Dreams: Part One Read Online Free Page A

with her.
    But tonight he’d gone too far. He’d blundered uncontrollably through the delicate spider web of a situation, and the whole thing had disintegrated in an instant.
    He’d behaved like an idiot.
    But what was done, was done. Colby was used to putting his mistakes behind him. Lord knew he’d had enough practice. The problem now was to figure out a way to recover all the ground he’d lost by trying to jump on Diana tonight.
    Because somehow he had to find a way to make her see him again.
    “You wanted the windshield washed, Miss Prentice?“
    Diana smiled through the dusty glass at the lanky young man dressed in jungle fatigues. Eddy Spooner waited, poised with a rubber-bladed squeegee.
    “Please, Eddy. It needs it.“
    “You bet. One thing we get plenty of around here during the summer is dust. You waiting for Colby to hit the post office?“
    Diana’s smile turned wry. Apparently everyone in Fulbrook Corners knew she and Colby had been dating. “That’s right. Have you seen him yet this morning?“
    “Nope.“ Spooner squinted past the pumps toward the small post office building on the opposite side of the main street. “No sign of him yet. You’re a little early.“
    “Yes,“ Diana admitted softly, “I am.“ She’d driven into town early this morning precisely because she hadn’t wanted to miss Colby when he showed up to collect his mail.
    Diana considered the post office neutral ground. It seemed safer to try reestablishing the lines of communication with Colby there where they had first met, rather than taking the risk of going to the old, decaying house where he was staying.
    Spooner stared at her through the windshield as he slowly raked the squeegee across the glass. Spooner did everything with a lethargic lack of interest. “You and Colby are hittin’ it off pretty good, I hear.“
    “Really?“ Diana made the response very cool. The last thing she wanted to do was talk about her relationship with Colby. Especially to a gas station attendant.
    “It figures Colby would take a crack at the first classy broad we’ve seen around Fulbrook Corners in a month of Sundays. He always did go for the fancy ones. Folks said he had no business aimin’ as high as he did. But I always told him – what the hell, go for it, man. What do you have to lose? Me and him used to spend a lot of time talkin’ about women.“
    Diana took a closer look at the man who had been filling her gas tank once a week for the past few weeks. For the first time, she realized that Eddy Spooner was about Colby’s age, maybe a year or two older. It struck her that these two men must have been contemporaries while they were growing up here in Fulbrook Corners.
    That realization came as a surprise. Eddy Spooner looked as if he came from a different world than the one Colby inhabited. It wasn’t just the jungle fatigues and heavy old military-style boots Spooner wore that gave that impression.
    Nor was it the thinning blond hair that fell to his collar. It was something else, something to do with the expression of lingering bitterness that marked what had probably once been a handsome face.
    Spooner was the kind of man who would spend a lifetime blaming others and an unkind universe for everything that went wrong in his world. He looked like a man who’d seen a lot of dreams go up in smoke.
    “You and Colby were friends as kids?“ she ventured.
    “Sure. Me and him used to hang out together. Sort of lost track of him after he left town. I spent a few years in the army and then came back here. But Colby, he lucked out. He didn’t come back until this summer. Wonder why he bothered to now? He never did think much of this town and after what he did, most people in town sure don’t think much of him.“
    Diana started to ask another question. Her curiosity about Colby was running rampant again. But before she could open her mouth, the familiar growl of a Jeep’s engine caught her attention.
    “There he is now. Looks like