Read Online If Only in My Dreams by Wendy Markham - Free Book Online Page A

freak. Hopefully not a dangerous one. Clara checks to see how many steps it would take her to get to the door and away from him.
    “Are you all right?” the freak asks politely.
    “I’m fine.”
    “You’re shivering.”
    No, I’m shuddering. Big difference
.
    “Why don’t you sit down? Can I get you a cup of hot coffee?” He nods at the glass percolator, then at the row of stools along the soda fountain.
    She hesitates. She’d be tempted to sit and feed her caffeine addiction even without too-tight dress shoes and an unshakable chill from the subzero temperatures.
    But shouldn’t she be…
    Where?
    Shooting a scene?
    She can’t exactly do that single-handedly, so…
    “I’d love a cup of coffee,” she informs the dimwit heartthrob, setting her purse on the counter. “I don’t suppose you have any fat-free hazelnut creamer in here, do you? That would be heaven.”
    He hesitates. “I’m afraid not.”
    Figures
. So much for her vow to avoid artificial sweeteners from now on—not that the fat-free creamer would have been much healthier.
    But she’ll have to worry about chemicals and cancer later. Right now, she just needs coffee and a reality check.
    “What about Splenda?”
    “Splendid?” he echoes—sort of. “What is?”
    “What?”
    “You said something is splendid?”
    “No… never mind,” Clara says with a sigh, settling on a stool beside a
Life
Magazine
display featuring a cover close-up of a Boeing B-17 above the ten-cent price tag.
    “I’ll just take black coffee,” she decides. “And your cell phone, if I can borrow it.” Too bad she didn’t stick hers into the antique purse. A lot of good the iPod does her now.
    “My what?”
    “Your… cell… phone,” she articulates, and wonders why she’s bothering. Obviously, this guy is clueless. About everything.
    “Phone?” He gestures at an old-fashioned black one at the far end of the counter. “Go ahead.”
    “That works?”
    “Why wouldn’t it?”
    “I thought it might be just for show.” She shrugs, lifts the heavy receiver, and waits for a dial tone.
    Instead, she hears a woman’s voice.
    “Somebody’s on the line,” she informs the guy behind the counter, who’s watching her with an expression of… concern.
    Almost as though
she’s
the crazy one.
Yeah, right
.
    “It’s the switchboard operator,” he says with a slow, troubled nod.
    “The operator? But…”
    She trails off, her head swimming in confusion, and hangs up the receiver.
    “What about your phone call?”
    “It can wait,” she says, sinking onto a vinyl-topped stool. “I just need that coffee. Please,” she remembers to add, realizing that her tone is bordering on hysteria.
    “Coming right up, Clara.”
    “Thank you…” She interlaces her icy, trembling fingers on the marble counter. “What did you say your name was?”
    “I didn’t,” he says with a smile, extending his hand to shake hers. “But it’s Jed. Jed Landry.”
    Jed Landry
.
    The name slams into her like a two-by-four, taking her breath away.
    That’s when she realizes why he looks so familiar—and that he isn’t crazy after all.
    She
is.
    She must be, because she recognizes not just his name—Jed Landry is the character Michael is playing in the film—but also his face.
    She saw it just a few weeks ago in a black-and-white photo in the Glenhaven Park archives—the hero soldier who’s been dead for over six decades.

CHAPTER 4

    T he poor thing seems to have wilted before Jed’s very eyes.
    He watches her grasp the edge of the counter with violently trembling hands, and takes a moment to note that she isn’t wearing a wedding ring before he goes on to wonder what’s wrong with her.
    Is she ill? Feeling faint? It doesn’t seem that way. Her body has gone limp, but her face is alive with…
    Shock? Fear?
    Why on earth is she staring at Jed as though she’s seeing a ghost?
    “You…” She falters. “Your… name…”
    “Jed Landry,” he repeats, perplexed by her