Spellbound Falls by Janet Chapman Read Free Book Online

were driving by when… while Mark… when he…” She stuffed her hands in the pockets of the jacket, unable to admit—even to herself—that she’d nearly been raped.
“And you just let the bastard go?” John growled, his question directed at Mac.
“Not by choice,” Mac said. “It would appear your daughter-in-law doesn’t believe in holding a ‘dumb kid’ accountable for his actions.”
Eileen sighed so hard Olivia felt her hair move as her mother-in-law wrapped an arm around her. “Oh, Livy, you’ve always been too damned softhearted for your own good. Good Lord, you’re shaking like a leaf.” Only because she’d started shivering again when she’d spotted Mark speeding toward them from Inglenook, his face filled with fear as he’d nearly driven into the ditch when they’d passed each other on the narrow dirt road.
“Let’s go inside and get some hot tea into you.” Eileen tightened her arm around Olivia. “Please come in, Mr. Oceanus, so we can properly thank you.”
Her rescuer fell into step with John hobbling beside her on his crutches. “I prefer you call me Mac. And could you also tell Henry how he should address all of you, as I’m unsure what to advise him.”
Eileen stopped. “Everyone here is on a first-name basis, Mac, especially the children. All of our staff wear name tags, and the first few days of each session we encourage our guests to wear the conference badges we give them.” Her smile widened. “We should probably have some name tags made for you and Henry, since the two of you will practically be permanent fixtures here for the next six months.”
Mac bowed ever so slightly, though Olivia noticed his smile didn’t quite reach his eyes. Apparently Maximilian Oceanus wasn’t all that keen on running around with his name plastered on his chest.
Still hugging Olivia, Eileen headed up the walkway to the lodge. “I told you the moment I met him there was somethingodd about Mark,” she said quietly. “And the worst part is you
agreed
with me. But you kept him on against my better judgment anyway, claiming you couldn’t very well have him drive all the way from Georgia just to fire him.” She gave Olivia a squeeze. “I can’t believe you allowed that bastard to drive away after what he did to you.”
Olivia let herself be led up the stairs like a child, wondering how they’d gone from Mark to
her
being the idiot.
Sitting on the bathroom floor of cabin six, a pipe wrench in one hand and an opened book on home repairs in the other, Olivia scowled at the pipes coming out of the leaky water heater crammed in the closet between the shower and equally leaky toilet. She’d given herself one hour to change out the heater, a half hour to replace the wax ring on the toilet, twenty minutes to tidy everything up afterward, and ten minutes to deal with any surprises. Only that schedule was blown to hell now, seeing how it had taken her thirty minutes crawling around under the cabin to find the water shutoff that some diabolical plumber had placed
under
the floor.
She glanced down at the step-by-step pictures in the book, then at the heater, then at the pictures again—not one of which looked anything like the maze of pipes in front of her. She snapped the book closed and tossed it on the floor, crawled onto her hands and knees and squeezed into the closet, and fitted the pipe wrench over the corroded brass… thingy on the bottom side of the tank. Maybe she’d have better luck figuring out how to plumb in the new heater after she got rid of the old one.
Of course it couldn’t be simple; she couldn’t see what she was doing because her body was blocking the light, the brass thingy wouldn’t budge once she finally got the wrench adjusted over it, and she was pretty sure she was stuck. Twisting like a contortionist didn’t help, and neither did cursing. And just when she thought nothing else could go wrong, Olivia realized someone was standing behind her.
“I swear to God, John,”