Here Comes Trouble Read Online Free Page B

scratches.”
    “So?”
    A rude noise popped out of her mouth. She placed her hands on his hard shoulders and turned him back around. “I know what fingernail scratches look like. So do you have any alcohol or not?”
    “I think there’s a first aid kit underneath the sink in the bathroom.”
    The bathroom adjoining his office was no bigger than a coat closet. Done in bland white tile and industrial, blinding light, she felt as though she’d entered a sardine can. There was a little black pouch with a red cross on top, right where he’d said it would be. Lacy opened it, found the rubbing alcohol and some cotton swabs. She walked back to Chase’s fine backside and tried not to laugh.
    “What’d you do?” she asked as she poured some of the alcohol on a cotton ball. “Piss off some poor woman’s husband?”
    “First of all,” he said in a strangled voice after she placed the cold, wet cotton on the first scratch. “I don’t get involved with married women. Second of all, if I had, I’d have a black eye. Not scratches on my back.”
    “Pardon me.” Slowly, so as not to sting him too much, she swiped the alcohol-soaked ball down the scratch, disinfecting it as best she could. She didn’t know why she asked him how he got these. She knew. Some nameless woman couldn’t contain herself in the throes of passion and dug her nails into his back. She’d heard of women who were back-scratchers, but this was ridiculous.
    “Start talking, Lace.”
    “Well, I was born in a little town just south of Yellowstone –”
    “Nice try, Chatty Cathy. But you made me a deal, remember?”
    Of course she remembered.   Being this close to his naked skin and smelling his woodsy shampoo had clouded her logical thinking. She discarded the first swab and poured some alcohol on a second one.
    He flinched when she placed it on the next scratch. “Holy hell, woman. Did you pour acid on that thing?”
    A satisfied smile tilted one corner of her mouth. That’s what he got for being so irresistible. “Sorry. Maybe next time you’ll go out with a woman who doesn’t have cat claws.”
    “Ha ha, Twiggy.”
    She paused with the cotton ball halfway down his back. “Call me that one more time and I really will pour acid on you.”
    He cleared his throat. “We’re getting off subject here. Tell me what’s going on.”
      She bit her teeth into her bottom lip, while lightly dabbing the cotton to his marred skin, unsure of what to tell him. One more time she decided to play dumb. “It’s really not that big of a deal.”
    “Okay, Tw –”
    “All right!” She bit out with a glare at his backside, then blew out an exasperated sigh. “It’s just that Ray left me with a few more things that I could do without. Well, technically it’s not really Ray’s fault.” Ray had done the best he could with Lacy. He’d clothed her, made sure she went to school and fed her three meals a day. Grandfathers weren’t supposed to do those things. There were supposed to spoil you with extra stuff like cookies before breakfast and backyard campouts. Bless his heart; he’d had no clue how to raise a teenage girl. He taught her things like how to use a lawnmower and change the oil in a car.
    “What does that mean?”
    She tossed aside her current cotton ball and soaked another one. “Ray had a friend of his handling his will, if you could even call it a will. I don’t know exactly what the guy did, or how he managed to get away with it, but he hadn’t been entirely truthful when he disclosed Ray’s assets.”
    Okay, so it was a bigger deal than that. Lacy really didn’t want to tell him this. Why did she have to go and make that stupid deal? So she could clean his sex-induced scratches? So not worth it.
    “What exactly does that mean?”
    “That’s the problem. I can’t tell you exactly.” She pulled in another breath. “The IRS is auditing me because there were hidden assets not included in the final accounting. I didn’t fully