Read Online Until She Met Daniel by Callie Endicott - Free Book Online Page B

brilliance of fall trees and bushes. Sometimes she’d almost felt drunk on the color. But there was always something she missed about every place she’d lived since leaving her childhood home behind.
    Mandy leaned her head back and closed her eyes, listening to the sound of the evening. A few minutes later, she heard footsteps on the other side of the bushes separating her house from the city manager’s home. She breathed quietly and hoped Daniel wouldn’t realize she was sitting nearby.
    â€œMandy?” his voice called.
    She sighed and sat up. “Yes.”
    â€œIs it all right if I come over?”
    â€œOf course.”
    He came through a gap in the bushes. In his arms was a large, long-haired black-and-white tuxedo cat.
    â€œMr. Spock,” she exclaimed.
    â€œThen he
is
yours.”
    â€œI adopted him not long ago.”
    â€œI found him in the kitchen. I’m not sure how he got into the house.”
    Mandy winced. “Sorry. He’s turned out to be a terrible scrounge. I don’t mind people feeding him, but I don’t want him to be a bother.”
    â€œHe’s charming at it, but persistent.”
    She laughed. “He could give lessons to a bulldozer. A couple of weeks ago, he dashed into my house, skinny, dirty and hungry, and basically told me he was home and wasn’t leaving.”
    Daniel chuckled in return, a low, gravelly sound that somehow matched the motorboat purr Mr. Spock was emitting. The sound sent a flutter through Mandy’s midriff.
    â€œI sure hope Mr. Spock enjoys traveling in a car,” she said, trying to ignore the sensation. “I move around quite a bit.”
    His eyebrows shot upward. “New employment opportunities?”
    â€œNah, I just take off and trust things will work out. And they do. I was going to look for something in Vicksville when I got the job here in Willow’s Eve.”
    â€œWhere do you plan to end up permanently?”
    â€œNowhere. I
like
wandering. You see terrific things that way. I never saw the Pacific Ocean until a few months ago.”
    â€œYou don’t have any goals?” Daniel stared and Mandy could tell he didn’t understand. Most people didn’t. Even the ones who loved to travel still seemed to want a permanent home base, but this way she wasn’t tied down.
    Sure, it would be wonderful to find someplace that fit her well, but she wasn’t sure she’d ever find it. A place might fit for a while, but it never seemed to last.
    Â 

CHAPTER FOUR
    â€œI SN ’ T   EXPLORING   THE United States a goal?” Mandy asked. “One of these days I hope to spend a summer in Alaska. It would be dope to have a garden where a single cabbage can get to hundreds of pounds.”
    â€œHundreds of pounds?” Daniel repeated, unsure what anyone would do with a cabbage that size.
    She shrugged. “Maybe not that big, but with the growing day being nearly twenty-four hours long, they get
huge.
So that’s my goal,” she said, sticking her chin out. “Along with having lots of new experiences.”
    â€œOh. Okay.” He didn’t know what to think, except that spending a summer in Alaska growing giant cabbages didn’t fit the kind of goal he’d been talking about.
    His whole life had been about planning and setting goals. As a boy, he’d planned each day, with the objective of being involved in
anything
that kept him out of the house as long as possible—sports, school clubs, field trips, studying at the library, night classes.
    Hell, he’d graduated from high school a year early to get away from his embattled parents.
    After college, his goal had been to get to the top of city administration as quickly as possible. He liked being in charge. And he preferred being around logical, grounded people—
calm
people, who weren’t too reliant on emotion when making their decisions. Of course, it turned out his ex-wife had