Free Spellbound Falls by Janet Chapman Page B

a good hour before he wanted Henry to go to sleep. “Why don’t you wait until you know Olivia better, and then decide for yourself if you think she’s wise or frightened? Good night,” he said with all the authority of a man nearing the end of his patience, closing the door to a crack before Henry could ask another question.
He walked back out to the porch, leaving the exterior door ajar so he could listen for movement inside, and stood staring toward Olivia’s home, which sat back in the woods well away from the main lodge.
Mac chuckled at how alike he and Henry truly were, since he’d found himself wondering the same thing about Olivia as he’d spent most of today trying to find her. But he hadn’t sensed any fear in her this morning when he’d offeredto help her get Inglenook ready for the upcoming sessions; more like… discomfort. Which made him think Olivia wasn’t physically afraid of people but simply preferred to run away rather than deal with whatever they might want from her.
The woman did seem to have a hard time saying no. And Mac suspected she more often than not swallowed her anger to avoid engaging in open warfare. Which was probably why despite being a mere mortal, Olivia Baldwin had somehow mastered the difficult art of becoming invisible.
Even when she was standing in plain sight, it was as if she weren’t there. More than once today when he’d been ripping rotten boards off Inglenook’s endless spans of docks, Mac had looked up to find she’d disappeared. She walked with the stealth of a kitchen mouse, and when she spoke, usually only to give instructions, he’d found himself going very still and even having to cant his head to hear her.
He figured that following yesterday’s attack, Olivia had been as talkative as she got.
Something was weighing down her shoulders, he decided: some deeply rooted… sadness that accounted for her not wanting to draw attention to herself. And though she kept saying Eileen was the brains of their business, Mac would bet his bottomless satchel of money that without Olivia, Inglenook wouldn’t exist.
He wondered about her husband, and whether the sadness he sensed was because she missed him so much. When he’d carefully asked about Sophie’s father at breakfast this morning, John had told Mac that his son had died four years ago fighting in the war in Iraq. John had also mentioned—somewhat angrily, Mac had noticed—that before his death Keith had spent most of his marriage to Olivia away from home.
Four years was a long time to mourn a husband who hadn’t been around all that much to begin with, and Mac wondered why the beautiful and still-vital woman hadn’t moved on by now. Was Olivia so dedicated to Inglenook—which was her daughter’s birthright as John and Eileen’sonly grandchild—that she didn’t dare make a new life for herself and daughter with another man? Or was she staying for some other reason?
Mac sighed, guessing that if he wanted to know what was going on behind those beautiful cinnamon eyes, he needed to know more about Olivia’s past.
Only that little miracle wasn’t going to happen anytime soon, was it?
Unless he could get Carolina to do a little snooping for him.
He folded his arms over his chest and scowled at the frozen lake. No; even if he could persuade her to help him, Carolina couldn’t access enough of the knowledge. Because according to Titus Oceanus, sons were destined to become their father’s heirs and daughters were destined only to provide those heirs to their husbands. Which was probably why, to this day, sons and daughters were still wrestling their fathers for control of their destinies—just as he and Carolina were continually fighting Titus for theirs.
Mac shoved his hands into his pockets. So far all he’d gained was a one-year reprieve from being forced to marry. And if in that time he couldn’t prove he was capable of being a good father to Henry, Titus would take the boy away from him and raise Henry