All of Me Read Online Free Page B

of all, the defensive mechanism that had kept her safe all these years,
     the guard she kept around her heart, had failed her miserably.
    She walked into her quiet, lonely house, aching to her very core. She didn’t know what drove her, but she tossed her purse
     and her briefcase on the table and stalked to the bedroom. She went to the cedar chest at the end of her bed, started yanking
     out sweaters and tossing them heedlessly about the room. At the bottom of the chest she found what she hadn’t consciously
     known she was looking for.
    The magical wedding veil.
    Rachael had passed it on to her months earlier. It was a floor-length mantilla style made of Rosepoint lace. She remembered
     the day Delaney had found the veil in a consignment shop just before her wedding to the wrong man, and she remembered the
     fanciful story the store owner had told.
    According to the lore, in long-ago Ireland, there had lived a beautiful young witch named Morag, who possessed a great talent
     for tatting incredible lace. People came from far and wide to buy the lovely wedding veils she created, but there were other
     women in the community who were envious of Morag’s beauty and talent.
    These women lied and told the magistrate that Morag was casting spells on the men of the village. The magistrate arrested
     Morag but found himself falling madly in love with her. Convinced that she must have cast a spell upon him as well, he moved
     to have her tried for practicing witchcraft. If found guilty, she would be burned at the stake. But in the end, the magistrate
     could not resist the power of true love.
    On the eve before Morag was to stand trial, he kidnapped her from the jail in the dead of night and spirited her away to America,
     giving up everything he knew for her. To prove that she had not cast a spell over him, Morag promised never to use magic again.
    As her final act of witchcraft, she made one last wedding veil, investing it with the power to grant the deepest wish of the
     wearer’s soul. She wore the veil on her own wedding day, wishing for true and lasting love. Morag and the magistrate were
     blessed with many children and much happiness. They lived to a ripe old age and died in each other’s arms.
    Delaney had wished on the veil to get out of marrying the wrong man, and in the end, she’d found her heart’s desire in her
     soul mate, Nick Vinetti.
    Then Delaney had passed the veil on to Tish.
    Tish had wished to get out of debt, and the granting of her wish had brought her back together with the husband she’d lost
     but never stopped loving.
    And then Tish had passed the veil on to Rachael.
    Rachael had wished to stop being so romantic, and she’d ended up marrying the hero of her dreams.
    Jillian didn’t believe in magic, but the wedding veil was all the hope she had left. She’d lost everything else.
    “What a load of crap,” she muttered, but even as she muttered it, she took the antique veil from its protective wrapping and
     settled it on her head. Compelled by a mysterious force beyond her control, she stared at herself in the mirror.
    “I wish,” she muttered, “I wish I’d been born into a loving, trusting, giving family. I wish … I wish … I wish …” Her words
     trailed off as she realized what it was she really wanted.
    Finally, she whispered, “I wish I had a brand-new life.”
    The second the wish was out of her mouth, her scalp began to tingle and she felt her body grow suddenly heavy. With the wish
     on her lips, the veil on her head, and utter despair in her heart, Jillian curled up on the floor and fell into a deep, exhausted
     sleep.
    U NTIL TWO YEARS AGO , Tucker Manning had led a magical life.
    People said he was charmed, and it was true. Born the youngest child and only son to James and Meredith Manning, he’d been
     spoiled by his parents and his three older sisters straight from the get-go. He’d possessed an easygoing personality and a
     bad-boy smile women simply couldn’t