Free Twirled Bond (Holly Woods Files, #5) by Emma Hart Page A

so good.
    “Should you be drinking that before dinner?”
    I turn and hit him with a gaze so frosty that it’d freeze Hell. “Come and take it from me, hot stuff. I dare you.”
    “Nah, I’d like to keep possession of my balls today.” He sips from his beer. “Will it help you calm down?”
    My gaze doesn’t get warmer. “I hope so. I’ve been worked up since she left. She wants me to investigate her daughter’s death and look into her husband? Is that not crazy to you?”
    He rocks his head side to side before he finally speaks. “Not really,” he says slowly. “I see it a lot. For some reason, when a child has died, moms can be quick to blame their fathers.”
    I groan and sit next to him at the kitchen table. If I go to the sofa, I’ll never get back up. “What do I do?” I sound kinda whiny, but whatever. “The man’s been harassing you. I don’t wanna go do the same to him.”
    “Do you regret agreeing?”
    “Yes.”
    “Why?”
    I take a deep breath and slump forward. “I don’t,” I admit. My voice is almost sad. I run one hand through my hair. “She wants to find her daughter. I’ve spent the entire afternoon thinking she’s silly, that it’s been fifteen years, but then...I’ve also thought what I’d do in her position.”
    Drake leans forward on the table. His blue eyes are unwavering on mine. “Which is?”
    I shrug a shoulder, looking deep into his eyes. “I’d probably burn down every city in this goddamn country to find my daughter if she ever disappeared. Then, when I’m done, I’d take every one of Canada’s too.”
    He eases forward and, wrapping one hand around the back of my neck, kisses me soundly. “That’s why people come to you, sweetheart.” He sits back. “Because they know your heart is made of gold and you’ll always help.”
    A sigh escapes my lips. I really need to start being an asshole a bit more to stop that rumor. My heart is black before it’s gold. I’m a bona fide bitch.
    Oh, who am I kidding? I’m a bona fide bitch with a soft side. Damn these motherfuckers exploiting said soft side. They need to get a new hobby.
    “Where do I even start?” I ask him after swallowing a huge mouthful of wine. God, I’m so stressed. “Her gut feeling is that the skeleton is Daniela’s. If it is, I have nothing to find. I can’t exactly go searching for her and waste my time in case her feeling is right.”
    He pinches the curling edge of the label on his beer and pulls part of it off in one long strip. “I hate to say this, but I don’t think there’s anything you can do until we get Tim’s preliminary report. At the very least, he’ll be able to sex and age the skeleton. If he says it’s the body of a teenage girl, I think we can be pretty sure it’s Daniela.”
    “Then she doesn’t need to hire me at all.”
    Drake rubs his hand over his face. He actually looks pained at what he has to say next. “Sweetheart, I don’t think she hired you just to find her daughter. I think she’s hired you to, once you’ve found her, figure out how and why she went missing. And how she died.”
    Which would mean I’d be getting involved with an active police case. Again. Everyone in town knows just how much Drake loves that.
    I purse my lips. “That’s going to end in disaster.”
    “Yes. But you know as well as I do that you’d do that even if she didn’t hire you.”
    “Are you trying to say I’m nosy?”
    “Investigative is probably the term that’ll keep me my balls, right?”
    My lips are still pursed. Bastard.
    He grins. “You have an almost unquenchable thirst for knowledge, Noelle. When that’s mixed with your impulsive side, it gets you into trouble a helluva lot. When you catch a murderer and your bright spot is that at least you had a knife instead of a gun pointed at you that time, you should probably consider not being so impulsive.”
    My cheeks flush. He has a point.
    “I come to conclusions quickly,” I say. “That’s