The Fireside Inn Read Online Free PDF

have island connections, own property here, and their support for the library would mean a lot to the people of the town. So, in return for helping you with your poetry needs, I’d like an invitation to the wedding and a chance to convince the Harringtons to sponsor the library.”
    “Why bother?” Leo arched a brow questioningly. “Not that I’m refusing, mind you—I’d be honored to have you as my date to the wedding. But I already told you I’d give you the money the library needs.”
    Serena lifted her chin. “That’s my other condition. If you’re going to give me money, there can’t be any more kissing. I’m not comfortable with what it would say about me if I got involved with you personally in return for a donation.”
    Dismay clouded Leo’s bright eyes, and he went all stiff and British again. “I certainly never intended to imply anything of the sort.”
    “I know that,” Serena said, although the fact that he said it, and seemed to mean it, made her insides feel fluttery and warm. “And that’s only part of it, anyway—”
    She brought herself up short, appalled at what she’d been about to tell him.
    Leo frowned. “What’s the other part?”
    “Um, nothing,” Serena hedged, sidling around him and out from behind the reference desk to start getting ready to open the library. “I just meant to say, I’ll spend time with you, if that’s what you really want—but I’m not promising to sleep with you. So if any part of your proposition was based on that, we might as well get that out in the open up front.”
    A funny look came over Leo’s face as he watched her bustle around setting up a circle of child-sized plastic chairs. Serena kept an eye on him as she worked, trying hard not to hold her breath for his response. She couldn’t make any guesses based on his expression, which seemed to slide from stunned to stimulated.
    “I’m not looking for a guaranteed bed partner,” he finally said, all but purring the words in a sleek, low voice that sent shivers to raise the hairs on the back of Serena’s neck. “If you’ll agree to spend time with me, that’s all I ask. That—and the opportunity to change your mind.”
    Serena gulped in a choked breath as Leo rounded the corner of the desk, scooping up his coat and umbrella as he passed, and strolled toward her. “Change my mind?” she squeaked.
    Desire flared molten hot in Leo’s smoldering gaze, and Serena tried to steel herself to withstand another of those drugging kisses, but all he did was reach out and tuck one of her longer curls behind her ear. His fingertips skimmed the shell of her ear, lighting the sensitive nerve endings on fire.
    Serena only realized she’d closed her eyes when his dark, delicious voice startled her into snapping them open.
    “I’ll give you access to the Harrington family and the other wealthy wedding attendees, and in return, you’ll help me with my ceremonial reading…and you’ll give me the chance to seduce you.” He smiled down at her. “Do we have a deal?”
    For the first time in her life, Serena thought she could sympathize with Dr. Faustus, making his foolish deal with the devil. When the devil was this appealing, what mere mortal could resist him?
    Telling herself she could keep her end of the bargain without giving up more than she could afford to lose, Serena opened her mouth and sealed her fate.
    “We have a deal.”

Chapter 3
    Leo climbed out of his classic 1937 Jaguar convertible wondering if he’d found the right place. Miles’s fiancée, Greta Hackley, had looked a little surprised when he’d dropped by her hardware store to ask how to get to Honeysuckle Ridge, but the directions she’d provided had seemed straightforward.
    Now, as Leo pocketed his keys and stared out over the expanse of sunlit hilltop, all he saw was a lookout point covered in tall grass that waved in the cold, steady breeze off the ocean. Loud honking overhead tugged his attention skyward just as a flock