Beauty & the Beasts Read Online Free Page A

than she was about meeting him.
    Nervousness twisted in her chest, although she hardly knew its cause. He wasn’t the first man to come on to her for no other reason than her looks. He hadn’t even taken it all that badly when she’d turned him down.
    No, it was something about the man himself. What made her feel like a hypocrite was her suspicion that she was reacting to his appearance.
    Experience told her that the camera would find him magnificent. She hadn’t met a man in a long while with his looks. Tall enough to make her feel petite, he was also lean and graceful, in the way of a natural athlete. Classically handsome, his face was all angles—stark cheekbones, with creases deepening the hollows beneath, and his nose narrow and aristocratic.In keeping with his Scandinavian name, his hair was light blond, silver and gold shimmering together in the sun. And his eyes, narrowed now as he scrutinized her, were a pale clear gray-green that seemed to see more than she wanted them to.
    She immediately regretted the moss green suit that hugged her waist and hips. She should have taken a change of clothes to work.
    “Dr. Bergstrom.” She gave him a pleasant aloof smile.
    “Ms. Howard.” He sounded brusque; sulking, she thought with a mental sigh. Then he slammed the pickup door and winced.
    She took a step forward. “Are you all right?”
    “Yeah. Got kicked today. My own fault.” His face was closed to her; his male pride demanded stoicism.
    “We could have rescheduled.”
    “Unless you have pet cougars in there—” he jerked his head toward the house “—I think I can handle it.”
    Just once she’d like to hear a man admit that, yeah, he didn’t feel so hot and, yeah, he wasn’t up to being big and tough today. Dream on, she thought wryly.
    “No cougars,” she conceded. “Although Jackson comes close.”
    “Jackson?” He fell into step beside her.
    “You’ll meet him.” She hesitated, one hand on the door. “I should warn you, although we do clean constantly—”
    “It won’t smell like my mother’s rose garden?”His look was ironic. “You ever done preg checks on a herd of Holsteins?”
    “No.” She opened the door. “Does your mother have a rose garden?”
    “And a raft of prizes from rose shows. Cat shows, too. She breeds Abyssinians.”
    Madeline liked the picture his words created: sinuous golden cats sunning themselves by rosebushes in voluptuous bloom.
    “I wish mine—” she blurted, and stopped just as quickly. Lord almighty, what was wrong with her?
    They’d reached the entry, a tidy room complete with computer, phone and answering machine. Sliding glass doors separated it from the living room beyond. It served, in addition, as a safety net; the sliding door was never opened until the front door was closed so that inmates couldn’t escape.
    Eric Bergstrom didn’t even glance toward the living room, where cats were draped on couches and windowsills and the tops of cages, while others paced or cleaned themselves or nibbled desultorily at dried food. Instead, his green eyes pinned hers.
    “You wish yours…?”
    “Never mind.”
    “Grew roses? Bred Abyssinians? Or just liked cats?”
    “All of the above,” Madeline found herself saying. “She’s allergic to cats. She has no hobbies. She’s visiting me in July. For weeks.”
    His mouth eased into a smile that showed in his eyes. “And how many cats do you have?”
    “Now.” At his puzzled look, she explained.“That’s what she always asks. ‘How many cats do you have now?’”
    “Ah.” His smile was oddly comforting. “So how many do you have?”
    “Seven.” She paused. “Plus six kittens I’m fostering.”
    “That doesn’t seem out of line.” He finally turned to look at the legion of felines in the living room.
    A man who didn’t think seven cats was out of line? Maybe she’d been a fool to turn down his dinner invitation.
    No, because he’d issued it for the wrong reason. Because…She closed her