A Bridge to Dreams (2 page)

“How much?”

“Just look at this interior. All leather and it's like new. Not a mark on it. Only twenty-five thousand miles on her, too.”

“How much?”

“You have a trade-in?”

She shook her head.

“Hmm.”

“How much?” she persisted.

“What sort of budget do you have?”

“Limited.”

His enthusiasm staggered after her terse response. “I see. Perhaps we ought to take a look at something a little
more basic. We have a classic right here, a good solid car. Dependable. That's important.” He led her to a dull blue two-door the size of a large can of tomato sauce. There was rust around the edges of the door. A dent marred the left front fender. “Nothing fancy, mind you, but reliable transportation. I'm sure we can bring this in on your budget.”

Karyn studied the car without interest, then glanced back at the convertible. If she was going to blow her vacation on a car, why not get something with a little style? Why not go for something that suggested the owner was a daring adventurer, instead of a recently graduated paralegal, who dutifully watered her geraniums every Thursday and took her vitamins every morning?

“Tell me again about the convertible.”

The salesman's eyes lit up. “Absolutely. Let me get those keys and you can take her for a little spin. Get the feel of her. Once you've driven that beauty, nothing else on the lot will do.”

Of course that was exactly what Karyn feared. Her nervousness increased when the salesman put the top down and settled her in the bucket seat behind the wheel. The engine turned over on the first try. The damn thing purred. As the rare, late-afternoon sun caressed her shoulders and the gentle breeze whispered through her hair, a spark of excitement was born. She recognized that spark. She'd felt it gazing at pictures of Waikiki and dreaming of tall, dark, handsome strangers. That spark was very likely to be her downfall.

Back in the salesman's office, she braced herself to negotiate. He ran through the car's virtues as lovingly as a proud father trying to pitch his daughter to a blind date.

“You don't have to sell me,” she said. “Just give me a price.”

He looked crestfallen. Apparently it was not going to be that simple.

“Why don't you give me a figure,” he suggested. “We can start from that.”

Start from?
The phrase had an ominous ring to it. Why not start with the bottom line? “A thousand dollars,” she said finally.

The salesman appeared to be suitably aghast. He shook his head and swallowed hard. “I'm afraid that's a little out of line. I don't dare take it back to my manager. He'll laugh me off the lot.”

“Then it's your turn. I've given you my starting figure.”

“Come on,” he pleaded, beginning to sweat. “Give me something to work with here.”

“I just did.”

“I can't take that to the boss. A thousand dollars is nothing for a car like that.”

Karyn stared at him and her apathy began to return. She wasn't going to get the convertible. She would not go into debt for a car, not when she was finally getting on her feet financially. Growing up as she had on the cutting edge of financial disaster had taught her the dangers of living on credit. “Maybe we should just forget it.” She stood. The dealer was surprisingly alert and swift for a man at least thirty pounds overweight. He moved to block her way.

“Wait a minute. Don't be too hasty.” He flashed another of his thoroughly insincere smiles at her. “I'm sure we can reach an agreement on this, if we go about it right.”

“I don't think so,” she said, slipping past him.

“But, miss,” he began frantically, running along behind her.

She cast one last, regretful look at the convertible, then turned—straight into a rock-solid wall.

“What's the problem, Nate?” To her amazement, the wall talked. She glanced up and discovered it also had shoulders. Very broad shoulders, in fact. A deep dimple slashed one tanned cheek at a rakish angle. A scar knit a tiny white thread through one dark eyebrow. The result was uneven, unique and totally devastating. Even though she had no experience with car salesmen, Karyn recognized at once that this had to be the dealership's top gun. This man could have sold Fords to stockholders at General Motors. Those dark green eyes could have seduced her eighty-year-old spinster aunt. His hand rested at the small of her back, presumably to steady her after their encounter. It felt as though she had been touched by lightning. She simply stared, while Nate tried to explain the difficulty.

