The Unwilling Bride by Jennifer Greene Read Free Book Online Page A

“So sorry, I didn’t understand.” Stefan was innocent as she was genetic kin to a duck. But he hadn’t tried kissing her again. Hadn’t done one thing, in fact, beyond show up with frightening regularity—and usually after having done something nice for her out of the blue.
    No one had ever spoiled Paige, and she’d never met anyone who indulged in random acts of kindness. It wasn’t normal. It wasn’t natural.
    He had to want something from her, and Paige felt increasingly aggravated—and worried—that she couldn’t figure out what it was.
    She kept a suspicious eye on him while she finished lunch. He hadn’t been in her workshop since that first morning with the fire, and he was investigating every nook and cranny and shelf more thoroughly than an FBI agent. His hands were slugged in the pockets of a brand-new pair of acid-washed jeans, his shoulders hunched in a No Fear sweatshirt. With the wild beard and unruly hair, he looked like an all-American motorcyclegang thug, like the bad-boy every mother warned her daughter about.
    Like a man Paige should have the good sense to be scared of.
    It was the first time her absentmindedness had struck her as a dangerous character flaw. She meant to remember that there were things about him that should logically scare her, but Stefan was so darned fascinating that worry kept slipping her mind. As he loped around the room, he fired a continual round of questions at her. She gave him the names for everything he asked—dop sticks, diamond wax, riffler, scorpers, gravers. Heaven knew why he asked. Her cameo-carving stuff had to bore any outsider witless. Yet typically, nothing escaped his curiosity and he took in every new vocabulary word as if he were a sieve.
    “Stefan…” Finally she pushed aside her empty plate. “You haven’t brought up your cousins since the first week you were here. How’re they doing?” He’d mentioned his relatives in town, and she even vaguely knew the family; the couple ran a catering business. Yet as far as she could tell, he hadn’t spent any time with them—much less in proportion to the time he was spending with her.
    “They’re fine. Good people, my kin. But right now they are gone to spend a month in Florida.”
    “Florida, huh?” She tried to sound interested rather than startled, but it never occurred to her that his only relatives had deserted ship, not when he was brand-new to a whole different country and way of life. He really was alone.
    Except for her.
    He flashed her a grin as he continued to roam around her shop. “My cousins told me ahead they had these travel plans. I figured out that this Florida trip is a major American must—rush south in the winter, hit the beach. The city I lived in, Petersburg, had reputation for the worst climate on planet. Torrential rains, endless fog, harsh and bitter winds. Beach is nice, but this cold climate is more what I am used to.” He turned his head. “Is this the cameo you’re making for your sister?”
    “Yes. I hope. It’s too soon to know if it’s going to work out.” She watched him bend over the leather-lined vise, where she had clamped the piece of coral. It couldn’t look like anything to him. It wasn’t anything yet. She’d determined the size, marked the outline with India ink, removed the back of the shell with a high-speed blade and lubricated the cut with water. Now it was back in the vise, waiting.
    “There is frustration in your voice. You’re having trouble with this?”
    “Not…trouble. But I was lucky to find this piece—two -shaded coral is really rare.” She didn’t really know how to explain. “Every stone or shell is different. It has its own beauty, its own truth, nothing the artist can put in there, but something I have to find. That probably sounds weird—”
    “Not weird,” he said firmly.
    “Well…anyway, coral is an especially fragile material to work with. Very easy to ruin with one wrong cut. And sometimes I have to study the