A Dream to Cling To Read Online Free

on the gas pedal. He shook his head and grinned lopsidedly. Hell, he hadn’t chased fire engines in fifteen years!
    She leaned around the next corner and skidded into an alleyway.
    He followed.
    Crazy, he thought, as stones spun beneath his wheels. Getting Brittany Winters’s home address would be as difficult as finding sand in a desert. Why the hell was he doing this? He could call her tomorrow, discuss the whole game matter in a way that would charm her into willing acquiesence, and get things rolling. He could …
    It was when he let his mind wander to more practical things that Sam got himself in trouble. As he pulled onto the main street, he spotted Brittany’s van ahead,and with a surge of renewed purpose he shot after her, not giving a thought to the fact that she had slowed to a respectable twenty-five miles per hour.
    The circling red light came out of nowhere.
    “Oh, damn.” Sam moaned as he pulled slowly over to the side of the street. He rolled down his window and shot his license out to the imposing-looking officer. “Dangerous speed, mister. Why, if there’d been traffic”—he looked up and down the deserted street—“coulda been trouble.”
    Sam mumbled an indecipherable answer, then looked beyond the policeman to the van that had made a U-turn and was cruising slowly past them. Brittany lifted her hand, curling her fingers in a soft wave, and continued on down the street.
    He watched her until the van was a dot in the darkness, then faced the policeman with a crooked smile on his face.
    The officer looked at him curiously. “Most people don’t react quite so nicely, fella. They’re all full of excuses about how this or that is broken and they really didn’t mean to, or the wife is sick at home or havin’ a baby or what have you.” He flashed Sam a grin and slapped the ticket into his hand.
    “No, sir. I was speeding all right. No argument there.” And she’d coaxed him into it, he thought, that lovely lady who seemed so soft and vulnerable back in the plushness of the family home. His smile broadened. “Is there a phone around here?”
    “Around the corner at the 7-Eleven. Now, you be careful, you hear?” The officer sauntered back to his car, leaving Sam alone to consider his next move. He scratched his chin absently as thoughts of Brittany played across his mind. He felt like a kid again, playing hooky from school and following rainbows. Damned if he didn’t feel good!
    The phone book was in shreds and Brittany’s number was unlisted according to the efficient-voiced operator,but it took only two phone calls for Sam to get what he needed, then he was back on the road, headed north toward a quiet residential area. As he pulled onto a tree-lined street with lovely old homes, the streetlights turned from harsh neon to muted gaslights and soft shadows fell lazily across the silent pavement. He scanned the large three-story houses, then glanced down at the scribbled address on a piece of paper. Five fifty-five
a
Elery Lane. Well, he mused, admiring the stateliness of the old, well-kept homes, Brittany definitely didn’t deny herself plush quarters! Five fifty-five loomed up from behind a copse of old oak trees, its gabled roof and pillared porch visible through the leafless branches. But the address he was looking for was 555
a
. Where the hell was that?
    And then he saw the small post beside the driveway, a tasteful wrought-iron rectangle with an arrow and a “555
a
” raised from the surface to beckon visitors down the long brick drive that wound behind the main house. Sam followed, his senses fully tuned and his mind lit with curiosity.
    Several hundred yards behind the house was a brick and wood carriage house, set like a plaything beside the massive main structure. An expanse of lighted, sashed windows stretched across the second floor and a stairway to the side offered entry.
    Sam parked the car and climbed the stairs.
    He glanced at the name beside the door. B. E. Winters.