To Karyn's dismay tears welled up in her eyes. All she'd wanted was a car. The process should have been no more complicated, if slightly more costly, than buying a toaster. Instead, she'd discovered that it required the skills of a nuclear-summit negotiator and the patience of a saint. She had neither, nor was her purse exactly brimming over with the third necessary ingredient—cash.

“Look, I really think this was a bad idea. I'll come back another time.”

“You like the convertible,” the wall said, studying her expression.

She nodded.

“What did you offer?”

“A thousand dollars,” she said with a trace of defiance.

Brad noted the stubborn tilt of her chin, but, more important, he caught the shimmer of tears in her huge blue eyes. He was a sucker for a woman's tears. It had gotten him into trouble more than once. He had a hunch this was going to be another one of those times.

“I see,” he said very seriously. “Can you make it twelve hundred?”

“But…” Nate protested, only to be silenced by Brad's fierce look. He watched a spark of excitement return to those wide, innocent eyes and felt his heart do an unexpected flip. She glanced longingly at the convertible.

“If I live on peanut butter sandwiches for a while,” she said slowly.

“Fine,” Brad said before she could change her mind or Nate could start whining about the loss of commission. “Nate, take care of the paperwork. Miss…”

“Chambers.”

“Miss Chambers and I will be in my office having coffee. Come and get us when the car is ready. Make sure it's washed and waxed and that the inside is vacuumed.”

“Certainly, Mr. Willis.”

He watched as recognition dawned on her face. “As in Willis Motors?” she said.

“Heir apparent,” he confirmed, taking her arm and steering her back into the main showroom, down a corridor and into an office that was decorated with plush carpet, mahogany furniture and a wall that featured too many photographs of him standing beside various race cars.

Brad glanced at those photos, which were a taunting
reminder of a past he'd only recently had to give up. The sacrifice still hurt. Left to his own devices, he'd have stripped the walls of every last picture, but they were his father's pride and joy. Ripping them down would have shown his father just how much sacrificing his racing career had meant. Since that would only cause his father pain, there was no point in it.

Brad focused his attention on the petite, dark-haired imp before him. Before she could vanish like a woodland sprite, he settled her into a chair and gave her a cup of coffee. She was probably in her mid-twenties, but she seemed so young compared to the sophisticated women he usually met. He wondered fleetingly if he ought to be offering her milk instead. He perched on the side of his desk and studied her with blatant interest. The fact that she was obviously flustered by the intense scrutiny fascinated him.

“You won't get rich making deals like that,” she told him sternly. “Not that I'm not grateful, you understand, but it's bad business.”

“I'm already rich,” he confided. If his father hadn't seen to that, his own success on the racing circuit would have ensured it. He'd discovered long ago that money was useful, but it didn't solve all the world's ills by a long shot.

“Plan to stay that way?” she said, obviously still worried about his rash decision to make a deep slash in the price of the car.

“Absolutely. Another few hundred dollars from you won't make that much difference in our bottom line for the year, so don't worry about it,” he said, minimizing the cut. He had a hunch if she knew exactly how much
he'd subtracted, she'd have demanded to know what he expected in return and bolted from his office in a huff.

“But why'd you do it? For all you know I could make a habit of going around, conning men into giving up their cars at rock-bottom prices.”

He laughed at the idea of anyone with a face that innocent being a con artist. “I doubt it.”

“Why?”

“I saw you get off the bus. I watched you walk through the lot. You obviously needed cheering up. You looked as though you were on some sort of grim mission.” In fact that was what had brought him out of his office in the first place. He'd been drawn by that aura of dejection. He probably should have lived a few centuries earlier, so he could put on his armor and ride off to save damsels in distress. The knight-in-shining-armor syndrome was definitely out of step in this day and age. Most women had no interest in being saved from much of anything—except maybe dragons, but they were in short supply.

“Very perceptive,” she was saying with a hint of surprise.

