Must Be Magic Read Free Page B

and
loveliest shade of green she’d ever seen. Even the color of spring shoots was
too dark. Misty green…like morning fog drifting across a forested mountain in
summer…
    Kerry
shook her head. When did she become poetic again? There had been a period in
her life when she could take the time to stop and smell the roses she loved to
tend, and then describe the experience in poetry or prose, but she hadn’t been
able to do that in too long. Now, all her energy was spent in keeping her head
above water.
    “Kerry
is a beautiful name. I’m Myghal,” he said.
    Strange
name for a strange man.
    “Thank you. Myghal is an unusual
name.”
    “Not where I’m from.”
    “England?”
    “England.”
    “Right.” Kerry had the feeling he
wasn’t being entirely truthful with her, but he wasn’t exactly lying either. He
was…a puzzlement. “I’m sorry, but all I can offer for all your help is to share
my lunch.”
    “You have a smudge.” He raised
his hand to her face, his fingers splayed across her cheek and jaw as his thumb
wiped a spot at the point of her chin. Then the tip of his thumb slowly swiped
across her bottom lip.
    She had the sudden urge to share
more than her lunch, like her bed. Desire, hot and sweet, swept through her at
his touch. She just wanted to close her eyes and let him kiss her like he
seemed to want to do. Maybe if she lost herself in a kiss and sex with a
stranger, she wouldn’t have to worry about the nursery or how to make the loan
payment or anything else for a while. It would be nice not to have to think
about anything except physical pleasure.
    It would be over too soon,
though, and the money problems would still exist. She sighed and backed up a
step, tilting her head away from his hand. He took the hint and his arm dropped
to his side.
    “Let’s get cleaned up and then we
can eat.” A quaver in her voice revealed how much he affected her.
    She led
the way to the sink, washed up, and left him to do the same. She hurried to her
desk, set in a corner of the greenhouse behind a row of potted pampas grass.
There was a smaller building in front, but she had felt suffocated and closed
in when she tried to work there. One day she had simply dragged her desk and
chair out into the greenhouse. Afterwards, much of her anxiety about doing
paperwork had disappeared.
    Not
all, but quite a bit. Being closed inside a tiny office with no window had just
about sent her over the edge.
    She pulled her lunch out of the
mini-fridge and opened the first plastic bowl. Four boiled eggs. She hadn’t had
time to make a sandwich that morning. She lifted the lid on the other bowl to
reveal pale green grapes. She split the bunch and dropped one in each bowl,
then put two of the eggs in the other bowl. Two eggs and half a bunch of grapes
would hold her until supper.
    Myghal joined her as she opened a
desk drawer. She kept salt and pepper shakers on hand, so she wouldn’t have to
remember to bring them from home if she needed them for her lunch. She motioned
for Myghal to take a seat, then pushed aside papers and a handful of pens
looking for the containers. She found the black pepper shaker easily enough,
but the white saltshaker was nowhere to be found.
    “I know it’s got to be here
somewhere,” she muttered, rifling through the papers again. The drawer wasn’t
that big and it wasn’t that cluttered. She should be able to find a
four-inch-tall shaker.
    “What
are you searching for?”
    She set
the black shaker down with a solid thud. “All I have is pepper. I can’t find
the—”
    She’d
pulled the drawer out too far and it fell with a clatter, scattering pens and
papers in all directions. Myghal helped her to gather them up. She still hadn’t
found the saltshaker. Where could she have put it? She’d never moved it from
her desk before.
    As
Kerry reached in the refrigerator for something to drink, she thought she must
be losing her mind. Her first set of plans for the Leprechaun contest had
disappeared,