Waiting for You (RightMatch.com Trilogy) Read Online Free

legs when he fell chasing a drug addict down an alley. And he was mortified when the twitching began.”
    “I hated that. It probably broke his heart that his symptoms bothered me.”
    “No, honey, he understood.”
    Ten-year-old Joe had been horrified at his father’s decline, at his gradual inability to do even personal tasks for himself. Though he’d rarely gone out in a wheelchair after he’d grown unable to walk, his dad had gone to Joe’s baseball games. The disease had been evident to everybody, and the other kids had teased Joe about it. He’d been embarrassed.
    And his dad had picked up on the situation and stopped attending Joey’s games. Even though Joe had been only a child, on the day they’d buried his father he’d stood in the gloomy morning wishing his dad back, telling God he’d never be embarrassed by another human being’s infirmities if only he could have more time with his father. “I wish I’d been more understanding of what he was going through.”
    “It was tough for all of us.”
    Glancing around his own sick room, Joe was disgusted at himself. He was being selfish and immature by complaining about the captain’s order to go off duty for two weeks and because he had to have help around the house for a few days.
    “I should be better about being laid up. This is nothing compared to what he had to go through.” An idea occurred to him. “Maybe I’ll get out his letters again. They always make me see things with a different slant.”
    Near the end of his life, his dad had dictated the letters to Joe’s mother so Joe would have a father’s words of wisdom to live by the rest of his life. Joe read them every year on his dad’s birthday and other times when he was feeling low. They were his most precious possession. Eventually, he’d catalogued them according to topic. There had to be some in the box on keeping a perspective on things.
    “I think that’s a great idea.” Though his mother was sympathetic to Joe’s childhood scars, she was practical, too. “I’m going to clean up from breakfast, then fix you lunch and leave it in the fridge. I’m heading over to Annie’s. Hope has a dance day where family members can observe.”
    “You’re already doting on her kids.”
    Ellison had wrapped up Annie in the fold of their family and treated Annie’s son and daughter like she treated Joe’s two girls. His mother had been thrilled to have more grandchildren to spoil.
    Joe wondered which dance studio Hope attended. What were the chances of it being the one Dana owned? Hmm. After his mother left, thoughts of the pretty dancer had him leaning over to the nightstand. Careful not to jar his shoulder, he got his laptop, pushed himself up onto the pillows and clicked into his email.
    The night of his accident, Dana had agreed to meet him so he decided to push her for a specific date. He figured in two or three days he ought to be ready to go out. A little TLC from her would certainly help him be a better patient and act more like the kind of man his father would be proud of.
    o0o
    The lights were hot, the plumed costume stuck to her skin and the wood of her toe shoes scraped her feet bloody, but Dana ignored the discomfort. She was Odette, suffering from a curse put on her by the villainous Von Rothbart, who turned her into a swan during the day and a woman at night. The pas de deux with her lover Siegfried began, and Dana could feel the muscles of her legs bulge, the strain in her thighs as she leapt into his arms. He spun her on his shoulder, lowered them both to the floor. When he’d cradled her in his arms, Dana could smell the sweat, feel the pumping of his heart next to hers.
    They danced and danced and danced in a fog of excitement and joy until the last climatic scene. Siegfried had also been tricked by Rothbart into choosing the wrong bride, dooming himself and Odette. Both knew life without the other wasn’t worth living, and they’d decided to plunge themselves into Swan