The Seductive Impostor Read Online Free PDF Page A

her way. “Now go. Have fun, call me the instant you sit at your new desk, and find a nice apartment with good neighbors. And make sure it has a spare bedroom,” she said more loudly as Willow set her suitcase in the backseat of her car. “I’m not sleeping on the couch when I come visit.”
    Willow stopped and turned from opening the driver’s door, shading her eyes from the morning sun as she looked back at the porch.
    â€œI’m proud of you, Willow,” Rachel said, her voice husky with emotion. “You know what you want and you’ve gone after it like a whirlwind. And now you’re going to be Maine’s youngest, brightest, hardest-working assistant attorney general.”
    â€œAnd do you know what you want?” Willow asked back, just as gruffly.
    Rachel nodded. “Yes. And I’ll go after it, too. Soon.”
    Willow still hesitated, then suddenly her expression lifted and she shot Rachel a grin and pointed at her. “I want to put Puffy in the town square this weekend. The townspeople are going to go nuts this time, Rachel, trying to figure out where he came from.”
    â€œIt’s good for what ails them,” Rachel said, returning the grin. “And every town square needs a statue.”
    â€œBut an eight-foot puffin?” Willow asked with a chuckle. “Replacing beat-up old mailboxes is one thing, but putting a big colorful bird in the middle of town is a bit more risky. What if we get caught?”
    â€œWe won’t. I promise. Now get out of here, unless you want to get fired before you even see your new office.”
    With a final wave, Willow climbed into her car and drove away. Rachel continued to wave back, waiting until her sister was out of sight before she dropped her hand and expelled a loud sigh of relief.
    That was one problem out of the way for the next few days. She pulled the emerald earrings out of her pocket and stared at the expensive green stones. Now all she had to do was gather up all the other problems and get rid of them as well.
    She looked up at Sub Rosa. “You might want to put on the tea kettle, Rosa,” she softly told the house. “Because it looks like I’ll be paying you a visit tonight.”
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    Rachel took a deep breath through a count of four, held it through a count of six, then slowly released it through a count of eight. Determined not to give in to the overwhelming urge to flee to the safety her cozy kitchen, she repeated the process three more times.
    It still wasn’t working. Instead of calming her, the breathing exercise only made her dizzy. Her heart continued to race as memories flooded her senses: the smell of granite dust mingled with sea mist, the warm brush of stone touching her shoulders, the heaviness of Sub Rosa’s brooding weight pushing her deeper into its cocoon.
    Rachel leaned her cane against the granite wall of the tunnel and reached down and massaged the neoprene brace covering her right knee. Her entire leg was complaining about the trek up the overgrown path through the woods, complaining even more about her having carried nearly forty pounds of stolen art the entire way.
    The pack on her back shifted to one side when she bent over. Rachel shrugged her shoulders and let the pack carefully finish falling to the ground. She followed it, sitting on the warm granite floor of the tunnel, stretching her legs out in front of her, massaging her knee again.
    This hadn’t been one of her brightest ideas, sneaking in through the cliff tunnel tonight and beginning to right her father’s wrong. But it had been the only plan she’d been able to come up with on such short notice.
    She wanted this settled before Keenan Oakes arrived.
    And it had to be settled in such a way that Willow would never discover their father’s sin. Rachel knew her sister well enough to realize that Willow’s personal ethics would not allow her to simply ignore the fact that