Invitation to Provence Read Online Free PDF

lofty branches in a dying red glow.
    The only sound would be of birds calling each other on their nightly way home to their nests and the soughing of the wind in the tall trees, and the only thing of great value he possessed was the eighteenth-century silver candelabra given by Rafaella as a wedding gift that stood incongruously on his plain wood-plank kitchen table. For Jake, heaven on earth was right there in his few solitary acres, ten miles from the nearest small town and the nearest bar and light-years away from the tensions of his business world.
    He owned a ’97 mud-spattered four-wheel drive that was once green but now showed more rust, and a stray dog he’d picked up on the road and named Criminal for his wickedways; and also a soot-gray gelding named Dirty Harry that nobody else had wanted. The dog and the horse both lived at the stables outside the small town when he was off on his travels. Of course they preferred being with him, but they accepted the rough with the smooth and greeted him as joyfully as Santa at Christmas when he came home again.
    Jake thought the emotion he felt for Criminal, his shaggiest of shaggy somewhat-of-a-retriever, was probably the closest to true love he could feel now. Which didn’t say a lot for his friendships with women, which were of the on-and-off variety, mostly because he couldn’t spare sufficient time to put into a relationship. A dog would always wait for you. A woman would not.
    He glanced at his watch. It had been exactly four hours since he’d called Rafaella and accepted her invitation. He’d rearranged his schedule for those weeks and delegated important work, so that he would be there in September, come rain or come shine. He was willing to bet that his life would never be the same. Rafaella always had that effect on him.
    Meanwhile, he was on his way to L.A. The car would pick him up in ten minutes. It would take him to Teterboro airport in New Jersey, where his private jet awaited. He wasn’t looking forward to the trip, but business was business.
    He sipped his Bud. It was iced to the hilt, and he grinned his pleasure to the bartender. He was studying the list of invitees Rafaella had sent him. The only unknown was a woman named Franny Marten. He’d bet that Rafaella didn’t know much about her either, other than that she was Paul Marten’s daughter—Paul Marten was the only sibling of Rafaella’s father. Which meant that this FrannyMarten might suddenly find herself heir to a château and a fortune.
    Jake’s office had tracked the details of her life in a matter of hours. Now he studied the bleak snippets of information that told him who the possible heir to the Château des Roses Sauvages might be. Franny Marten was alone in the world, a single Santa Monica vet who also did good works for rescued animals.
    He could just picture her, a too-nice Oregon girl, a little bit gawky, a little bit country, addicted to jeans and peasant tops and lacy shawls, sort of like Ali MacGraw in
Love Story,
all big white smile and soulful dark eyes. He’d bet she was the kind of vague woman who’d button her shirt wrong and drink chamomile tea, and that she’d smell faintly of horses and disinfectant with a whiff of citrusy perfume.
    Jake’s researcher had also discovered there was a boyfriend. Marcus Marks lived in Atlanta and was married. Jake wondered briefly how supposedly intelligent women got themselves into these situations. Then, since he was on his way to L.A. anyway, he decided he’d better check out Franny Marten himself before letting her loose on Rafaella. Nice country girl or not, the promise of a château and a fortune could turn any woman into a predator.

 
    5
    T HE NEXT DAY, Jake parked the rented silver Mustang in front of the undistinguished square building in a strip mall near Main Street in Venice Beach, California. YOUR LOCAL VETERINARY CLINIC AND ANIMAL HOSPITAL was inscribed in large gold letters on the glass doors. Underneath, in slightly