Small Town Girl Read Online Free PDF Page B

Completely dreaming.”
    “But what a dream.” His grin turned into a laugh. “Eloping with an angel.”
    His laugh was infectious and Kate couldn’t keep from smiling back at him. “Everybody needs a dream. But dreams don’t always come true.”
    “I can’t argue with that.” His smile faded as he studied her. “Then again, sometimes if a man finds the rhythm that speaks to his heart and if he can dance the right steps, if he can find a way to pull hope out of thin air and not let doubt steal his dream or cause him to whittle it down too small, maybe he can grab hold of that dream and hang on for dear life. That kind of dream can make the sunrise brighter every morning.”
    Kate stopped walking and stared over at him. “That sounds like something out of a book.”
    “Could be. It’s hard to separate the words you read from the ones you think up all on your own sometimes. Either way, it’s no less true.” The corners of Jay’s lips twitched up. “How about you, Kate Merritt? What makes you welcome the sunrise in the morning? What’s your dream?”

4

    K ate!”
    The little sister running down the road toward them saved the girl beside Jay from having to give him an answer. She was a dreamer. He was sure of that. Someone like him who was forever reaching for the biggest apple on the tree no matter how impossibly out of reach it was. He’d seen her looking at Mike, but that apple wasn’t even on the tree anymore.
    A girl like Kate would be wasted on Mike anyway. He needed a woman who would lean on him and be the good little pastor’s wife. Someone who would wear the right clothes and say the right words whether she meant them or not. A girl like the one he fell in love with. Unless Jay missed his guess, Evangeline was the kind of girl who would have no trouble putting on her hat and painting on a lipstick smile every Sunday morning to play the role. The old gray-haired ladies, the backbone of every church Jay had ever spent any time in, would love her.
    The sister beside him, well, Jay figured she’d be better at improving the old ladies’ prayer lives. He didn’t really know her, but he’d learned to read people fast a long time ago. Helped him know when to throw the first punch or whento duck his head. He didn’t know which he was doing with Kate—punching or ducking—when he threw out that crazy eloping idea. Sometimes he opened his mouth and let words fly out without thinking. For sure, he would have had to do some serious backpedaling if she’d called his bluff. He had zero plans to elope or stand at an altar with any girl. Even one as appealing as the girl beside him.
    She wasn’t pretty-pretty like her sister who had just tied the knot with Mike. He studied her face as she turned her attention to the little sister, the one he’d called Birdie. She was telling her to slow down before she fell and messed up her new dress. It did look like a crash waiting to happen. The little sister was all legs and arms at that age when a kid could trip over air from growing so fast. The kid was cute, with all the earmarks of growing up to break the heart of every boy in the neighborhood someday with those big brown eyes. Eyes more the color of his than any of her sisters. But then she wasn’t really a sister. Not in the kinfolk, look-alike way.
    Actually he’d noted that none of the three sisters looked that much alike. Mike’s new bride was a blue-eyed redhead with fair skin that pinked up easy. Very pretty, and Mike was certainly entranced. The teenage sister, Victoria, had hair almost as dark as the curly-headed little sister in front of him, but her eyes were a green that made a person look twice. By the time she got all the way grown up, that one was going to hit the mark a good ways above merely pretty. She was already there in the eyes of the gangly boy hanging around her. O beautiful is love. More words out of a book.
    Nothing wrong with borrowing words from a book. Jay liked books. Books took