Love Rising: Spring (Mandrake Falls Series Romance Book 4) Read Online Free Page B

it?”
    “This was torn from the back of the order of service the
church prints up each week. It’s blank but do you see that letter and the
number at the edge of the tear? That’s the reading. John: fifteen-five .”
    “Wow.” Andrea bent closer. “Whoever stuffed this in the camera
bag did it at the wedding ceremony. No one noticed in all the excitement of
Scout going into labor.”
    “Trust Scout to take the whole natural
birth thing to heart. Not me. I’m going to have this kid in a hospital
and I want drugs.” Shelby squinted at the words that were scrawled in blue ink
over the blank white square. “Does the handwriting look familiar to you guys?
It doesn’t to me ... it’s so sloppy, it has to have been written by a young
person.”
    “Or an old person trying to make it look like a young person
wrote it,” Trevor said stuffily. “We have to figure out who was in the vicinity
of the camera case to narrow down the list of suspects.”
    “What do you suggest?”
    “We go to the church and reenact the scene of the crime.
Then we go through our photo files to find the person who was in the right
place at the right time and had motive to mess with Jocelyn and Jeremy.”
    “Or the Gazette ,”
Jason added. “We could be the actual target. We’re making waves in this town.”
    “Making waves,” Andrea snorted. “Jason Fiske, the Gazette ’s resident conspiracy theorist.
I guess every newspaper has one.”
    “Someone on this team has to ask the tough questions. God
knows you don’t, Tarnham .”
    “Okay, team to the bat mobile!” Trevor called on his way out
the door. “Boss, you coming?”
    Shelby shook her head, reaching for the phone to return
Sawyer’s call. “I’ll wait here for the affronted parties to arrive and ream me
out or threaten to sue, whichever comes first. I’m calling the cops for back
up. You guys go. Enjoy sleuthing but don’t get carried away. Be back here for
the story meeting in one hour.”
    She winced as they banged the door behind them and punched
the button on speed dial that connected the Gazette to the Sheriff’s Office. Seconds later, Sawyer’s voice came on the line and
she smiled as she always did when she remembered he was hers.
    Between love and baby hormones, she was losing her edge.

 
    ♥

 
    SCOUT RUTHERFORD-DEAN pored over the classified ad, her
finger pressed to her mouth. She sat cross-legged on the bed with the Gazette spread out before her.
    “Call Hudson and find out if he knows anything. You guys
work with Jeremy; he must have said something to you about Jocelyn.”
    Ryder sat in the big armchair in the corner of their bedroom,
half-asleep, with his two infant sons in his arms. “I can’t call Hudson,” he
yawned. “He’s on his honeymoon. And he hates me for wrecking his wedding ... so
... no.”
    “He doesn’t hate you. You were his best man. Would it help
if we offered to name one of the boys after him?”
    “No. Aren’t you tired? The doctor said you should sleep when
the boys sleep.”
    “You know me, I’m never sleepy.” Scout frowned over the
classified. “This is fascinating stuff here, Ryder. It’s a mystery. What
possessed Jeremy Marks to ask Jocelyn Tate to marry him? I saw them together at
the opening night party for The Gift of
the Magi at Christmas and she did not look interested to me.”
    “Maybe he convinced her. Stranger things have happened in
this town.”
    She looked up to see Ryder drifting off to sleep, balancing
the two babies in his arms. He hadn’t put them down from the minute they were
born. Lydia Rutherford was getting a little antsy. Scout moved to the chair, gently
lifted her sons from his arms and laid them in their bassinets and then covered
her husband with a blanket. Poor sweet guy. He was
exhausted. Ryder had a crazy idea that because they had twins they were
finished making babies. Scout laughed softly. She was only just getting
started.
    The best is yet to be,
my love.
    She pulled on her