Read Far Harbor for Free Online

suspecting that Savannah may have toughened up a bit since having been elected Miss Congeniality of her senior class.
    “Girl’s got a funny way of charming me into selling the place,” Henry complained. Having come to know his irascible client well, Dan realized that the old codger was actually enjoying himself.
    “I’m making you an offer for the lighthouse.” Savannah’s clipped tone revealed her growing frustration. “I’m not asking to become your new best friend.”
    He cackled at that. “Gal’s got spunk, O’Halloran.”
    “Seems to.” Dan nodded. “Perhaps even enough to save the place from a wrecking ball.”
    Henry’s pale blue eyes narrowed. “That’s your job.”
    “Fending off developers is my job. Replacing the wiring, reglazing the windows, sweeping spiders out of the corners, and chasing bats out of the attic is beyond the call of lawyerly duty.”
    “Bats?” Savannah’s incredible green eyes widened. “Please tell me you’re not serious.”
    “Now you’ve done it, O’Halloran,” Henry spat out. “Probably caused the price to drop another ten thousand bucks. Ten thousand I should take out of your fee.”
    Dan refrained from responding that Henry would have to pay him first before he could go deducting anything. Old man Hyatt was not only Dan’s most irascible client, he was also the most time-consuming of his pro bono cases.
    “Now there’s an idea,” he murmured.
    “Actually, bats may be a plus,” Lilith offered in her usual blithe way. “Since they eat insects.”
    “Anyone knows about bats, it should be you,” Henry barked on a laugh roughened by old age and years of tobacco smoke. “Seein’ how your own mother has a few in her belfry these days.”
    “My grandmother served this community for fifty years,” Savannah reminded Henry in a flash of very un-Savannah-like anger. Dan resisted the urge to applaud. “Which undoubtedly means that she’s treated you.”
    “From time to time, mebbe,” Henry muttered. “It’s hard to recollect.”
    “I seem to recall Mother mentioning a case of pneumonia that nearly proved fatal because you were too stubborn to seek medical help,” Lilith interjected. “Why, if Gerald Lawson hadn’t stopped by that day to collect for the newspaper and called Mother, who, by the way, came out in a blizzard to care for you, you might not be here today, Henry.”
    Lilith’s own flare of heat suggested she was on the verge of losing her temper. A woman of strong emotions, she’d advised Dan after his sister’s funeral that holding in one’s feelings was unhealthy for mind, spirit, and body. Months later, apparently practicing what she preached, she’d been arresting for dancing nude in Olympic National Park and ripping up Cooper Ryan’s citation book.
    That little display of unbridled emotion had gotten her hauled into the park jail, but displaying a seemingly lifelong ability to land on her feet, a month later she’d become Mrs. Cooper Ryan. If there was any more nude dancing going on, Lilith was staying out of public parks and restricting her audience to her new husband.
    “Only God can decide whether or not a body’s gonna live or die,” Henry argued. He raked his fingers through snow white hair as wispy as dandelion fluff. “Though I reckon Ida may have had a hand in the outcome,” he tacked on reluctantly.
    Dan decided that it was time to move things along. “Well, now that we’ve got all that settled, what would everyone say to getting down to discussing what brought us here today?” he asked with forced enthusiasm.
    “Might as well,” Henry muttered in a way that suggested since neither Lindstrom woman had turned out to be a pushover, there was no point in baiting them any further. He hooked his cane over the wooden arm of his chair, folded his arms, set his face, and looked straight at Savannah. “You want the place, here’s what you’d better be prepared to pay.”
    The price was at least twice what the property