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

Lake. They kissed and held each other, then she danced one last segment. It was the piecé de résistance of the show. Dana prepared herself to execute a fouretté rond de jambe en trounant, thirty-three times, breaking the world record.
    She could hear the audience take in its collective breath as she momentarily stood flatfoot on one leg, bent the supporting knee and whipped her other leg around to the side in a turn. Her head spun as she executed thirty-two more. Thunderous applause rang out and when the theater came into focus again, the audience was on its feet.
    She took one curtain call, two, three…
    In the wings, she and Jacques kissed like the real-life lovers they were and the crowd continued to roar. They rushed back out on stage, Dana’s heart galloping at the praise.
    But instead of greeting the audience, she and Jacques stood in front of Dana’s dance studio in Rockland, still holding hands. The entire building, where Dana had invested ten years of her life, where she’d found another kind of success, another reason to live, exploded.
     She screamed, “No, not this too.”
    “Dana, wake up.”
    “No, no, not this too!”
    “Dana, you’re having a bad dream.”
    The voice grew louder and her head began to clear. But she shivered at the loss, the hopelessness of what had happened.
    “Dana!”
    She opened her eyes. Ruth bent over her from beside her bed and had hold of her arms. When she was fully awake, her friend sat down and soothed Dana’s hair back. “Are you all right?”
    Shaking her head, Dana eased to a sitting position and rested against the pillow. For a moment, she struggled to recapture a remnant of the dream—when she was ecstatic and optimistic and full of success. The residual memory was bittersweet because of the searing loss that followed when reality dawned. “What time is it?”
    “Three a.m. Bad dream?”
    “Uh-huh.”
    “That hasn’t happened in a while. What was this one about?”
    Out of habit, Dana hesitated. She kept people at a distance most of the time, preferring not to get involved too much with others, fearful of being rejected. It was easier to live in the world she created, remote but in control.
    Yet the woman before her was different. For over a decade, Ruth had been Dana’s confidante, business partner, physical therapist and trainer. Sometimes even a surrogate mother.
     “It was my last performance again. The fourettés .” Dana smiled at how she’d been at the top of her game. “I’ll never forget it.”
    Ruth smiled, too. “The night was amazing. The audience was so still and focused.”
    Again, Dana viscerally searched for the pleasure in the dream, but now it was beyond her grasp.
    “What happened in the dream?”
    “Jacques and I went out for a curtain call and all of a sudden we were in front of the dance studio. The building exploded, Ruth, right in front of me.”
    “Oh, sweetie.”
    “It’s fear again.” Dana had gone to therapy to deal with what had happened to her. She’d come to know why she held back with people, why she didn’t risk much, and was still working on that, though the therapy had ended a while ago. “Fear of having my life’s work taken away a second time, I’d guess.”
    “Maybe because of the sexy cop. You’re taking a risk by agreeing to see him.”
    A sudden surge of anger unexpectedly hit Dana. “You know what though, Ruth? I’m sick of being afraid. I want to live my life more fully. I dealt with being unable to dance. Now it’s time to tackle relationships.” She angled her head at the computer on the dresser across the room. “Would you get that for me? I’m going to pursue this right now.”
    “How?”
    “By setting a time to meet JoeyD. By doing something proactive instead of cowering in this bed because of a stupid nightmare.”
    “Well, good for you.” Ruth retrieved the laptop and left her alone.
    Dana powered up the computer and waited for it to boot. Ruth was right. The step was good for