Controlling Interest Read Online Free Page A

whatever you want. Now are you going to quit that dead-end job in Casino Royale, Mississippi? Move home and quit burning up the road?”
    Despite her irritation with a certain pig-brained private investigator, Natalie felt like dancing around the room. “I’ll go home and type up my resignation as soon as we finish eating. Just wait ’til I tell Mom.” She cut a piece of meat off a bone with her knife and fork.
    â€œHow’s your mama doing these days?” Daddy casually picked up his glass and slurped.
    Natalie gave him a sharp look. “Busy as ever. Why?”
    â€œI just happened to remember it’s her birthday this weekend. You might tell her I wish her a happy fiftieth.”
    Her parents had been divorced for fifteen years, but neither of them forgot birthdays or anniversaries. Natalie had no basis for comparison, of course, but that always struck her as a little abnormal.
    â€œWhy don’t you tell her yourself? She’d be glad to hear from you.”
    â€œOh, I don’t know.” Daddy’s florid complexion turned even redder. “She never had time for me, even when we were married.”
    â€œShe asked about you the other day.” What her mother had said was, “Tell your dad if he can’t pay Nick and Nina’s tuition next semester, I’m going to pull them out and send them to UT Knoxville, where they can get my alumni scholarship.” Natalie saw no need to stir up bad blood.
    Daddy took the bait. “Did she now?” He looked pleased. “Think I’ll give her a call tonight.”
    Natalie’s romantic heart melted into a puddle. Her father was still in love with her mother. Aw. Lord, you could work that thing out, if you had a mind to.
    Too bad her own love life stunk like week-old cabbage.
    The attractive crooked smile of Matt Hogan flashed through her brain. Oh, no you don’t , she told herself sternly. We are not going there.
    He was Some Pig.
    Oink.

    â€œMatthew Hogan, you are a certified pig,” said Tootie Sheehan. His landlady stood in his kitchen door, holding an apple pie in one hand and a mop in the other. Ethel Mertz on steroids.
    Matt, sitting at the table inhaling a bowl of Special K, glanced at the pile of dishes overflowing the sink and at the trash can stuffed with empty TV dinner boxes and discarded junk mail. He hadn’t been home for nearly three months except to eat and sleep. And he’d been out of town a good chunk of that time, hanging out with his parents in northern Illinois.
    â€œIf it bothers you, Tootie, you can stay downstairs.” Matt punched a button on the laptop in front of him to launch his email program. He pretended to ignore the domestic diva’s glare.
    Nostrils flared and mop brandished, she advanced into the room and set the pie on the counter. “I should take this pie back downstairs and feed it to the dog.”
    â€œDon’t you dare.” Matt turned in alarm. “He already waddles like a pregnant hippo.”
    â€œNow there’s a visual to keep you awake at night.” Tootie looked over Matt’s shoulder. “Speaking of pregnant, have you written to your sister since she had the baby?”
    â€œI called her last night.” Matt closed the email program and shut the laptop. “How did you know she had a baby?”
    â€œI saw the sack from Babies ‘R’ Us in the backseat of your car. Unless there’s something you’re not telling me, I figured it had to be for Cicely.”
    â€œWhy don’t you come to work for me? You’re a better snoop than any PI I ever met.”
    â€œIs that a compliment?” Tootie grinned at him, throwing a web of wrinkles into play at the corners of her shoe-button brown eyes. “Retired school teachers are the most observant folks on the planet.”
    â€œI suppose you’d have to be.” Matt got up to hunt through the dishes in the sink for a fork. “I ate