A Prince for Jenny Read Online Free PDF Page A

was going to be Jenny's worst nightmare come true.
    He splashed cold water on his face, then crawled back to bed. He'd failed everybody he ever loved. By all the saints, he would not fail Jenny.
     o0o
    "Miss Gibbs," he said the next afternoon at two-thirty. "I don't like to ask employees to do tasks that aren't in the job description, but I'm afraid I'll have to ask you to take my children to the portrait artist."
    "Is that Jenny Love-Townsend?"
    "Yes." Would she be waiting in her flower garden with tea she'd made just for him? "Do you know where she lives?"
    "Everybody knows where she lives, Mr. Sullivan. She's the town's celebrity ... the famous painter who is mentally retarded."
    "Miss Gibbs ..." She blanched at the sound of his voice, and Daniel realized he'd practically shouted. He moderated his tone. "You should leave now. You don't want to keep Miss Townsend waiting."
    Mentally retarded. His secretary's words hung in the air like a dark cloud. He clutched a pencil so hard, it snapped in two. Daniel flung the pieces into the garbage can, then walked to the window.
    Mentally retarded . Labels. How he hated them.
    "You're a rebel, Daniel," his father- had shouted to him the day they'd put Michael into the ground, the day Daniel had announced he wouldn't be embracing the political career his father had charted for him. "Where is the justice of a God who takes my noble son and leaves the rebellious one behind?"
    Labels. How they hurt.
    The whole town probably regarded Jenny as retarded, never looking beyond what she was to who she was. By staying away, was he labeling her too?
    Muttering dark Irish curses, he strode from his office and stormed through his building, looking for ways to make Sullivan Enterprises the most important corporation in America.
     o0o
    "Jenny was sad," Megan said at dinner that evening.
    Daniel wanted to shut his ears to the truth. "You're not eating your chicken, Megan. Eat your chicken."
    "Jenny didn't swing with us," Patrick added.
    It was a damned conspiracy. Daniel clenched his fists, wadding his perfectly pressed linen napkin into a tight ball.
    "She didn't hum, either. And we didn't get to eat cookies and tea. She looked real sad, Daddy. How come Jenny was so sad?"
    "Sometimes people are sad, Megan."
    "Yeah, but how come?" His daughter stuck her rebellious little chin out, and Patrick regarded him with solemn eyes.
    "I'm not a magician, children. I can't guess the motives of others." But he knew. In his heart he knew. "Now eat your dinner."
    Dinner was a morose affair. Everybody was relieved when it was over. He sent the children off to play, then, feeling somewhat cowardly, he called the nanny and asked her to come over for the night.
    "I have some work to do at the office."
    "Certainly. I'm available anytime, Mr. Sullivan."
    When Miss Nell Williams bustled in, Daniel felt a sense of order restore itself. Jenny would finish the portrait in a few days, and his life would be back to normal. Until then, he'd keep busy.
     o0o
    Daniel was halfway to his office before he knew he wasn't going there at all. Some dark, destructive impulse made him turn and head across town to a Victorian house with a sign in the yard. He slowed the car, gazing at her house. All the windows were dark. Jenny was sleeping. Perfectly at peace.
    But wait. Was that movement at the window? He squinted into the darkness. Not a sign of life. His children had probably been imagining things.
    A strange sense of loss haunted him as he turned his car at the end of the street and drove back by Jenny's house, heading to work. The back of his neck tingled. He felt such a strong sense of her presence that he stopped the car in the shadows of a huge oak tree.
    Fool, drive on , he told himself, but the eerie sensation of not being alone kept him there.
    Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a light come on in a second-story window. Gazing upward, he saw Jenny with her long golden hair flowing over her shoulders.
    She lifted a hand, and