When You Wish (Contemporary Romance) by Lori Handeland Page B

window, then leaning against it. “I had to take a language in college.”
    “College?” Surprised again.
    “I came, I saw, I dropped out.” She got into the car.
    Dan glanced at Olaf, who still scowled at him as if he’d just ravished Grace on the ground with the entire world watching. Well almost, but not quite.
    “You are not the only one who has a brain, bad man.”
    Dan ignored what seemed to be his new nickname. Arguing with Olaf felt like banging his head against a brick. No point to either one, and you got a hell of a headache. “What did Grace go to college for?”
    “You will have to ask Gracie.” Sniff . “When you work together.”
    Then he walked by Dan, bumping him with a shoulder just for the heck of it, got into the car, and slammed the vehicle into reverse.
    If Grace’s car theory rang true, Olaf should drive a monster truck. Instead he drove a late 50s model Plymouth Fury, which for some reason seemed just right, though Dan couldn’t recall why. What was it about such a car that nagged at his memory?
    Dan could see Grace’s incredible face through the windshield, her d ark eyes fixed on him as she receded down the long tunnel of trees that lined his driveway. Dan felt like a child left at Boy Scout camp in disgrace.
    The car disapp eared, and the rumble of the engine as it started down the highway back toward town made Dan suddenly remember what nagged him about the Plymouth Fury.
    The Fury was a monster car. The car that never died. A Stephen King car—Christine, by name. Perhaps there was more to Grace’s car theory than he’d given her credit for. In fact, there was a lot more to Grace Lighthorse than Dan could ever have imagined before he’d met her.
    Now that he had met her, he planned to spend the next few weeks imagining a whole lot more.
     

 
    Chapter Seven
     
     
    Being a morning person, Grace awoke with the dawn. This practice annoyed countless people, but she could never figure out why anyone would want to lie in bed right through the most beautiful part of the day.
    By the time everyone else in her household stirred, Grace would have taken her walk through town, picked up some coffee and come back to sit on the porch, stitch whatever blanket she was working on at the time—be it quilt or afghan—and watch Lake Illusion come to life.
    The vista never changed, but the people did. Sure, some of them were locals, but the tourists spiced up the view, and there were always a few early runners she could watch with bemusement.
    “Running?” she murmured. “Bluck!”
    Why run through life when you could get where you were going much easier by walking? You’d still get there, more slowly, true, but you’d be able to experience your journey. You could stop and study anything, really see the world, rather than pass it by in a blur. If life was a journey, then every day was a new city on your path.
    Grace picked up the material she’d been hand-quilting and jabbed h er needle into cloth gaily decorated with balloons in primary colors.
    Now, she wasn’t saying exercise was a bad thing— but hurrying everywhere was. It disturbed Grace to see kids being taught from the ground up to hurry, hurry, hurry. Get there before everyone else. Be the best. Trample those in front of you. You just had to wonder . . . did anyone stop and smell the coffee anymore?
    Grace sighed and took a deep drag of her own coffee, first with her nose, then with her mouth. Half the joy in coffee was smelling it first. The dark, heated brew slid down her throat and warmed her from the inside out as she contemplated the sun bursting to life behind the trees outside of town.
    One of the reasons she had left Minneapolis and come home was that she just couldn’t take the pace of the big city any longer. Especially the pace of the children.
    Stress in children concerned Grace. A lot. Kids should run, and jump, and play, sweetly oblivious of the problems awaiting them when they became adults. The problems were still