When Dreams Cross Read Online Free PDF

impact of sensations bursting through her heart surprised her. Had she been so lonely that a simple touch could confuse her so completely?
    Pulling back, she turned sideways on the couch and rested an elbow on the cushions behind her, propping her head as she gazed on the handsome, sleeping man. She had been attracted to men since him, and many had been attracted to her. But since her father’s accident there had been no one, for she spent every moment that she wasn’t working sitting at his hospital bedside, praying for the moment he would come out of his coma and see that she had carried out the plans for the dream that had become her own. Until now, she hadn’t been aware of her need for the touch, the response, of another human being. Sudden loneliness filled and enveloped her.
    Unwilling to wake him just yet, she let her eyes linger on his face, on the sound of his breathing, on the man he was without the barriers of pride and memory.
    A loud sigh pushed through Justin’s lips, and he shifted slightly. The sketch pad that had been lying facedown on his lap slid off and hit the floor.
    She jumped.
    Closing her eyes and holding her breath until she realized the sound hadn’t disturbed him, Andi tried to think rationally. She should run as far away from him as she could. She should send a representative to make her offer, and make sure that their business dealings brought them together as little as possible. But somehow, she couldn’t make herself get up and leave. She was caught in a net he didn’t even know he had cast.
    She looked down at the sketch pad, which had fallen face down, and wondered what he’d been working on. Quietly, she leaned over and picked it up, turned it over …
    Her heart jolted as her own face stared back at her. Had he been sitting here thinking of her? Sketching her? She studied the rendition, amazed that he hadn’t given her horns or a witch’s hat, blackened a tooth or drawn a wart or mustache. It was a sweet likeness of her, with sparkling eyes and a coy smile …
    Her heart raced as she set the pad back on the floor, face-down, so he’d never know she had seen it. Biting her lip, she willed the gnawing in her heart to stop until she could get a proper distance between them and convince herself she didn’t still love him … that he didn’t still love her.
    She laid her hand on the couch behind him and watched him, knowing instinctively that she couldn’t let him slip away again. She was stronger now, more careful to guard her feelings. She would never let him know of the turmoil he caused within her. But the same God who had allowed them to be torn apart had used a cartoon to hurl them back together. She needed those cartoon characters, and he needed Promised Land. Somehow she would make him see that.
    The first step would have to be waking him without letting him know that she’d had a glimpse into his thoughts. Carefully, she got up, made her way across the floor, and slipped out the door. Then she took a deep breath and rapped hard on the wooden door frame. “Hello,” she called in her loudest voice, shoving her shaking hands into her pockets. “Is anybody home? Justin?”
    T he pounding penetrated Justin’s sleep, and the voice, urgent and loud, pulled him from the depths of it.
    “Justin? Justin?”
    He opened his eyes and saw the woman silhouetted against the bright daylight behind her. He squinted as if he didn’t believe she was real. Slowly his eyes focused and widened, and he pulled himself up. “I’m coming,” he said. He went to the door, his hand shading his eyes from the light as he opened it and let her in. “What time is it?”
    Andi checked her watch. “Six o’clock.”
    “Sorry,” he muttered, his hand ruffling his hair distractedly. “I fell asleep.” Her penetrating eyes reminded him of the sketch pad he had drawn her picture on, and he went back to the couch and saw that it had fallen on the floor. He picked it up and set it on a table