Free The Newlyweds by Elizabeth Bevarly Page B

altered that to breathtakingly gorgeous over the course of the last two days. When she smiled the way she was now, however… Well, even the word gorgeous didn’t seem to suit. Exquisite and ravishing came to mind, but what Sam finally settled on was mouth-wateringly magnificent. Because sitting on the sofa that way, with her hair spilling loose around hershoulders and those little black glasses perched on her nose, and that radiant smile lighting up the room…
    Suddenly Sam wanted to get very physical and chemical with her indeed. And there was nothing at all superficial about what he wanted to do with her next.
    With no small effort, he pushed the uncharacteristically graphic thought aside and made himself focus on the matter at hand. Which was… Damn. What was the matter at hand again? Oh, yeah. The case.
    â€œSo what happened at Children’s Connection after I left today?” he asked.
    Her smile fell, and she sighed, settling her book on her lap, spine up. Sam moved closer and tilted his head to see if he could make out the title, but couldn’t quite manage. When he looked up, Bridget was watching him, obviously having discerned his interest.
    â€œIt’s Agatha Christie,” she said. “I love old mysteries.”
    Sam nodded but said nothing.
    So she backpedaled to what he had asked before. “Well, gee, I wish I could tell you some guy came up to me and gave me his name and address and offered to sell me an infant he’d stolen from its mother in Moscow, but…”
    â€œBut what really happened?” he asked.
    â€œWhat really happened was that after you left, I took my mother and my sister to lunch,” she told him.
    â€œAnd what did you find out?”
    â€œNothing much more than we already know,” she said. “Except that everything that’s been going on there over the past several months is really starting to affect the place as a whole. Mom’s worried the organization is going to go bankrupt, and Jillian’s worried that some of their clients are going to wind up dealing with other agencies who are in no way legitimate. And evidentlyeveryone’s working under a lot of stress, wondering if the person behind it all is someone they all know and like.”
    â€œThat’s not surprising,” Sam said. “By now, everyone’s got to be forming theories and becoming suspicious of people they’d otherwise trust implicitly. It could actually end up negatively affecting the investigation if everyone starts getting paranoid.”
    â€œWe need to get to the bottom of this as soon as possible,” Bridget told him, her voice edged with something akin to sorrow. “I hate seeing people I care about going through something like this.”
    â€œWe’ll find the guy, Bridget,” Sam said, a thrill of something warm and electric washing through his midsection when her name rolled off his tongue the way it did. He liked calling her that. He knew he shouldn’t, but there it was all the same.
    Her gaze connected with his and held it. “How long do you think it will take for our guy to make contact with the other agents?” she asked. “I mean, between the waiting list and all the stuff that goes into this adoption process… How do we know this isn’t going to take months?”
    â€œI don’t know how long it will take,” he told her honestly. “I guess it just depends.”
    â€œOn what?”
    Sam strode farther into the living room and folded his big frame into one of the plump velvet chairs that flanked the sofa. “On how spooked our guy has become by the investigation and how badly he needs money.”
    â€œSo what do we do?” Bridget asked.
    He shrugged. “It’s been a while since we’ve had any indication our baby seller is still operating. The investigation of Children’s Connection has to have slowed down his activity significantly, and he’s