More Than Meets the Eye by Karen Witemeyer

Author:Karen Witemeyer
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Historical Romance;FIC042030;FIC042040;FIC027050
ISBN: 9781441269447
Publisher: Baker Publishing Group
Published: 2018-04-10T16:00:00+00:00

18

Logan gathered his solitaire cards from the ground and gave them a vigorous shuffle. Tension radiated up his forearms as he repeated the familiar motion twice more. His quarry should’ve been here by now. Logan glared up at a sun well past its zenith.

He’d expected to be home by now, sharing his discoveries with Eva. Basking in her awe of his investigative prowess. Or at least listening to her praise his mediocre carpentry skills at the cabin and enjoying whatever snack she’d chosen to tantalize him with that afternoon. Instead, he was stuck outside Ben Franklin, waiting for a lazy bootlegger to get around to making his delivery.

Seated beneath the low-hanging branches of an ancient oak, Logan was hidden from the path that wound toward the school building and the all-important outhouse at the back. An outhouse with lovely purple flowers on the door, no doubt painted by some overzealous schoolgirl. Yet the purple would make it easy coding for the system Miss Gilliam had described.

Logan dealt out another hand of cards, his eighth. He was down, two games to five, and losing didn’t help his mood any. He glanced at the empty path and scowled. Bring the whiskey, already. I’ve got better places to be and better company to keep.

School had let out an hour ago. The kids had tromped off. The schoolmaster had followed about thirty minutes later, getting into a smart black buggy and driving back toward town. He looked like he could have benefited from the exercise of walking the half mile, but his balding, hatless pate would have suffered without the protection of the buggy’s shaded top.

Logan picked up the ace of hearts he’d just turned over and set it aside. He moved the two of hearts to that new pile and flipped over the card beneath it to find the king of clubs. He frowned at the five cards stacked beneath the king, unable to move until the man on top got out of the way. And the king couldn’t get out of the way until a fresh path opened up, just as Logan couldn’t move until the bootlegger appeared. He could only guess what the bootlegger was waiting on. Christmas, probably.

A grunt rumbled in his chest as he flipped over the next card. Waiting needled his nerves, especially when the prize was within sight. He’d spent the last two and a half weeks working the tables and cozying up to the Ben Franklin locals at the Seven Ponies Saloon, preparing for the perfect moment to broach the subject of moonshine stills. That opportunity had finally presented itself last night.

He’d purposely lost a tidy sum to a braggart named Bellows, who loudly crowed over his victory, earning the disdain of the rest of the men at the table. Logan carefully exploited this contempt as he commiserated with the losers. A comment bemoaning the lack of strong drink available to wash away the pain of losing to such a sore winner was all it took to finagle an invitation to a jug party out behind the livery.

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