Lure of Song and Magic by Patricia Rice Page B

personified. Even the overalls were orange and gold, with a glittering sun painted on the bib.
    â€œYou’re bribing an entire town to spy on me!” Hands on nonexistent hips, she looked as if she’d like to fling another pie, but she never raised her voice. Women usually shrieked when they threw things at him.
    â€œI don’t work with disappearing acts,” he admonished. “You’re the one who insisted I move the production up here. I want a guarantee my talent won’t do a flit after I’ve spent a few million. Fair is fair.”
    â€œNow I remember why I left L.A. I don’t tolerate insufferable asses.” She spun on her painted Keds and departed the same way she’d entered, through the kitchen.
    One of the old men at the counter left a dollar beside his cup and stood up. “I’ll see she gets home okay.”
    And that was that. Figuring the entire town knew Pippa James walked a thin edge and needed looking after, Oz sat down and devoured a burger savory with triumph.
    ***
    The insufferable ass was at Dot’s the next morning, occupying the same booth they’d shared yesterday. Pippa aimed for the counter, ignoring him, until Dot waved Pippa’s usual breakfast under her nose and carried it back to Oz’s booth.
    Cursing traitorous friends under her breath, Pippa considered walking out. Until those horrible months when she’d killed and maimed with her grief, she’d never learned to fight back. At twelve, she’d bent over backward in her eagerness to be agreeable. At sixteen, she’d simply walked away. At eighteen, she’d self-destructed. Since then, she’d learned calm acceptance and ignored that which could not be changed.
    Calm acceptance and Dylan Oswin did not exist in the same universe. He simply tempted the shrieking furies of her Voice by his presence.
    Today, he’d dropped the shark suit. In its place he wore a short-sleeved, blue cotton shirt. It had probably cost a few hundred to achieve that tailored, I’m-one-of-you-look. Except no one up here had highlighted hair styled to evenly brush the back of said collar. Or wore a half-grand art-carved gold loop in a pierced ear.
    And damn if the result wasn’t the sexiest thing she’d seen since watching Rhett Butler on the big screen when she was a kid. Oz hadn’t worn that earring yesterday with his shark suit, she’d lay odds. This was his idea of laid-back and nonthreatening.
    Which almost made her laugh. Almost. He held her life in his hands, though, and that wasn’t a laughing matter. She slid into the seat across from him and let him admire the blue-green tears she’d painted on her cheek this morning.
    â€œGood choice of color,” he commented before biting into his bacon and regarding her critically. “The camera will love you. So will the kids. You’re a natural.”
    â€œI’m about as unnatural as it gets. You’d better be lining up your actress because you’re not getting me in front of a camera again.”
    â€œReneging on our deal already?” He didn’t seem fazed as he sipped his coffee and studied her. “I’ve hired a dead ringer for you as your stand-in, but Audrey will never be you.”
    She didn’t like being studied. She hated that she found him attractive. Her skin felt two sizes too small under his scrutiny.
    â€œI’ve tried finding my birth parents. I’ve spent a fortune hiring experts,” she informed him after sipping her juice. “I don’t exist. So you may as well quit tormenting me and resign yourself to using my material and my town but not me.”
    â€œDo you know a song called ‘The Silly Seal Song’?” he asked out of the blue.
    Her stomach dropped to her toes, and she stared at him as if he’d suddenly developed a crystal ball for a head. “Why?” she demanded. Her hands were clammy, and she didn’t dare lift her