A Bridge to Dreams Read Online Free Page A

license.”
    Laughing, Brad handed over his wallet. It had enough credit cards in it to charge the entire stock of clothing at Nordstrom without putting a dent in hiscredit limit. The license told her far more than his driving status in the state of California, badly minimizing some of his best points and elaborating on a few of her own impressions.
    His eyes, which she could see for herself, were a rich, fascinating shade of emerald and were listed simply as green. Obviously the clerk who’d put it down had no imagination. He was six foot two inches tall, one hundred eighty pounds and, by her assessment, all muscle. He lived in Malibu at an address that inspired images of redwood sun decks, which were draped in vibrant pink and purple bougainvillea and opened onto wide expanses of sandy beaches. His birth date, May 15, told her he was a stubborn Taurus, which suggested that she might as well give in now about this vacation.
    She’d known for the past fifteen minutes she was going to do it anyway.
    Her brothers were going to kill her. Or maybe they’d kill Brad, she conceded, if they ever found out about him.
    â€œWhat’s the itinerary?” she asked before she could start worrying about how Brad would fend off the six angry Chambers men, who made up in sheer numbers and street-fighting savvy what they lacked in health-club fitness.
    â€œYou haven’t said when your vacation begins.”
    â€œTechnically, a week from Monday.”
    â€œPerfect. That gives me time to get back down to L.A., take care of a few details and free up my own time. You just leave the itinerary to me. I promise you the vacation of a lifetime.”
    â€œI’m not sure I can afford anything that dramatic.”
    â€œI promise this will be first-class all the way and it won’t cost you a dime.”
    â€œIf you can accomplish that, maybe you should go into the travel business.”
    â€œI have more business than I’d like now. I certainly don’t want to get into another one.”
    That statement raised a nagging concern. “Are you really sure you want to do this?” Karyn asked. “Maybe you ought to think about it. I mean, it’s a lovely gesture, but you don’t even know me.”
    He stretched a hand across the desk, palm up, and waited for her to put her hand in his. When she did, he folded his long fingers around it in a grip that was warm and strong and reassuring. “I’ve never wanted to do anything so much in my entire life.”
    His voice practically throbbed with apparent sincerity. Karyn’s unsophisticated pulse skipped several beats and a pleasant warmth stole through her. This was definitely a man with a knack for selling. She was about to take the charm with a grain of salt, until she looked into his eyes.
    His green eyes glinted with golden sparks and his gaze never wavered. This was not the cold sheen of a precious metal, but the romantic allure of the moon and the brightness of a thousand stars.
    This was the magic she’d been waiting for all her life.
    * * *
    Trying to explain her vacation plans to her brothers, who were sprawled around her tiny studio apartment like so many muscular, intense security guards, went about as well as Karyn had anticipated. They probed. She evaded. If it had been a chess game, they wouldhave played to a draw. If only circumstances hadn’t kept her living at home so many years longer than most of her friends, Karyn thought with a sigh. Her brothers had gotten into the habit of watching over her. She’d been so busy trying to manage school and work, she’d had little time for dating, anyway. Their protectiveness had never mattered all that much. Breaking them of it now was going to take either extraordinary tact or dynamite. Judging from their scowling, wary expressions, she should probably start hunting for someplace to buy the dynamite.
    â€œI thought you had to cancel Hawaii to get the car,” said