It Must Be Magic Read Online Free PDF Page B

Instead, Tanner Rutland leaned an elbow on the table, covered his mouth with a big hand and looked at her with those sky-blue eyes. One one-thousand, two one-thousand. She counted up to five waiting for the inevitable explosion.
    Instead, he laughed.
    Tanner had issues. The poor man had a muddy-blue aura like Fluffy, but he also had a lot of gray. Gray was bad. It meant his fears, and perhaps some sort of resentment, festered inside him. The man would give himself a heart attack at an early age. Lili had a feeling he was pining for his wife. He probably had scads of messy emotions about her death, and Lili would be willing to bet he’d never talked about them.
Never.
    Right now all his muddy blue-gray had morphed into a playful bright yellow. What he needed was more laughter in his life.
    Only this wasn’t the time for him to be laughing.
    He controlled himself, swiping a hand down his face. “Sorry, but that’s the last thing I expected you to say.”
    “What did you expect?”
    “Maybe that Bigfoot chased Fluffy.”
    He
was
laughing at her, and he did think she was a ditzy airhead. It didn’t matter. “I wouldn’t joke about it.”
    “I don’t mean to sound doubtful. I know you believe everything you’re saying.”
    Translation: “You may believe it but no one else in his right mind will.”
    She hadn’t a clue how to convince him. Except to appeal to his good sense. “Haven’t you seen Fluffy? He’s really shaken up.”
    “I’ve seen Fluffy.” And that was all he said.
    “If I tell you how I talk to animals, that might explain —”
    He held up a hand. “It’s not necessary.” Then he gave her a quizzical look, as if he were debating how to phrase his next words. “I assume you’d like to do a second reading on Fluffy.”
    She couldn’t help smiling, glowing actually. He got it! “I can clear up everything if I spend a little more time with him. Maybe what I saw —” she spread her hands in apology “— isn’t what I thought I saw.” It was a possibility. Even a hope.
    Tanner leaned back in his chair, crossed one running shoe–clad foot over the opposite knee and held his ankle with both hands. Then he switched, the other foot to the other knee, and took a long,
long
time to ask his next question. “How much do you charge for something like that?”
    This time she gasped. “I don’t charge. I
help
animals. I would never ask for anything in return.”
    His gaze flitted around the kitchen, then returned to hers, almost reluctantly. And she knew what he was thinking.
    “I didn’t
ask
Wanetta to leave me the house.”
    She was used to being judged crazy or silly or stupid. But no one had ever accused her of using her skills for profit. Or worse, to swindle an elderly lady out of her house.
    He cleared his throat. “I’m not trying to be insulting —”
trying
being the operative word, because she was insulted. “Wanetta was sharp. She’d never let you get away with it.”
    “Is that the
only
reason you don’t think I’m guilty?”
    His gaze traveled her face, then settled on her lips, and she heated from the inside out, then the outside back in.
    “Not the only reason.” He raised his eyes to hers, and she was caught by the blueness. “I don’t think you know how to lie.”
    It was a backhanded sort of compliment, but she took it anyway. “Thank you.”
    He dropped his voice to a husky whisper that shivered along her arms. “And Wanetta knew a good heart when she met one.”
    Now
that
compliment made her cheeks flush hotter than his lingering gaze on her lips.
    As he sat back, the intimate moment dissolved. “How you got Wanetta’s house isn’t my main concern right now.”
    “What is?”
    “I don’t want my daughter involved in anything.”
    Her hand to her chest, she whispered, “But this is
murder.
”
    He leaned forward once more, until they were so close she could see her reflection in his pupils. He smelled good, like sun-dried laundry and mellow after-shave.