The Uneven Score Read Online Free

and good cheekbones, not unattractive.
    She couldn’t make out the features of the dark-haired figure in the light of the doorway, but she did see his gun. “I’m not armed,” she said in a clear voice. “I know this must look odd, but—”
    “Stand up—slowly. We’ll talk in a minute.”
    Whitney was not encouraged. She didn’t want to talk. She couldn’t talk. She had promised Paddie. Not, she thought, that Paddie had kept her end of the bargain. She had vowed to keep Daniel Graham at her four o’clock rehearsal, and unless Whitney was very much mistaken, Daniel Graham wasn’t at the Orlando Community College auditorium. He was in his office ordering her about with a gun. Brilliant conductor though she might be, Victoria Paderevsky was not a reliable cohort.
    “I can’t stand up slowly,” Whitney said. “I mean, if I do I’ll hit my head on the closet pole and mess up your suits and—”
    ‘‘Up.”
    She shook off the jacket, tucked her horn under one arm, and leaned forward, at the same time pulling her feet under her so she could get up slowly, without losing her balance. She had a mad urge to catapult herself out of the corner, but stifled it. The individual giving orders looked very much as though he would shoot her given sufficient provocation. Or insufficient provocation.
    “What in hell’s name have you got—”
    He broke off with a growl and grabbed Whitney by the wrist. She screamed something about lunatics and all this being a mistake as she and her horn went flying out of the closet. They landed in a heap on the fringe of an Oriental carpet. Her horn ended up on the bottom.
    “You idiot!” Whitney yelled, prudence gone where her horn was concerned. “You made me bend my bell!”
    But Graham wasn’t listening. He pounced on her, pinning her to the floor, and yanked the horn out from under her. There was a flash of muscled thighs straining against creased gray linen, and then she was free.
    “You maniac!” she groaned into the carpet and rolled over, sitting up. No wonder Paddie thought him capable of kidnapping poor Harry!
    She shut up at once, regretting her rash comments as she took in exactly what kind of man she was dealing with. Clearly he was not an idiot or a maniac. He stood before her, flourishing her horn in one hand, holding his gun steadily in the other; tall, intrepid, and solid, just the sort of aggressive and physical man Whitney had expected from her search of his office. There was nothing kindly or gentlemanly about the way he was glaring at her, nothing restrained and businesslike about his dark, wild hair, nothing that indicated he was a corporate vice president. His features were angular, striking, but not pampered, and their ruggedness suggested he didn’t spend all his time behind a desk. Instead of a suit, he wore casual pants and a gray gabardine safari shirt. The sleeves were rolled up, revealing tanned and finely muscled forearms. And yet there wasn’t a single doubt in Whitney’s mind that this was the man whose office she had invaded. This was Daniel Graham.
    “What’s this?” he demanded, raising her black-encased instrument.
    Elbows straightened, palms flat on the wool carpet behind her, Whitney stared up at him. His gun was leveled calmly at her. This isn’t happening to me, she thought; it really isn’t. If she told him he was brandishing a French horn, he would assume she was connected somehow with the Central Florida Symphony Orchestra, which she was. But he wasn’t supposed to know that. If she didn’t tell him it was a French horn, he would assume the worst. Once, on a New York subway, a dangerous-looking man had tried to buy her “machine gun” for an ungodly sum. She had finally had to take out her horn and belt out a hunting call before he’d believe it really wasn’t a weapon.
    “It’s nothing,” she said lamely. “Just a— No! Don’t throw it! Please. I think you’ve already bent my bell. I mean— Oh, blast it all.”
    The