Read Online Lure of Song and Magic by Patricia Rice - Free Book Online

fork for fear she’d reveal her trembling.
    â€œYou do,” he said with satisfaction. “Do you have the lyrics?”
    Either he was too perceptive by far, or she wasn’t doing as good a job hiding with him as she did with others. She’d written the lyrics. They’d been her first tentative steps toward writing her stories into music. She’d sent them to her cyberspace library when she’d bought a new computer nearly four years ago. No one knew of the song’s existence. How could he?
    â€œIf you want to know all my secrets, Mr. Oswin, you can discover them yourself. Why should I make it easy?” She returned her attention to her eggs as if he hadn’t dumped another hot load of burning oil over her head.
    He was the one who looked uncomfortable. It looked good on him. Pippa recalled all the smug, arrogant men who’d pushed her around, turned her into a walking, talking Barbie doll, and manipulated her and her music and her life, and she hummed happily to herself. Turnabout was fair play, even if Oz wasn’t the cause of her original grief.
    She liked having control for a change. It had been a precious commodity for most of her life.
    Pippa could see him plotting, scheming to get what he wanted without telling her why. He’d soon learn she was no longer the easily influenced child she’d been. She’d prepared herself for this moment for years.
    She would not—ever—go back to being Syrene.

Chapter 7
    Oz gritted his molars and tried to assume a nonchalant stance when what he really wanted to do was reach across the table and strangle the self-satisfied elf eating her eggs and toast.
    She knew the title of the song! Or she pretended to. Or he was reading things into her expression that weren’t there in his desperation to find the connection between the annoying female, the Librarian, and his son.
    â€œI did not discover the title of that song,” he said slowly, watching her face, searching for clues. She refused to look at him. The paint tears down her cheek reminded him that she wasn’t stable. He didn’t want her curling up in a fetal ball and keening again.
    It was a damned good thing he wasn’t into fragile women, or he’d be trying to wipe away make-believe tears. “I received it in an untraceable text message.”
    The turquoise turtleneck she wore beneath a denim jumper concealed her body language, but he thought she grew still. He made no sudden movements, as if he were trying to capture a wild creature. He needed bait to entice her, except Conan hadn’t had time to find the one thing she wanted.
    â€œAn anonymous message?” she asked coolly. “What could it have to do with me?”
    Excellent question. One he wasn’t prepared to answer. He wasn’t ready to tell anyone of his obsession with tracking down crackpots in his desperation to find his son. “I’ve read all your books. None of them have a ‘Silly Seal Song’ in them. Are you working on a new book that might?”
    She finally looked up, glaring at him through turquoise eyes that appeared as translucent and mysterious as the ocean. “What difference is it to you? Are you in the habit of hunting down the writers of all the spam that hits your mailbox? You must be a very busy person, if so.”
    He didn’t trust her. If he mentioned his son and she was somehow involved with his disappearance, she would run, and he’d never find her again.
    â€œIt’s not spam,” he said carefully, plotting as he went. “It’s from an informed source, one who led me to you. Someone knows more about you than I do. Do you have any idea who that might be?”
    He bit his tongue and prayed she had that backbone of steel he suspected, or he was about to be treated to another hysterical tantrum.
    She had a redhead’s pale skin, so he couldn’t tell if her cheeks lost color they didn’t have. She simply