Dark Kiss Of The Reaper Read Online Free Page A

Inviting them had been a mistake.
    He blew out a hard breath, leaned his hand against the window frame. They lived their lives with great abandon and no thought for consequence. They had no place to tell him how to live his.
    If he wanted to see Sara Donovan again, no one was going to stop him.
    * * *
    Not long into her day off, Sara ditched her pajamas and dressed for her shift at the hospital. She may have missed her shift at Grounded, but she could still make the one at Franklin. Her hand was fine. Her head hadn’t ached once. She’d gone for a run, done laundry, organized her DVDs alphabetically, drunk a pot and a half of coffee, glued down the loose edge of the counter and cleaned out her fridge. She was afraid if she didn’t go in, she’d end up at a pet store or the ASPCA. Then some poor feline would be subject to a life of loneliness and obesity due to guilt-motivated table scraps.
    Or worse, she’d drive to Mercy Memorial where Ray worked, find her lowlife ex and get the alimony without her lawyer’s help.
    The possibility she might accost Ray wasn’t the only reason, though. Getting out of the house and getting busy might help her stop thinking about him .
    The Angel of Death guy.
    At work, she’d be too occupied for her mind to wander in his dark, sexy direction. She shouldn’t want to think about him at all considering he might have killed Mrs. Metzger. Although, in his defense, she’d called the hospital to check and found they’d written the death off as cancer-related. There’d be no autopsy. She sighed as she zipped the back of her skirt. Maybe it was the cancer after all. What could he have possibly done to her without leaving a mark and in such a short amount of time? Hugging someone had yet to be fatal.
    So what did it mean that she couldn’t stop thinking about a guy this odd? She pushed her hair out of her face, pulling it back into a loose ponytail before adding small silver hoop earrings. Women fell for weirdoes all the time. Some of them even married guys on death row. Not that she thought she’d hit that level of desperation yet.
    Besides, this guy hadn’t actually been convicted of killing anyone. That she knew of.
    She searched for another reason her brain kept replaying images of him while she slicked cranberry gloss across her lips. He was handsome. But lots of guys were good looking. Maybe not that good looking, but whatever.
    Grabbing her purse off the small table by the door, she focused on what needed doing at the hospital. A few hours later, she was buried in paperwork and charts. When Manda arrived, she gave Sara the expected grief about showing up on what was supposed to be a day off.
    “I was going a little crazy. It was come to work or buy a cat. I came to work.”
    “That’s no excuse. Cat might be good for you.”
    “Yes, but I might not be good for the cat. Plus I feel fine.”
    “Have you seen anything unusual around here today?”
    “No.” Sara gave her a smirk. No point discussing the reaper with Manda. The woman would drag her off to the psych ward, no questions asked. Manda always made good on her threats.
    By the end of the week, Sara had managed three shifts in a row without a single sighting of the lone reaper. Tonight would make four. She stretched at the desk, rolling her shoulders. She was adult enough to admit he might have been a hallucination. A tangible one, but heaven knew with the hours she worked and the general craziness of her life it was certainly a possibility.
    Her stomach rumbled. Maybe instead of take-out for dinner tonight, she’d make pasta. Real honest-to-goodness home cooking. She laughed. Yeah, honest-to-goodness out of a box and jar, but hey, it was a place to start.
    Head lost in thoughts of garlic bread and fettuccine Alfredo, she recalculated the figures laying on the desk in front of her for the second time, stabbing the numbers on her calculator with a pencil eraser. Still not right. She added them a third time. Crap. Some of