Blood in the Marsh Read Online Free PDF

will back me up on this!” Lexi flopped down on the couch beside him. “Leo, honey, maybe you can talk some sense into her. Tell her that men don’t like women who look like they just came in out of the field or something!”
    Leopold smiled intimately at Lexi then rose to cross the room and sit down beside Lyra. He tried to take her hand but she moved away. “Darling, your mother is only thinking of you. Do not be so hard on her because she cares for you. However, in this instance I disagree with Lexi. Anyone who cares for you should accept you for the person you are, not your appearance. And there is a certain charm in the natural look.”
    Lyra’s eyes widened in surprise as Lexi sputtered, “Leo! For goodness sake, I wanted your help in convincing her to fix herself up at little, not agreeing with her ‘plain Jane’ attitude!”
    Leo smiled at Lyra then turned to Lexi. “Alexandra, your daughter is a grown woman and has every right to choose her own manner of style. Besides, my darling, not every woman is suited to the flamboyant and glamorous style you favor.”
    Lexi preened at his compliment and stretched lazily. “Perhaps you’re right, my love.”
    Lyra was immensely relieved and even found her attitude about Leopold changing a little. She had never expected him to come to her defense and it surprised her that he had openly disagreed with Lexi.
    He turned to Lyra and patted her on the knee. “So, tell us something about this fellow, dear.”
    Lyra stood and looked from him to Lexi. She didn’t want them to know that she had been both infatuated with and terrified of Nick the first moment she set eyes on him. She had spent every moment since he had asked her, trying to analyze her feelings, but kept coming full circle to being in the dark. The only explanation she could come up with was that his air of mystery was what made her anxious. She wasn’t going to let that stand in her way.
    She reminded herself not to get her hopes up. More than likely this date would be like all her others. She would go out with him and he would either be completely bored with her or he would try to get sexual and she would freeze up and that would be the end of it.
    Lyra didn’t have a successful track record with men. She’d talked with several therapists and all agreed that her difficulties probably stemmed from her childhood. When she was thirteen one of Lexi’s men friends had gotten drunk and tried to take advantage of her. Had it not been for a ceramic cat Lucius had given her, she might have ended up being raped. Luckily for her the cat was within reach and so it ended with the man having to be taken to the hospital to get stitches in his head and Lexi slapping Lyra and calling her a vicious troublemaker who was bent on making sure that she ran off anyone Lexi cared about.
    While it might have made perfect sense to the therapists, it didn’t ring true for Lyra. She remembered the event. It hadn’t been pleasant but it hadn’t terrified her, either. She remembered being more disgusted and mad than afraid.
    She suspected it was something else, something she’d never confided in anyone, not even Lucius. The dreams that had plagued her for so long were not all the stuff of nightmares. There were also dreams of passion. Lyra had seen the face of love in her dreams, knew his touch, the sound of his voice and the safely she felt in his arms.
    She also knew the touch of another’s hands. A man whose face she could never describe. His hands brought passion and pain, the two mixing so well that it was impossible to distinguish between the two. His brand of passion terrified her for it was the allure of something dark and deadly.
    Something a lot like Nick. That thought gave her an uncomfortable start. Why would she think such a thing? Passing it off as a product of her overactive imagination and anxiety at meeting someone new and feeling insecure about herself, she brought her thoughts back to the present.
    “I don’t