Lake of Dreams Read Online Free PDF Page A

the similarities between him and her dream lover. She looked, and almost wished she hadn’t.
    The resemblance wasn’t just in his eyes and the color of his hair. She could see it now in the powerful lines of his body, so tall and rugged. He was wearing jeans and hiking boots and a short-sleeved chambray shirt that revealed the muscularity of his arms. She noticed the thickness of his wrists, the wrists of a man who regularly did hard physical work . . .  the wrists of a swordsman.
    She gasped, shaken by the thought. Where had it come from? What did she know about swordsmen? They weren’t exactly thick on the ground; she’d never even met anyone who fenced. And even as she pictured the elegant moves of fencing, she discarded that comparison. No, by swordsman she meant someone who used a heavy broadsword in battle, slashing and hacking. A flash of memory darted through her, and she saw Richard Chance with a huge claymore in his hand, only he had called himself Neill . . . and then he was Marcus, and it was the short Roman sword he wielded—
    No. She couldn’t let herself think like that. The dreams were a subconscious fantasy, nothing more. She didn’t really recognize anything about Richard Chance. She had simply met him at a time when she was emotionally vulnerable and off-balance, almost as if she were on the rebound from a failed romance. She had to get a grip, because there was no way this man had anything to do with her dreams.
    He was still standing there, his hand outstretched as if only a second had gone by, rather than the full minute it felt like.
    And then he smiled again, those vivid eyes crinkling at the corners. “Don’t you want to see the baby turtles?” he asked.
    Baby turtles. The prospect was disarming, and surprisingly charmed by the idea, somehow Thea found herself taking a couple of steps forward, until she was standing at the screen door to the porch. Only then did she stop and look down at her nightgown. “I need to change clothes.”
    His gaze swept down her. “You look great to me.” He didn’t try to disguise the huskiness of appreciation in his tone. “Besides, they might be gone if you don’t come now.”
    Thea chewed her lip. The nightgown wasn’t a racy number, after all; it was plain white cotton, with a modest neckline and little cap sleeves, and the hem reached her ankles. Caution warred with her desire to see the turtles. Suddenly she couldn’t think of anything cuter than baby turtles. Making a quick decision, she pushed open the door and stepped out into the tall grass. She had to lift her nightgown hem to midcalf to keep it from dragging in the dew and getting wet. Carefully she picked her way across the overgrown yard to the tall man waiting for her.
    She had almost reached him when she realized how close she was to the water.
    She froze in midstep, unable to even glance to the right where the lake murmured so close to her feet. Instead, her panic-stricken gaze locked on his face, instinctively begging him for help.
    He straightened, every muscle in his body tightening as he became alert in response to her reaction. His eyes narrowed, and his gaze swung sharply from side to side, looking for whatever had frightened her. “What is it?” he rasped as he caught her forearm and protectively pulled her nearer, into the heat and shelter of his body.
    Thea shivered and opened her mouth to tell him, but the closeness of his body, at once comforting and alarming, confused her so she couldn’t think what to say. She didn’t know which alarmed her more, her nearness to the lake or her nearness to him. She had always loved the lake, and was very wary of him, but his automatic response to her distress jolted something inside her, and suddenly she wanted to press herself against him. The warm scent of his skin filled her nostrils, her lungs—a heady combination of soap, fresh air,