Summer of Dreams Read Online Free Page B

weren’t flirting with her in hopes of cozying up to her father. That girl has no interest in any man in a uniform.”
    Being as she was the daughter of a powerful general, Clyde suspected plenty of cadets and army officers were eager to court Evelyn. She was right to be cautious, and given Clyde’s ambition to rise within the Corps of Engineers, she’d be doubly suspicious of him.
    And why was he even thinking of her like this, anyway? His sole ambition in life was landing a solid job as an engineer so he could start earning a decent income. Anytime he lost sight of that goal, the memory of his mother’s hands, cracked and bleeding from the harsh lye soap she used at the laundry, snapped him back on track. He couldn’t afford to aspire to someone like Evelyn White. Someday he would wear an officer’s uniform. He would have money and prestige and the ability to get his mother out of the rooming house where she’d lived ever since his father had died and left them with nothing but debt.
    “How many demerits are they going to scrub from your record for working at the general’s house?” Smitty asked.
    “It will be enough.” But he was sweating as he said it. He’d been stupid to rack up so many demerits during his early years, mostly over trivial pranks. He’d never imagined his jaunt to Washington would result in such a steep penalty, and it imperiled everything for which he’d worked so hard. With luck, the patent he’d filed for last week would someday earn good money. At the very least, it ought to earn enough so he’d never have to pawn his old textbooks for money to buy soap, the only item West Point did not provide for free. It was embarrassing to be poor as dirt, and even more so to be on the verge of expulsion over those stupid demerits. There was no need for Evelyn or Smitty or anyone else to know of his precarious position at the academy.
    Clyde squatted down on his haunches to drill the next holes for another door hinge. The scent of fresh sawdust prickled his nose as he wound the hand crank, grinding forward into the wood and wishing he could talk about anything other than how close he was to being kicked out of school.
    Smitty must have read the tension in his voice. “Try to walk a straight line this year. I’ve seen plenty of lightweights get booted out of West Point over demerits, but you’ve got what it takes to be one of the great ones. Don’t let your impulses get the better of you.”
    Clyde swallowed hard as he finished drilling the final hole. “I’ll do whatever it takes to graduate,” he said firmly.
    Because if he lost his appointment at West Point, he’d have nothing in the world.

3
    E velyn was sitting at the breakfast table opposite Romulus when a wagon of bricks was delivered to the house, along with a note from Clyde Brixton. The bricks were leftovers from a new dormitory, and he’d been granted permission to use them at the general’s house. Supplies for building the generator were also being provided by the academy, for West Point looked after the family members of officers posted on long-term assignments.
    Evelyn raced outside to accept the delivery, excited at the prospect of beginning work on the generator. Romulus joined her outside as she scanned the note once again.
    “Clyde’s note suggests we lay the bricks on the flat surface just south of the greenhouse,” she said. She was proud of the perfect calm in her voice, especially given the way her heart picked up pace at the prospect of seeing Clyde again. Not that it meant anything. She was simply excited to get started fixing her waterfall.
    She summarized the rest of the note’s instructions for preparing a proper surface. She might have been reading lists from the West Point student directory for how bland she sounded.
    Romulus’s eyes gleamed as he leaned a hip against the sideof the cart. “Did you know your cheeks just flushed a shade of crimson to rival a damask rose?” he asked. “I suspect that a