Wishmakers Read Online Free Page B

hospital? She wished she had questioned him further, but there was something standoffish about the man.
    She returned to the living room, placed her jacket across the back of a deep reclining chair, and deposited her shoulder bag next to it. She could at least carry her bags into the house. She couldn't believe that they planned for her to use the small bare room at the back, but there seemed to be no other. And the bathroom—there was only one! She'd never shared a bathroom with anyone in her life. Oh, why hadn't she stayed in Kalispell, rented a car, and driven out here the next morning?
    She carried in her small cosmetics bag, opened it, and took a wet cloth from a plastic wrap to wipe her face. It felt good to remove the road grime. Feeling somewhat refreshed, she returned to the porch to get the rest of her luggage.
    A dust-covered Jeep came careening off the road into the drive, followed closely by a pickup truck with several men standing in the back. They waved and whistled at the stream of cars that moved on toward town in a cloud of dust. The mill must have closed down for the day.
    Margaret suddenly felt as if all the air had been squeezed out of her. What was she to do? She couldn't turn and run into the house, much as she wanted to. She was Edward Anthony's daughter, co-owner of the Anthony/Thorn Lumber Company. The thought stiffened her spine. She stood quietly, hands clasped in front of her, and waited for the Jeep to stop beside the house.
    The driver sat for a minute and looked at her. The pickup pulled up behind him, and the men spilled out. The door of the Jeep jerked open. Duncan Thorn was big without being bulky, his shoulders broad beneath an open mackinaw. He had the same brown hair, the same blue eyes, and the same tanned face, but a mustache had been added. She would have known him in a crowd of a million people. She fleetingly wondered if she'd be able to say the same about Justin if she had seen him only once years ago.
    Thorn bounded up onto the porch. “Hi, sweetheart. I see you made it!” Strong hands snatched her to him, and he placed a hard kiss on her lips. “C'mon boys, meet my girl, Maggie Anderson. What's the matter, honey? So glad to see me you're speechless?”
    Speechless wasn't the word. Stunned, dumbfounded, shocked beyond all understanding was more in keeping with Margaret's feelings. She tried to push herself away from him, but his arms bound her tightly.
    “Let me go,” she hissed, glaring up into amused blue eyes.
    “Play the game…darling,” he hissed back before kissing her again quickly and whirling her around to meet the grinning men lined up at the edge of the porch. “Here she is. Didn't I tell you she was a beaut?” With an arm clasped tightly about her, he drew her forward. “Maggie, this is Jase, Pete, Harry, Whistler, Pegleg, Keith, and Curtis.”
    In a daze Margaret offered her hand to each man, trying to smile through their bone-crushing grips. “How do you do. I'm very happy to meet you.”
    The chorus of male responses was immediately forthcoming. “I'm doin' just fine, darlin', and so's old Chip now you're here.”…“Wheeeee, she's a looker, Chip!”…“You ain't got no sister, have ya, honey?”
    “Okay, you guys. Clear out. See you tomorrow.”
    Margaret stood trembling in the curve of Duncan Thorn's arm and watched the men pile back into the truck and head toward the two small houses to the north.
    Duncan dropped his arm from around her and picked up her cases. “Open the door,” he said without looking at her.
    Shaking more from nerves than from the chill of the evening, she followed him into the house. He set her bags down at the entrance to the hall and flipped the light switch, but nothing happened. He muttered a curse, then jerked the screen from in front of the hearth, knelt down, and put a match to the fire already laid in the grate. The fine kindling burst into flame. He stood for a minute and watched it, then replaced the