The Bride Wore Blue Read Online Free PDF Page A

crack in a riveted seam on the wingtip, he delivered on the first of his promises to the Cessna.
    “See, baby? I promised I’d take care of you,” he murmured as he smoothed the tape into place then snuck another glance toward the cabin.
    “Let’s let her stew, huh, Hersh?” he suggested softly as the lab nosed his head under his hand, begging for attention.
    Squatting down on his haunches, he gave Hershey the ear-scratching he was angling for. “Never did meet a woman who wasn’t just busting with curiosity and let it get the best of her before all was said and done.”
    Whistling softly between his teeth, he rose to his feet and stepped out onto a float. After a little shifting and tugging, he managed to dislodge the tool kit from under the pilot seat. He grinned when he felt the warm burn of her gaze couple with the eighty-degree sun on his bare back as he peeled back the strip of duct tape securing the engine cowling. Folding it back, he settled in to do a little minor repair work and a lot of creative tinkering while he waited her out.
    “Conceited, stalling jerk,” Maggie muttered under her breath as she checked the sun’s descent toward the west where it would soon disappear in the trees behind her cabin.
    She’d done her twenty-minute workout—old habits were hard to break. She’d showered. She’d made a pitcher of lemonade, then felt too guilty to have a cool glass while he sweltered down there in the hot sun. Finally, she drank a glass for spite just to prove to herself she didn’t care what happened to him.
    She sat by the window with a book but couldn’t remember a thing she’d read because she’d spent most of her time alternately watching Blue and Hershey. The lab’s antics made her smile as he skittered in and out of the woods, sometimes chasing a teasing chipmunk, sometimes wading into the water from the nearby beach to coax a lounging mallard into giving him a run for his money, sometimes lolling in the shade, his only movements the lazy slap of his tail when a fly pestered.
    Blue’s antics, however, made her frown as all the while she watched him, he puttered with his precious plane, never sparing a glance toward the cabin. She wasn’t sure how that made her feel. She only knew his being here unsettled her.
    He’d been down there for over three hours, messing with his tools, taping things together and spreading importantlooking engine parts on her dock. It didn’t look like he was close to packing up and winging his way out of her life any time soon. In fact, she noted, her scowl deepening as she gave up on the book and tossed it on an end table, he’d just laid another piece of greasy metal on the dock.
    She sliced another impatient glance at the clock. It was almost six. While the July sun didn’t completely disappear until nine or after this time of the year, she was getting a little nervous about whether he’d have the Cessna in working order before sunset. If he didn’t, then what would she do with him? While it seemed to be his personal style, she doubted very much that he could fly that plane by night.
    She pinched her mouth tight and bit on the inside of her cheek. Only when she realized what her frustration had driven her to—skulking around in the cabin to avoid him—did she make a decision. She wasn’t going to hide out any longer. Not here. Not because of him. Not in her own home.
    Home. The word stalled, then settled comfortably when she realized she’d applied it to this little cabin in the north woods more than once since she’d been here. New York had been home for the past fourteen years. Yet after a short two-month span of time, this primitive cabin and the vast isolation of the Northland felt more like home than her upscale Soho co-op ever had.
    “At least it had been isolated,” she grumbled as her attention focused again on the man standing with his legs spread wide and his hands full of some mechanical mystery that was dripping oil and making him