Free Love of Her Lives by Sharon Clare Page A

moved.
    • • •
    The Hilton offered a substantial breakfast buffet. Calum piled four pancakes against a healthy serving of sausage and scrambled eggs. His mood had deteriorated as he’d gotten dressed. That encounter with Beth had stimulated him down to his very warm blood. He’d felt every muscle go taut with expectation — except one. Damn. Normally he would have been hard as oak. She’d have felt him rising between them. What if she’d noticed and thought he wasn’t much of a man? What if he was never like oak again? What if no matter how strong his will, he was unable to make love to Beth? A low growl formed in his throat, and he sneered at a man who reached for the same biscuit he’d gone for. The man quickly retreated, sending Calum an equally loathsome look.
    Bloody hell. This wouldn’t do. He breathed in to the count of five then slowly exhaled. A calm, even–minded outlook couldn’t be so difficult to maintain.
    He walked over to the man and tossed the biscuit on his plate. “My pardon.”
    The man’s face wrinkled in distaste as he glared at the biscuit.
    No thank you? Be damned then, he thought. Some people were hell to please.
    Calum spotted Beth, crossed the small dining room, pulled out a chair, and sat down. She quietly worked her way through a bowl of fruit, reading the paper, while Calum devoured breakfast.
    “Oh!” Her fork dropped to the table with a clatter.
    He swallowed his eggs. “What’s is it?”
    “Meals on the Move is in the paper.” The article trembled in her hands.
    “You have meals that move?” He gave the buffet a quick glance. Still there.
    While the colour drained from her face, she explained that she delivered lunches to elderly shut–ins twice a week and then related the details of a three–paragraph account. The police were investigating complaints of missing jewelry from homes in the Ashbury area. The commonality among the seniors was that they received daily meals from a community food service that was now under investigation.
    “Mrs. Miller mentioned that she’d misplaced jewelry when I delivered her lunch yesterday. How selfish and uncaring can a person be to have robbed Mrs. Miller? The poor lady thinks she has Alzheimer’s. How could one of the volunteers stoop so low?”
    “That’s the extent of the article?” he asked. “It doesn’t mention your name?”
    “Why would it?” Her gaze dropped back to the paper as she read it once more. “It says the police aren’t releasing any further information at this time while considering a family’s request. What could that mean?”
    She gave him no time to respond. “Do you think I’ll be questioned by the police? I will, won’t I? Of course I will; my client has jewelry missing.”
    He grimaced as he pictured Beth secured to that chair in her kitchen. “You find the black satchel in your yard, and then jewelry disappears from your customers and the police have a reason to question you. I do not like it.” His stomach clenched like a fist around his breakfast. Beth was not only linked to a crime by the satchel, but also by the food service.
    “In your favour you did deliver the money from the satchel to the police and your honesty will be noted. You were surely thought of as a Good Samaritan and thanks be to the powers above for that.”
    He didn’t think it possible for Beth to grow paler. “I think I’m going to be sick.” Even her knuckles grew white as she clutched the paper. “I have to phone Matthew.”
    He pushed his plate to the side. That irritation of a boyfriend was suspect in his eyes. “I don’t think that’s wise.”
    “Listen, Bucko, don’t tell me what I should do. Matthew’s a lawyer. I need to talk to him.”
    “You said he was a real estate lawyer.”
    “That doesn’t matter — he’s efficient!” She pushed her chair back and headed across the dining room. Her silver handbag swung on the back of her chair. Snatching her purse and a biscuit off his plate, he caught