Lure of Song and Magic by Patricia Rice

Author:Patricia Rice [Rice, Patricia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Contemporary, Romance
ISBN: 9781402255748
Publisher: Sourcebooks
Published: 2012-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 19

She was so stupid.

Pippa gazed out Oz’s wall of windows to the sun setting over the distant surf and wondered if it would be simpler to retreat to her studio and never come out again.

She’d unwittingly put her entire life in the hands of a stranger four years ago. And here she was, doing the same again, except now she didn’t have the excuse of ignorance. How did she know Conan and Oz weren’t planning on pirating her songs and producing them? She didn’t.

While Oz had been ordering up dinner, she’d excused herself to wash up. And she’d pried. She’d opened the door to the beautiful nursery with toy truck murals and bright red and blue toys stacked neatly on shelves, untouched for a year. She was trusting a man who wouldn’t give up on finding his son despite all odds to the contrary. Oz could be as demented as she was.

Standing at the window, she was still dithering over her next step when strong fingers shoved a beautiful handblown glass of raspberry-scented crushed ice at her. She accepted the delicate stem if only to admire the fragile facets reflecting a rainbow prism from the fading sunlight.

“It’s nonalcoholic,” Oz reassured her. “I might pollute your mind but not your stomach.”

She wanted to laugh, but she was too frozen. “I could be contaminating Conan’s mind right now,” she said without inflection. “Who knows how many minds I’ve polluted? Do you really think there’s a chance the guy at the computer store would have listened to my files? And that’s how someone knows about ‘The Silly Seal Song’?”

“I don’t want to believe these messages mean anything except some idiot is conning me into a TV production I want to do anyway.”

Oz sipped from an identical glass, but Pippa was fairly certain his drink of choice wasn’t a virgin daiquiri. Wearing a long-sleeved black polo he’d donned earlier, he stood with feet apart, looking like a captain in charge of a ship.

He practically commanded an empire. She wanted to believe he had the power to protect everyone around him. Which was patently ridiculous, since he’d lost both son and wife.

Which meant she was on her own, as always. It was a lonely place to be, and she wished it could be different.

“A show I don’t want to do,” she reminded him. “So who is setting up whom? I think I’d rather believe some kid has your number and is texting inanities to annoy you.”

“Santa Domenica certainly seems to be a wash,” he agreed, standing close enough that she could inhale his musky scent. “But giving me your name wasn’t. Even if the Librarian is batting fifty-fifty, I can’t ignore any clue. I have tomorrow free. Want to drive out there?”

“To Santa Domenica?” she asked in surprise. “We’ve already established there’s nothing there. Even if your son was, how would we find him? Go door to door?”

“I don’t know.” He lifted his big shoulders and took a drink. “I just hate doing nothing while Conan is playing with his box of tricks.

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