Still Waters Read Online Free Page B

divorce had made headlines. For a few short weeks her life as a gold digger had taken precedence over world events.
    Dane had absorbed the information with the morbid fascination of a man who had gone through his own version of the battle of the exes. The woman had already been married at least once when she'd managed to snare Stuart. He had tolerated her lavish spending habits the way a billionaire might, but he had eventually objected to her infidelities and had finally called her on them. Naturally, she had tried to lay the blame at his feet. She had hurled all manner of accusations about him, the predominant one being that he nailed anything in skirts. But she hadn't been able to substantiate her case. Naturally, she had portrayed herself as an innocent while she had tried to cut herself a big chunk of his financial pie, but, for once, justice had prevailed. Dane thought Stuart had to be some kind of a saint for giving the woman a nickel after the way she'd treated him. From what he'd seen, she was nothing but trouble with a capital T.
    And now she was here, in Still Creek, Minnesota, tangled up in the first murder they'd had in thirty-three years. Christ.
    “Sheriff”—Kaufman cleared his throat nervously as he led her up by the elbow—“this is Miss—er, Mrs.—um—”
    Elizabeth took pity on the deputy. When he'd shown up at her house to pick her up, he'd been tongue-tied the instant he'd set eyes on her. He looked at her now with a shy, lovesick kind of smile, his eyes shining like a spaniel's. Men, she thought, resisting the urge to roll her eyes. She offered her hand to the sheriff. “Elizabeth Stuart, Sheriff Jantzen. I'd say it's a pleasure to meet you, but the circumstances aren't exactly ideal, now, are they?”
    Her voice was dark and sultry, Dane thought, warm, a little rough. Smoke and heat. Satin and sex.
    She stared up at him with gray eyes fringed by thick black lashes. The spotlight behind her backlit her wild black mane like a holy aura and made her skin look so pale that her mouth stood out like a cherry in the snow. A tiny scar hooked downward from the left corner, tempting a man to trace it with the tip of his finger or the tip of his tongue.
    Damn, he thought, no wonder Brock Stuart had fallen for her. He let his gaze wash down over the rest of Elizabeth Stuart with insulting insolence.
    A Nikon camera hung on a thick leather strap around her neck, the weight of it pressing her oversize turquoise T-shirt to her full breasts. The jeans she wore were tight and faded. A small waist was accented by a tooled leather belt and a big silver buckle depicting a barrel racer. Gently flared hips met long, long legs. The jeans were tucked into a pair of slightly battered, obviously expensive black cowboy boots that rose nearly to her knees.
    “Have you about looked your fill, Sheriff?” Elizabeth drawled sarcastically.
    She'd been ogled plenty in her thirty-four years, but it had never unnerved her quite as much as it was doing now. She put it down to the circumstances and stubbornly dismissed the fact that Sheriff Jantzen was a prime example of the male of the species. He had what she called the “lean and hungry look”—a tough athleticism, a certain predatory animal magnetism that radiated from the hard planes of his face and the angular lines of his body, and charged the air around him. He didn't much look the part of a sheriff in his pleated tan Dockers and lavender polo shirt, but there was no mistaking the air of authority. Uniform or no, he was the man in charge, the dominant male.
    He lifted his gaze to hers and gave her a long, level stare that told her nothing she could say would embarrass him into behaving if he didn't want to. He had eyes like those of an Arctic wolf—cool blue and keenly watchful. They were set deep beneath a straight brow line that only enhanced his predatory expression. She had the disconcerting feeling that he could see right past her shield of bravado, that he could