The Trouble with Magic (Loveswept) Read Online Free PDF

trouble.”
    In a strained silence she put coffee and water in the coffee maker and then, with her hands on the counter behind her, she turned back to him.
    “Would you like to see the main floor while we’re waiting?” she asked, unsure of how to proceed after his outburst.
    “No,” he said bluntly. “I’m sure the rest of the house is as fine as what I’ve seen so far. I don’t need to see any more.” The kitchen was a bright, warm, well-used room with tall stools lined up at the center work island.
    Frowning, she watched Payton straddle one of the stools and lean his elbows on the counter.
    “I’m not stupid, Mr. Dunsmore.” He looked at her. “If I’d brought you out here and tried to tell you the place was a shambles—when a blind man can see that it isn’t—you’d have called me a liar and a cheat and refused to help me.”
    This was true, but he’d never intended to help her anyway.
    She crossed from the sink to the island, her hands spread beseechingly.
    “I’ve come to you in good faith, as open and honest as I can be, because I want you to see Jovette Island for what it really is—a home. My home. It isn’t just another piece of real estate, it’s my family’s history.” Her words were building up speed and momentum. “Lazare Jovette was a French trapper who traded with the Indians for this island. Gerard Jovette fought Americans to keep the island; and then, as fate would have it, by the time the boundary between Canada and the United States was decided upon, his grandson Jean had already fallen in love with and married a young American woman, and the island remained in Jovette hands. Adam Jovette fought tooth and nail to keep it when the Jovettes lost most of their money during the crash of ’29 and through the depression. My own parents weren’t wealthy people, they had to make sacrifices to keep this island and—” She went suddenly silent.
    “And that leaves you,” he said, finishing for her.
    “That leaves me.”
    For a long moment he studied her, and when he couldn’t stand seeing the sadness and the hope and touching ray of faith in her eyes any longer, he stood and resettled himself at a window. He stared out at more lawn and the dense field of trees that covered the rest of the island.
    He didn’t want to hurt her. He wasn’t a sentimental man, and she was nothing to him but a stranger who’d caused him a great deal of aggravation. But a minute part of him, hidden deep inside, was inhibiting his usual decisive business practices, in favor of a less harsh, less cruel beat-around-the-bush method that he normally scorned.
    “Are there any ghosts?” he asked, not looking at her.
    “Ghosts? Of course not. Why do you ask?”
    “Family homes with a history and an active ghost or two are hard to come by these days,” he said, his voice dispassionate. “Antiquity is in these days. And ghosts attract tourists and thrill seekers like magnets. Though, even without the ghosts, there’s enough history in this place to turn a good profit. ... of course, we could always invent a couple of ghosts.”
    He’d come to her island, but he hadn’t heard or seen anything except what he’d wanted to see and what he’d wanted to hear. A loud clanging noise sounded in Harriet’s head. Prison bars. Her fate was sealed.
    “Would a legend help?” she asked, her voice rigid with anger, her heart as hard and heavy as stone as she set her plan into action.

Three
    “A LEGEND?” HE ASKED, TURNING to look at her. “What sort of legend?”
    “Magic,” she said. She couldn’t trust the expression on her face not to betray her and busied herself pouring coffee for them both. “This island is magical.”
    He laughed. It was a deep, warm sound she might have enjoyed if it didn’t hurt her so much.
    He had to admire her. Harriet Wheaton was a woman of her word. She’d obviously seen that she hadn’t convinced him not to buy the island and instead of whining and crying and begging him