Tides of Love (Seaswept Seduction Series) Read Online Free PDF Page A

Noah? The one I look like?"
    Noah dropped the tweezers. He jerked his gaze to the boy's face and cataloged features as meticulously as he cataloged species of fish. Square jaw. Tousled gold curls. Conceivably, the jaw could be... and the eyes. Gray, like all the Garrett men. He felt a sharp prick and looked to find the wire embedded in his palm. He winced, snatched it out, and thumbed the dribble of blood.
    Rory poked his big toe in a ghost-crab hole. "I heard them talking once. Real loud. Mad. Uncle Caleb said it was the same as walking 'cross a ghost, seeing me." A shoulder jerk accompanied the confession. "Then I heared my pa talking last night, about you sailing in on Mr. Stymie's skiff."
    Noah reached for the small chin, tipped it high. Rory stared, curious and hopeful. "Where did you hear this?"
    "Warped door at Widow Wynne's. You can listen lots if you're quiet. My pa says everything at Widow Wynne's is warped or busted."
    Noah let his hand drop, unable to do the same with his gaze.
    "You a professor?"
    Seagulls scurried past, searching for a piece of discarded bait. Waves surged, nearly brushing their feet. Rising tide. Noah recorded this in dazed silence as he watched the boy fidget and squirm, a trickle of love seeping past his hardened heart.
    "You a professor?" Rory repeated, tapping the corked end of the pole against his hip.
    Zach's son. Caleb's nephew. His nephew. He swallowed, throat clicking. "That's a, a nickname someone gave me a long time ago."
    "Why?"
    He shrugged. "I don't remember the exact reason. People used to come by the house. The house where I lived with your father and Caleb." Where Rory lived with Zach and Hannah? "They asked me questions."
    "Where'd you find the answers?"
    Noah grabbed the tweezers and made little roads in the sand between his feet. "Books, usually." What year was the cotton gin invented? Why don't the numbers in my ledger add up? Is this a King Mackerel or a Spanish Mackerel? The questions had been as preposterous as the nickname. "They weren't hard to figure out."
    "There's my friend," Rory said, pointing with the tip of the pole.
    He shaded his eyes in time to see Elle swagger over the packed sand, her barefoot stride sure and even. In no hurry to reach them, she stopped once to skip a rock, again to stoop for a shell. The same girl, obviously. Head chock-full of mischief and frivolity. She waved at Rory and turned slightly, her stride faltering. Her hand dropped to her side. The other tensed around her basket handle.
    She hadn't known he was there.
    A moment's wicked pleasure flared in the face of her discomfiture. Hell, she had delivered enough in her day. He had left the coach house before dawn to avoid her.
    Her uncertainty made up for his lack of sleep.
    With a resigned shrug, she swiped her curls from her face, smoothed her hand over her shirtwaist, and started forward. He couldn't help noticing how her dress clung in moist patches—a result of her poor gymnastic ability and her immodesty. Clung to her hips, the curve of her breast.
    Look away, Noah.
    He gave his spectacles a recalcitrant shove. No need to retreat. He didn't care how refreshingly undone she appeared. Her hair lifted in the breeze, and she captured the strands between her fingers. Even in Chicago, few women wore theirs that length, just below the ear.
    Noah preferred long hair.
    When she got closer, he noted that her skirt was tangled in her hand, gathered above any point of decency. Trim ankles. Narrow, fine-boned feet. Too, the years had eased the dappled preponderance of freckles.
    "Such a surprise," she said and plunked her basket to the sand.
    He frowned and scooted as far as he could without actually moving to a different spot.
    "Thank you, Rory, for leaving me wet and floundering."
    Rory giggled. "I told you not to do the somsault."
    "Som er sault. I agree. The first try was shoddy. Perfectly shoddy. Hence, I tried again, much to the delight of a group of fishermen sailing by."
    Noah cut his eyes