Portrait of My Heart by Patricia Cabot Read Free Book Online Page A

Maggie to assimilate all at once. Used to quiet country living, she wasn’t at all sure how to react to this new turn of events. She needed time for reflection, time to pull herself together—both literally and figuratively—time to figure Out how best to beat this new and disturbing discovery: She was afraid of Jeremy Rawlings.
    She never had a chance. She’d hardly made it past the turnaround in front of the rambling, three-storied manor house, before she heard a deep voice—Lord, even his voice had changed!—call her name. Damn! Maggie stopped dead in her tracks, looked heavenward for strength, then slowly pivoted toward him.
    “Where do you think you’re going?” Jeremy’s voice, though deep, had a note of amusement in it that Maggie recognized. It was the same tone in which he’d often addressed her, shortly after suffering through one of her innumerable pranks.
    “Uh,” Maggie said. “Nowhere. Inside. To find a button.” Mentally, she kicked herself. Oh, brilliant conversation, Maggie!
    “Come with me,” Jeremy said. He had caught King, and now stood panting from the exertion and looking, in Maggie’s opinion, far too handsome, with the sun bringing out blue highlights in his jet-black hair—he’d apparently lost his hat in their tumble—and his cravat untied just enough to reveal a few dark curls of chest hair at the base of his throat.
    “Uh,” Maggie said. Again, she was having trouble with her tongue. Normally, she couldn’t keep it still, but today, it was as heavy as a brick inside her mouth. “No. I can’t. I’ve really got to—”
    “Just come with me while I get this beast safely stabled away.” He was grinning down at her as if her reluctance were one of the funniest things he’d ever seen. “Then we’ll go inside and find you a button. Come on.”
    “I really can’t, Jeremy. My mother—”

    “Oh, dash your mother.” The silver eyes flashed challengingly, as the grin on his face grew wider. “What are you afraid of?”
    Maggie froze. “Nothing,” she said, too quickly. Nothing wrong with her tongue anymore.
    The silver eyes glinted. “You wouldn’t be afraid of me, now would you, Mags?”
    “Certainly not!”
    “Are you lying to me, Mags?”
    “No …”
    The grin turned into a smile so wide that she could see all of his white, even teeth. “No, of course not. I didn’t think so. So come on.” He turned to present her with the crook of his free arm. “Walk with me. I want to hear all about how you’ve been keeping yourself these past five years. You’re still painting, obviously. But what else have you been doing?”
    Maggie cast one last, longing glance at the large double doors of the manor house. Beyond them lay safety, sanity, and a maid with a sewing kit. But Maggie had never been able to abide cowardice, least of all in herself. So, sighing, she crossed the drive and slipped a hand through the crook of Jeremy’s elbow.
    “Oh,” she said, breezily. “Not much.”

Chapter 4

    It had been too easy. All it had taken was a goad at her pride, and she was his. Well, not really his … not yet, anyway. But he’d managed to discover her weakness—or rather, rediscover it, since he remembered now, quite clearly, that Maggie could always be coerced into doing just about anything by one simple sentence: You’re not afraid, are you, Mags?
    She was doing a very good job of looking unafraid, supremely unafraid, at the moment, perched on a bale of hay just outside of King’s stall, her feet swinging above the floor as she leaned back against a wooden post. Unfortunately, she still kept one hand clenched around the front of her bodice, depriving him of another glimpse of the curves of those pale beauties. He didn’t think it would be long, however, before he got to do more than just look at them. Now that he knew what to say to get a rise out of her, he had no doubt that soon, very soon, he’d finally be getting revenge on Maggie Herbert for all those tricks