Toxic Attack: Spirit of the Soul Wine Shop Mystery (A Rysen Morris Mystery Book 2) Read Online Free Page A

Tuesday now and already the week felt like it had been a month long.  Stretching, she threw off her covers and sat there waiting in her pajama bottoms and cami, the ones with the pink hearts with wings.  When no one popped into her bedroom to tell her the whole thing had been some kind of sick joke she grumbled under her breath about how the universe must hate her and forced herself out of bed. 
    She decided to get breakfast before her shower.  Then she'd have to get to the wine shop and help her sister out.  Brandon was supposed to be coming today to help her with the vanishing money.  Another mystery waiting to be solved.  Could someone be stealing from Christina even now?  Shuffling down the hallway and then down the stairs she thought about it.  Maybe whoever had hired the man to steal wine from Christina was still after her.  But, why?  What would it gain anyone to put one small wine shop out of business in an area where there were so many of them?
    Those questions had her so wrapped up that she didn't see him sitting there.  She was at the coffee pot when he spoke.
    "Hello, Rysen."
    His soft Australian accent was the first thing she noticed.  Then her brain caught onto the fact that here he was, sitting right there at the table, smiling in that way he had that always made her blush.
    Brandon Dennicort was in her kitchen.
    And she was in her PJs.
    Something that sounded a whole lot like "meep" came out of her open mouth before she ran for the stairs.  Up in her room, she tugged off pajama bottoms and her top and grabbed the first things from her drawers she could throw on.  Jeans.  Good.  Socks.  Good.  Pink Iggy Azalea shirt…well.  It would do.
    She tried brushing her unruly hair into a semblance of order before giving up and putting it back in a ponytail with a hair band.  Her reflection stared back at her in the mirror.  Not anything to write poetry about, that was for sure.  She wasn't exactly a beauty queen in the mornings.
    Wait.  Why was she caring about how she looked?  This was Brandon Dennicort, the security consultant.  The guy who had teased her with an admittedly wonderful kiss and then forgotten all about her.  Not someone she was trying to impress.
    Lifting her chin, throwing back her shoulders, she stuck her tongue out at the mirror and marched herself back downstairs to the kitchen.  This was who she was and he could accept it or not.  Brandon was still there, still with one arm tossed over the back of the chair, his foot tapping out a rhythm on the floor.  His dark hair fell across his forehead like a male model in a magazine.
    "Hi," he said to her, like none of that had even happened.
    "Hi yourself," she said back to him, crossing her arms under her chest.  "What are you doing here?"
    "I'm helping your sister.  She thinks someone is still stealing from her.  Turns out, you need my help more."
    "No, I mean here.  Why are you here, in my house?"  Frustration was starting to creep in on her.  Why was he sitting there, all cute and smug, like he suddenly belonged in her life?  She'd already decided she only needed him for one thing.
    Her face burned.  His security training.  That's what she needed from him.  Just that.
    "Oh.  In your house," he said.  "I see.  No worries.  Miss Christina let me in.  Said to tell you she was off to that shop of hers and you could take the morning with me."
    Of course she did.  Rysen made a mental note to have a long talk with her sister about how she could handle her own love life, thank you very much.
    He was waiting for her to say something.  When she didn't, he cleared his throat.  "So.  Tell me about Josh."
    That caught Rysen off guard.  Biting her lip, she shifted from foot to foot.  It was hard to look directly at Brandon.  "Uh.  What do you want to know?"
    He laughed, a soft sound that made his eyes spark.  "Ry, I know you two are dating.  That's not what I meant.  I mean, tell me about the trouble he's got