Marked Down for Murder (Good Buy Girls) Read Online Free Page B

while Sam cut up the corn bread. Maggie took the salad she had made earlier in the day out of the refrigerator and together they set the small table in the kitchen.
    Sam poured them each a glass of beer and Maggie took the seat across from his. They both dished their food, and when they were done, Sam held up his glass for a toast.
    “To many more evenings just like this with you,” he said.
    “I’ll drink to that,” Maggie said.
    She tapped his glass with hers. She knew what he meant. It seemed as if she had been single for a very long time. And then, her high school boyfriend Sam had strolled back into town and taken the job of sheriff.
    Their high school breakup had been the stuff of legends. The misunderstanding engineered by Summer Phillips was one of many reasons that Maggie felt nothing but the purest strain of loathing for the woman.
    But Maggie refused to let Summer and her shenanigans taint this second chance that she and Sam had. They had spent more than twenty years apart, and while Maggie would never ever regret her marriage to Charlie Gerber and the birth of her daughter, Laura, she couldn’t help but wonder what would have happened to her and Sam if they hadn’t broken up all those years ago.
    Then again, she had to acknowledge that if her seventeen-year-old self had been truly sure of Sam, she never would have fallen for Summer’s stunt. So maybe she and Sam were just destined to meet when they were older and wiser. She certainly hoped that was the cosmic plan, at any rate.
    “What are you thinking about?” he asked.
    “The past,” she said.
    Sam gave her a rueful glance. “And here I thought you might be pondering the meaning of all those one-word notes and roses you’ve been receiving.”
    “The ones you deny you’ve been sending?” Maggie asked. She dipped a bit of her corn bread into the sauce-slathered pork and popped it into her mouth.
    “I refuse to say anything on the grounds I might incriminate myself,” he said. As if to emphasize his point, he tucked into his meal with gusto.
    “So, you have no idea what ‘Maggie, will you please be my . . .’ might end with?”
    “Is that what the notes say?” he asked. He raised his eyebrows. “Wow, that could be anything.”
    “Really?” Maggie asked. “Given that tomorrow is Valentine’s Day, I sort of figured the answer was obvious.”
    Sam frowned. “Maybe it’s going to spell out ‘be my pal,’ or ‘be my cleaning woman,’ or ‘be my’—”
    He didn’t get to finish, as Maggie threw her napkin at him and nailed him right in the forehead.
    He grinned as he tossed the napkin back to her. “I’m just saying there are a myriad of possibilities.”
    “Uh-huh,” Maggie said.
    “But now that you mention it, tomorrow
is
Valentine’s Day, and since we are officially a couple, I’m thinking we should do it up big to make up for all of the ones we’ve missed.”
    His blue eyes were so earnest, Maggie felt her throat get tight. She and Sam had been at odds for such a long time, it completely charmed her to have him so invested in their new relationship.
    “Well, I don’t know,” she teased. “I think I have to wait and see what my final note says. I mean, I wouldn’t want to commit to something and then have to cancel because the single most romantic gesture of my life ends in the phrase ‘cleaning woman.’”
    “‘Single most romantic gesture,’ huh?” he asked. He looked pretty pleased with himself.
    “Hmm, so far,” Maggie said. “But I fear it might take a nasty turn on me.”
    Sam laughed and then nodded. “I can appreciate your concern. Now, I’m not saying I know anything about these notes, and I can’t confirm or deny what the last one might say, but I’m pretty sure you can risk dinner with me.”
    In that moment, Maggie felt as if she would risk everything for Sam Collins. Her heart, her mind, her soul. The realization stunned her. She hadn’t thought falling in love in her forties could