When You Wish (Contemporary Romance) Read Online Free Page B

like on to her eldest daughter, who in turn passed it on to her eldest daughter.
    Em’s second husband—or maybe it was her first—had been a doctor and forbade Em to use her “witchy brews o n innocent people.” When Em continued to heal those who asked for help, he’d burned her granny’s book—and dropped dead the next day. Em’s sisters always said the spirit of their grandmother had cursed him. Em merely smiled and married number three. Or had it been number two?
    “He wants me to give up Project Hope,” Grace explained. “He’s received the Cabilla Grant for the past five years, and he says he’s near to curing some kind of infection.”
    “That’s what they all say.”
    When Grace didn’t answer, Em took her hand, and led Grace into the great room. “Come on in here and see what we’ve done on the Wedding Ring quilt.”
    Ruby and Garnet joined them, chattering all at once as they explained the nuances of color they had agreed upon while she was gone.
    Their handmade quilts sold for nearly one thousand dollars apiece, as they were masterpieces of skill and beauty, and took a lot of time to make. Very few people made quilts the ancient way—with their hands, no machines—but the Jewels always had, always would. What the Jewels made selling the quilts, combined with their social security, kept them in Irish whiskey and their house.
    As her aunts flitte d about the room, gathering patterns, fabric, and the sharpest scissors, Grace reminded herself again why Project Hope was so important. She’d seen enough sick kids to know that sometimes there was nothing you could do but give them something to hold on to.
    Grace reached into the pocket of her dress and pulled out the tiny scrap of peach flannel she carried with her wherever she went. She rubbed the soft fabric against her cheek, and for an instant she caught the scent of hope. This bit of blanket reminded Grace of principles she held close to her heart: peace, and love, and something to hold on to when the world dished out its worst.
    If Daniel Chadwick wanted a fight, a fight he would get. Grace was not giving up Project Hope. She couldn’t and still look at her self in the mirror each morning.
     

 
    Chapter Three
     
     
    The summons to the lake home of Mrs. Cabilla came before the sun set on Grace’s anger. She should have known Chadwick would run to Mommy and tattle. He just hadn’t seemed the type—more a face-to-face kind of guy. Why else had he come looking for her in the first place?
    Grace had been to the mansion many times, as Mrs. Cabilla was a client. When Grace met Mrs. Cabilla she had been one stressed-out lady, her shoulder muscles wound so tightly the woman couldn’t breathe. She had ended up in the ER with chest pains.
    After having massage recommended by her therapist, Mrs. Cabilla tried Grace and became a believer. Grace also introduced her to the soothing hobby of handiwork. Because while the mind and the hands were focused upon a repetitive task, the never-ending wheel of problems melted away, at least for a little while.
    Mrs. Cabala took to knitting like a trout to a stream, and whenever her world got a bit too much for her, she made another afghan. There were quite a few afghans lying around the mansion, which was how Grace’s concept for Project Hope came into their conversations.
    Grace rang the bell next to the huge double doors at the front of the Cabilla lake home, then listened as the bing-bong, bing-bong, echoed through the house. The doorbell always made Grace feel kind of lonely. Such a big house for such a tiny woman.
    Mrs. Cabilla an d her husband had been inseparable during their forty-five years of marriage, and losing him six years ago had broken her heart. Haying no children to remember him by, or to soothe her loneliness, she had thrown herself into administering the vast estate left by the man she adored. But Mrs. Cabilla hadn’t a clue about money, which was where Perry Schumacher came in.
    The man