Give Em Pumpkin To Talk About (Pumpkin Patch Mysteries Book 1) Read Online Free Page A

bullet had travelled farther than he’d expected in the open fields surrounding the house. It wouldn’t be the first time.
    Having argued herself into feeling safe, and embarrassed that Jack had pushed her down, Sarah got to her feet and brushed the grass from her jeans and shirt. She kept her head low as she surveyed the yard again. There was only her car and the empty one that had been there when she’d arrived.  It seemed safe to her.  
    “I told you to stay down.” Jack was immediately at her side. “I think whoever fired that shot took off, but there’s no way to know for sure if anyone else is out here besides us.”
    “Is that George in the house? How did he get inside?”
    “Why don’t we go in and ask him? It will be safer for you in there anyway.”
    “It was probably just an overzealous hunter,” she told him as he hurried her toward the front door. “Did you find the broken window?”
    “I’m afraid so.” He opened the front door. A heavyset man lay on the front room rug. “I guess someone didn’t want you to talk to George.”
     

Chapter Three
     
    “Someone shot him on purpose?” She gulped as she saw the blood on the thin green carpet in the dim lantern light.
    “I’d say so.” He nodded toward the hole in the broken window. “Why was he here, Sarah?”
    “He called me at the hotel. He said he knew things about my grandparents that he hadn’t shared with the sheriff. He offered to give me the information.” She didn’t even think not to answer him. There was a dead man on the floor in front of her.
    “This must be what he wanted you to have.” Jack scooped a manila folder off the floor and handed it to her. “You’re in luck. Whoever shot George wasn’t worried about you.”
    Sarah’s head was spinning. She tried to swallow hard but couldn’t and threw up on the floor next to George Burris. “I’m sorry. This is more than I bargained for.”
    Jack led her into the kitchen, using the lantern to find their way. “I suppose so. I can get some water from the hand pump outside. The water in here has been turned off for years. Stay here.”
    She wanted to argue with him but literally didn’t have the stomach for it. She stayed where she was in the empty kitchen, staring at the wood floor, until he returned.
    “Where’s your phone?” He handed her a wet rag. “You should call this in.”
    “In…in the car.”
    She wiped the cool rag across her face. Jack had moved the battery-powered lantern to the kitchen table. The glow from it spread around the room. The last time she’d seen this room it had looked as though her grandparents had just stepped away. She still expected it to be the same as when she was twelve—cornbread on the stove and coffee perking.
    “Are you okay?” He crouched beside her and looked up into her face. “At least you don’t look like you’re going to faint. You were kind of pale back there. I haven’t caught an unconscious woman in my arms for a while. Not sure I know how anymore.”
    “I never faint.” But her head was still spinning, and her stomach threatened to rebel again.
    “There’s that angry woman with the gun that I met yesterday.”
    She smiled despite herself. “Speaking of which, do you still have my gun? It’s annoying the way you’re always taking it from me.”
    He handed it back to her. “If you stay around long enough, I’ll teach you a trick so no one disarms you again.”
    That brought Sarah to her senses. What had she gotten herself into?
    She hadn’t stopped to consider the wisdom of letting sleeping dogs lie, as her grandfather used to say. Now not only were her grandparents gone, there was a dead man in their living room. She was going to have to call the sheriff and probably be here for an extra day or two at least. What had she been thinking?
    “I’m not staying any longer than I have to,” she told him. “Thanks for the offer, but I have a home and a life to get back to. Why would anyone want to kill