Read Online A Scandalous Melody by Linda Conrad - Free Book Online

mother. And then when she’d died, he’d ended up wishing the child they’d created had died in her place.
    It hurt, but it made sense. His father had never been a cruel man, but sometimes it’d felt like he couldn’t bear to look at his only son without a few drinks under his belt.
    Chase reached for the bottle again, but stilled his hand before he could pour the shot. Drinking had never solved his father’s problems in all those years and it wasn’t likely to do much for Chase’s now, either.
    Dammit.
    He stood up and pulled a few bills from his pocket. “Thanks for the history lesson, Guidry. I’ll be going now.”
    â€œOh, I got lots more lessons to tell, boy. You stick around and I’ll be glad to learn you.”
    Shaking his head, Chase grinned at the old man. “Not tonight, thanks. Maybe some other time.” He threw the money on the bar and turned to leave.
    The old bartender waylaid him with a hand on his arm. “You in trouble, son? You’ve got the witching about you. I see it plain as day.”
    â€œThe witching?” A sudden chill ran up Chase’s spine. But he cursed himself as an idiot for letting his imagination go. “What are you talking about?”
    â€œThe magic,” Guidry hissed. “The minute you touched your pocket, a golden mist came down over you. Some witch is stirring with your soul, boy. Better watch out.”
    Nonsense. But Chase’s first reflex was to reach into his pocket for the gypsy’s gift. He palmed the jewel-covered egg. There was nothing unusual about the warm metallic feel of the gold.
    See there. The old Cajun was just letting his superstitions run away with him. Chase had lived in these parts long enough to know that magic couldn’t touch you unless you believed. And he didn’t.
    He bade the bartender a good night and headed back toward the B&B. It had been one hell of a day, and moving into Live Oak Hall tomorrow was going to take every last bit of his attention and resolve.
    Gritting his teeth, Chase fisted his hands and swallowed the sickening feeling that he had just stepped into shifting sands that would pull him in far over his head. “What in hell have I gotten myself into?”
    Â 
    The old gypsy woman pushed back from the table and spit out a curse. “So you don’t believe in the magic, young Severin? How foolhardy.”
    Passionata waved a hand over the crystal and crossed her arms over her chest. She had a good mind to let him stew forever with his own ghosts.
    The minute she’d thought it, however, the gypsy king’s voice, bidding her to keep his deathbed legacy, came back to haunt her. If she didn’t spend the extra time on Chase Severin’s inheritance, her father would never rest—would never let her rest.
    â€œBah!” She had a feeling that delivering this magic to such a nonbeliever might just be the death of her.
    Wearily she rose up and sighed. There was nothing to do but to go there.
    She slid the crystal into a deep pocket and prepared to face the stifling musk of the hidden marshes once again. The stealthy swamp was her old friend. She would make her way back to the jungles, black waters and mosquitoes.
    Moonlight and cypress knees awaited her arrival with promise. Young Severin had met his match.
    â€œI am what you have gotten into, boy,” she whispered to him on the winds. “And I am prepared to be the winner of this game.”

Five
    C hase drove his Jag down the sun-dappled road that skirted Blackwater Bayou on his way to Live Oak Hall. When the car came out from under the clouds of tree branches with their dripping Spanish moss, he found himself roaring down the blacktop that ran parallel to the mill.
    He grimaced at his first clear view of that monstrous ghost. The old rice mill was a pure eyesore. He slowed the car and pulled off on the shoulder to study it a little better from this distance.
    He remembered