Always in My Dreams Read Online Free PDF Page B

something between horror and admiration.
    Skye turned her back on them all and marched away.

 
     
     
    Chapter 2

     
    "Skye! Wait for me!" Daniel looked at his speechless friends and made a quick apology. "She's making it up," he said. "Just to give you what you want to hear. I swear it!" He took off running. "Skye!"
    She didn't turn her head, but she didn't increase her speed to avoid him either. "Did you make excuses for me?" she asked, when he came abreast. "Perhaps you told them I'm a little out of sorts because of the baby."
    Daniel grabbed her elbow but she shook him off. "You're being unreasonable. Why you purposely want to feed their silly speculations, I don't know. You're determined to make yourself an outcast."
    Skye's hands clenched inside the ermine muff. She bent her head against the wind as they left the park. "I've always been an outcast, Daniel. Tonight's merely the first time it's been so openly discussed." She spoke so softly that Daniel had to bend forward to hear her. "There's nothing for me in the city; there never has been. I don't know how I always knew that, but I did. I've never wanted anything so much as to get away from here."
    Daniel stepped to the edge of the sidewalk and waved down a handsome cab. He gave the driver Skye's address. "What about school?" he asked, as they climbed aboard.
    She shrugged. "I don't want to go back for the spring term."
    "But-"
    Skye turned to Daniel and gave him a frank stare. "Don't you think Jay Mac already suspects that's the case?"
    "It hadn't occurred to me."
    She gave a short, humorless laugh. "That's because you don't know him as I do. He's not only realized I intend to fight him about returning to school, he thinks he's a step ahead of me. That's what his amazing offer was about this evening."
    "You mean he dangled this in front of you in the hopes you'll choose going back to school over being a housekeeper?"
    Skye snorted indelicately. "You really don't understand how he thinks, do you?"
    "I suppose I don't."
    Removing one of her hands from her muff, Skye patted Daniel's arm. "It's all right. He's my father, after all, and I've had years of opportunity watching him work on my older sisters. He has the best of intentions, you understand. He wants to be certain we're always well cared for."
    Daniel sighed. He raised one leg and rested it casually on the seat opposite him while he slouched restfully beside his friend. "Do you know what, Skye? I think I'm glad I bungled that first kiss with you. I'm not sure I'd want John MacKenzie Worth for my father-in-law."
    Skye leaned into Daniel, laying her head against his shoulder. "You wouldn't, Daniel," she said feelingly. "You really wouldn't."
    He laughed at her heartfelt comment. "You don't think you'd be worth it?"
    "Oh, God. I know I'm not." She glanced up at him. "You saw what happened this evening. I can't leave well enough alone. If people give me an opening to make a public fool of myself, I not only take the opportunity, I thank them for it."
    Daniel grinned. "You're worth it," he said. "I'm the one not up to snuff." Before she could contradict what he knew to be the truth, he said, "I still don't understand your father's plan."
    "The story about the engine and the inventor... that's just smoke and mirrors."
    "Smoke and mirrors..."
    "Sleight of hand," she explained. "A magician's trick to hide what's really going on."
    "And what's really going on is..."
    "Is Jay Mac wants me to experience complete boredom. He supposes that after a few weeks or months as a housekeeper for some fusty old man, I'll be begging him to allow me to finish school."
    "So the adventure he's offering you is all a lie."
    Skye nodded. "Precisely. Jay Mac's lies don't get much bigger."
    Daniel noticed that Skye was smiling. "You don't seem angry about it. I wouldn't have thought you'd like being manipulated like this."
    "I don't. But if I look on the bright side, I can be glad Jay Mac tried to bribe me with something I find appealing. It