The Private Eye

the soft light of his room was having an odd effect on her nerves.
    Perhaps it had been the glimpse of the canopied four-poster bed behind him that had created the disturbing sensation. The whole scene had been far too intimate.
    When she got the computer upstairs she knocked quickly. “I'll leave it outside the door, Mr. January,” she shouted through the wood. “See you downstairs.”
    BACK IN THE BATHROOM, Josh scraped the rest of the shaving cream off his jaw and listened to the sound of Maggie Gladstone's footsteps scurrying down the hall.
    Nice going, January. Apply the chill factor, why don't you, and send the only interesting female you've encountered in God knows how long running in the opposite direction.
    His hunch had been correct. Maggie Gladstone might be a spinster, but she sure as hell wasn't elderly. In fact, she was extremely attractive in a rather unusual way.
    There was a sweet, wide-eyed innocence about her, even though she had to be close to thirty. He was willing to bet she'd been a small-town girl all her life.
    Maybe a schoolteacher or a librarian. She probably read a lot of mystery novels and thought private eyes were the last of the paladin kings – lone crusaders who fought for truth and justice on the side of the little guy.
    Definitely not his type.
    Nevertheless, Josh could not deny he had felt an almost-irresistible urge to thread his fingers through the mass of tawny curls that had cascaded down Maggie's neck. She had looked sleek and lithe, yet rounded in all the right places in that black jumpsuit she'd been wearing. He was thinking about sex. He must be feeling better.
    He gazed broodingly at his dark, forbidding reflection in the mirror and wondered what the hell he had gotten himself into by accepting this bizarre job in Peregrine Point.
    He'd been crazy to let McCray talk him into it. Half out of his mind from the painkillers they had given him at the hospital. That was the only explanation.
    He surveyed his bruised and battered body. None of the damage was permanent. This time. But there was no getting around the fact that a man who was about to turn the big four-oh didn't bounce back the way he would have five, ten or fifteen years ago.
    He was definitely getting too old to be dashing into dark buildings after people who had no strong inhibitions about smashing other people with tire irons, knives and assorted other implements of destruction.
    Too old to play hero. When in hell was he going to learn? Josh wondered grimly.
    He stifled a groan as he leaned over the sink to rinse the shaving cream from his face. Maybe this time he would need a month to recuperate, just as McCray and the doctor had suggested.
    And there was always the book. Josh reminded himself. He needed to bite the bullet and take a crack at writing that mystery novel he'd been contemplating for the past couple of years. Peregrine Manor was just the kind of place where a man could settle in and find out whether he was meant to be a writer.
    Josh bit back a savage oath as he limped heavily out of the tiny bathroom. The ankle was only sprained, not broken, but when he accidentally jarred it, the damn thing seemed to ache a lot more than a fracture would have. At least the bruises would fade in a few more days.
    He gave the frivolous room a single, disparaging glance and shook his head. The place looked like something out of a fairy tale with its rounded tower walls, heavy velvet drapes and the gingerbread trim on the furniture. The bed itself was an ornate monstrosity. Josh knew he was going to feel like an idiot when he levered himself up into the thing via the little wooden steps on the side. He wondered if the management would supply an old-fashioned bed warmer at night.
    For some reason that thought brought Maggie Gladstone to mind again.
    Josh jerked a suitcase up onto the silly-looking bed and opened it. Inside he found a clean white shirt and a silk tie. There was a fairly decent Italian jacket and a pair of slacks in the garment bag. It was beyond him why anyone would bother to dress for dinner in a place like this, but he was willing to go along with the program. Up to a point.
    He grinned fleetingly at the thought of what Maggie Gladstone's expression would be when she saw him wearing a pair of unlaced running shoes with his Italian jacket and silk tie. There was no way he was going to get a pair of dress shoes onto his still-swollen left foot.
    Twenty minutes later, Josh made his way slowly and