“You didn't really want to buy a car?”

“I wanted a trip to Hawaii.”

He nodded sagely. “There aren't many of them on the lot today. Did you think of trying a travel agent?”

“I did,” she said with a heartfelt sigh. She held up her hand, her finger and thumb a scant inch apart. “I was this close to going. This close,” she repeated mournfully.

“What happened?”

“Ruby died.”

She sounded so sad again that he felt instantly sympathetic. No wonder she'd looked so forlorn. No wonder he'd wanted to rush to her rescue. “I'm sorry. Ruby was your…?”

“My car.”

“Oh.” His sympathy waned, but not his fascination. “So you're buying a car, instead of taking a trip you'd badly wanted to take.”

“Exactly.”

“You can always take the trip next year. Hawaii will still be there.”

“That's what Joe said.”

The mention of this Joe unsettled Brad in a surprising way. For some reason it bothered him that she ran around quoting some other man as though his opinions really mattered to her. “Joe?” he said cautiously.

“My mechanic. We've been on very friendly terms the past couple of years.”

He scowled. It was worse than he thought. “I see,” he muttered.

“I doubt it, unless you've had a '68 VW recently.”

“Good heavens.” With understanding, there came an astonishing sense of relief.

“Exactly. I'd hoped to keep it alive one more year, just until I had a chance to take this one little vacation.” She gazed at him wistfully. “Was that so much to ask?”

“It was a lot to ask of a '68 VW. Why was the vacation so important to you?”

“I'd never taken one.”

He regarded her disbelievingly. “You mean to Hawaii?”

“I mean ever, to anywhere. I am twenty-six years old and I have never been south of San Francisco. North, east
or west, either, for that matter. With seven kids in the family, we're doing good to get everyone together on Sundays for church. We went on a picnic once. It rained.”

“But you just said you're twenty-six. Surely you've been on your own for a few years now.”

“I have never been on my own, not the way you mean. I am the baby in the family. I have six older brothers who regard the idea of my being out after dark as worrisome at best. When I finally got through school and started earning enough to get my own apartment, they took turns standing guard at night until I threatened to call the cops on them. Now they just keep calling until I get in. Heaven knows what they'd do if I ever…” Her voice trailed off in obvious embarrassment. “Well, you know.”

He chuckled. “I certainly do. I think I understand why you wanted to get away.”

“Don't be mistaken. They're really great brothers. I just wish they all had a couple of dozen kids of their own so they'd leave me alone.”

“You're very loyal.”

“Yeah, that's what I told Ruby.” Suddenly she blushed. He loved it. “You must think I'm an idiot talking about my car as though it were a person.”

Actually, Brad liked that about her, too. Things obviously mattered deeply to her—cars, as well as people. It beat the shallowness he usually encountered all to hell. He leaned toward her. “Mine's Ralph,” he whispered confidentially. “Of course, I don't dare call him that in public. I'd be laughed off the racing circuit.”

“Then those aren't just publicity photos on the wall. You actually do race that car?”

“I did up until a few months ago.”

“You quit?”

“More or less. My father had a heart attack. The doctors told him to lighten up his workload or die within the year. We have ten of these dealerships around the state. So, here I am, making my monthly pilgrimage. Between paperwork, problem solving and trying to keep my father from sneaking into his office, there's not a lot of time left for entering Grand Prix events.”

“You're very loyal, too. It must have been hard to give up something you obviously loved.”

“I did it grudgingly, sort of the way you bought that car.”

“But you did it, just the same. I think what you did is very noble. I never gave up anything.”

“Except Hawaii.”

“That wasn't noble,” she said ruefully. “That was a necessity and I did it kicking and screaming all the way. If I could have managed without a car, I would have.”

Brad had a sudden inspiration. “When's your vacation?” he asked.

“There is no vacation.”

“I mean the dates. Have you told your boss you're not taking off?”

“Not yet. I think it's called denial.”