Read Online Where Dreams Begin by Phoebe Conn - Free Book Online Page B

being home alone, but her nights were simply a comfortable blur. Perhaps it was time to make some changes in her weekends.
    “I remember a place filled with scented candles. Could we go by there?” she asked.
    “Of course,” Joyce exclaimed. “I didn’t mean we wouldn’t shop. Walk up to my house at seven and I’ll drive.”
    “I’ll see you later,” Catherine promised, but as she bathed and dressed that night, she wondered if Luke Starns ever dated any of Lost Angel’s volunteers. If so, she sure hoped Beverly Snodgrass wasn’t among them.
     
     
    Monday morning, Luke was back at his desk to tackle a fresh batch of grant applications. At noon, he left his office and purposely ignored the giant calendar where volunteers penciled in their time. While he’d struggled all weekend to suppress thoughts of Catherine Brooks, he’d eventually come to the depressing conclusion that she would probably not be coming back. He just didn’t want to verify the fact by searching for her name.
    None of their conversations had gone well, and even worse, he’d begun to suspect he might be to blame for discouraging some of the other sophisticated women who’d failed to honor their initial commitment to Lost Angel. It was an uncomfortable supposition, and he did his best to shake it off as he crossed the courtyard and joined the lunch line in the hall.
    He ate with the kids several times a week. Mabel usually served spaghetti with a fresh green salad and garlic bread on Monday, and it was one of his favorite meals. As he approached the counter, he joked easily with the kids in line, and then Catherine Brooks handed him a plate and, shocked, he nearly dropped it.
    “Mrs. Brooks? I had no idea you possessed any culinary skills,” he exclaimed in surprise. With a bright yellow oilcloth apron over a pale green shirt and matching jeans, he thought she looked not merely efficient, but awfully cute as well.
    “I can dice fresh vegetables with the best of them,” Catherine responded playfully. “Apparently I failed to check that box on my application. Would you please add it for me?”
    “Be glad to,” Luke replied. Rather than slow the line any further, he hurried away, but as soon as he’d taken a chair at the nearest long table, Nick Bohler dropped down beside him.
    “Man, she was flirting with you!” Nick exclaimed. “What’ll you do if her husband shows up here looking for you?”
    Luke feigned a rapt interest in his spaghetti and twirled it around his fork. “She’s a widow, so there’s no danger of that.”
    Nick snorted. “Then you’re in more danger than you think. Want to talk about it this afternoon in our group?”
    Luke readily grasped Nick’s warning, but laughed it off. “No thanks. How’s the job search going?”
    “Please,” Nick groaned, “I’m trying to eat. Everything is especially tasty today, isn’t it? Must be the new cook.”
    Luke could barely contain his smile. “Yeah, I’m sure it is.”
     
     
    Upon her arrival that morning, Catherine had been asked to take the place of a loyal kitchen volunteer who’d called in sick. So it wasn’t until after everyone had eaten and the kitchen had been thoroughly cleaned that she went out to her car to bring in books. She’d stopped by Target to buy two sturdy folding bookshelves, and she asked Rafael and Max, a couple of brawny boys, to carry them inside.
    “I sorted my books into categories,” she explained, “but it looks as though what you have here was simply shoved onto the shelves wherever the books would fit.”
    Rafael was a Latino who had bleached his jet black hair to a pale orange and wore it teased into spikes. “What’s the use of sorting them when most of the kids who borrow them don’t bring them back?”
    “As long as they’re read and passed along, I doubt it matters if they aren’t returned,” Catherine argued. “They can be replaced easily enough.”
    “Yeah, like everybody here can read,” Rafael muttered under