tail curled, trotted after her. Sam smiled. Edie Killingsworth was the one person who had welcomed her to the neighborhood only days after she’d moved in. The older woman had brought over a casserole, fruit salad and yes, a bottle of Pinot Noir in a well-used picnic basket and invited Sam to visit anytime.
    Now, Sam glanced down the street to the old Swanson place, a quaint cottage in sad need of updating. A beat-up Volvo wagon sat in the drive, and boxes, broken down and flattened, had been left at the curb with a trash basket. Curious, her ankle aching, she walked past the neighboring houses, all on lots shaded by live oaks and shrubs. When she was close enough to the Swanson place, she looked past the rambling cottage to the dock and there, rising on the swells, was a sailboat, a large sloop, its sails down. For a second she thought it looked just like the one she’d imagined she’d seen a couple of nights earlier—the one with the man at the helm in the middle of the storm.
    But it had been a dark night.
    Her nerves had been stretched thin.
    There were lots of sailboats—thousands of them around these parts.
    Even