Magnolia Dawn Read Online Free PDF

“Go away, Lowell,” she said wearily. “You’ve hurt me enough for tonight.”
    Anna turned and started into the house, knowing that if Lowell followed her, she couldn’t stop him. As he’d said, he owned half of Ashland.
    â€œAnnabelle…”
    She looked back and for one brief moment she thought she saw a glimmer of the boy he had once been. Then the softness vanished, replaced once more with bitterness and cynicism. Without waiting to see what he’d wanted, she retreated to the solace of Ashland.
    * * *
    The next morning, Rush carried a cup of coffee out onto his small front porch. The day was clear and bright, the sky a cloudless blue. Although not even seven, according to the thermostat outside his kitchen window, the temperature had already hit the eighty-degree mark.
    It felt it, Rush thought, absently scratching his bare chest. And it felt good. The heat. Being here. Standing half naked on this front porch and watching the day rise over Ashland.
    Did it feel so right because he’d been a young boy at Ashland? Was he responding to this place because he recognized it, or because he wanted to?
    Rush turned his gaze to the grove of magnolias and took a sip of his coffee, enjoying its strong, almost-bitter taste. He didn’t know. He’d spent the day before combing the plantation grounds, searching for something that would trigger the same response in him that the music box had.
    This house had come the closest, yet when he’d logically examined his recognition of the floor plan, he’d had to admit that it wasn’t an unusual one. In fact, it was standard. In his years of building he’d worked on similar houses.
    So he’d vacillated between being certain he’d visited Ashland Plantation in the past and being certain he was going through some sort of ridiculous mid-life crisis.
    He made a sound of frustration. He wasn’t accustomed to uncertainty. Since he’d been old enough to take charge of his life, he had. He’d always known exactly what he wanted and what he felt, and he’d acted accordingly. Even those months he’d lived on the streets, he’d been certain of his every action and of how he would survive.
    Rush frowned and brought the cup to his lips once more. Frustrating, too, had been his inability to put Annabelle Ames from his mind. He’d caught himself thinking of her, remembering something she’d said or the way she’d looked at him. Several times during the course of the day he’d caught a glimpse of her, and each time he’d given her a wide berth. Because she’d wanted to be alone, and because he had, too.
    She’d been up as late as he the night before. He’d seen her lights burning long after her brother had left.
    Lowell Ames. Rush’s frown deepened, remembering his meeting with the other man the night before. They’d come face-to-face in the driveway as Lowell had alighted from his vehicle. Rush had detested the man on sight—even before he’d heard how he treated his sister.
    Anna’s and Lowell’s voices had carried on the fog, and he had listened to their argument. Listened shamelessly. He would use every opportunity to try to unearth a clue to his past, would even stoop to eavesdropping.
    And he’d learned much about the brother and sister, Rush thought, turning his gaze to Ashland’s huge square columns. He narrowed his eyes. Where Anna was strong, Lowell was weak and self-pitying. Where
Anna had character, Lowell had attitude. Anna would do whatever was necessary to save Ashland; Lowell had no love for the plantation at all—in fact he wished they could be rid of it.
    Rush took a long swallow of the coffee. He could understand Annabelle’s love of this place. He found Ashland beautiful, even with her cracks and crumbling plaster, her overgrown gardens, her hue of age and decay. How could Lowell Ames, having grown up here, not love it also?