A Bridge to Dreams by Sherryl Woods

before Karyn realized what was happening.
    It was the final straw. She slung her purse as hard as she could, hitting the man upside the head, then took off down the hill toward Fillmore at a run. She was almost at the bottom when she heard a familiar shout.
    â€œKaryn,” Frank yelled from his car. “Get in here!”
    She whirled on him. “I think I’ve been rescued quite enough for one day. Just go home!”
    She began walking again, the car creeping alongside. “Come on, sis,” Jared pleaded. “I know you’re upset, but we were just trying to protect you.”
    â€œYou have no right to interfere in my life. None. I am twenty-six years old. If you all would get on with the business of living your own lives, maybe I could live mine. Now go away. I want to be by myself.”
    â€œWhat about Willis?”
    â€œYou don’t have to worry about him anymore. He’s as bad as the rest of you. I just finished telling him off, too. I trust that makes you happy. You’ve done your duty. The relationship is over.”
    She glanced sideways just long enough to see an exchange of guilty looks flash between her brothers. It gave her a fleeting instant of satisfaction before she dashed across the street behind them and caught a bus going in the opposite direction. She didn’t really care where it was going. Just about anyplace today was going to feel like hell.

CHAPTER EIGHT
    H ow in the name of everything holy were you supposed to prove your love to a maddening woman like Karyn Chambers? The question had reverberated through Brad’s head so often since his return to Los Angeles, he thought he was going nuts. What had he done that was so terrible? He’d tried to protect her from her brothers’ wrath, tried to shield her from embarrassment. She’d reacted as if he’d committed a crime.
    For days he paced through the L.A. car dealership, in and out of his office and around his house muttering under his breath about women who didn’t know the first thing about accepting love. Then he finally tried putting himself in her shoes. While Karyn struck him as being an innocent in need of protection, she saw herself as a woman in desperate need of asserting her independence. She was still trying to prove to herself—and her brothers—that she could stand on her own two feet. His actions, well-intentioned as they’d been, had knocked her feet right back out from under her.
    Brad was used to fighting fiercely for what he wanted, charging after it with everything that was in him. He hadn’t won races by being cautious. He’d won them by taking chances, by wanting them so badly that no risk seemed too great. He wanted Karyn Chambers. He needed every stubborn, feisty inch of her. She’d snagged a part of his heart that had been lonely and untouched for a very long time. Every fiber of his being wanted to roar back up the California coast and claim her.
    But some gut instinct told him that would be exactly the wrong thing to do with Karyn. She didn’t need to be pressured right now. She needed to work through what had happened between them and reach her own conclusions about the depth of their love. He vowed to wait, to maintain his distance, while she did exactly that.
    He had no doubts, none at all, about the eventual outcome. He only hoped he wouldn’t go mad in the interim.
    * * *
    The clear, color picture on the front page of the tabloid showed a startled, wide-eyed woman emerging from a familiar San Francisco hotel. A second photo was a close-up of Brad’s face. As she stood in the checkout line, Karyn felt a moment of sick uncertainty before she realized that she was the woman who appeared above the headline: Hot Driver Brad Willis Races Toward New Love.
    The story below added the lurid details, including Brad’s complete and seemingly endless list of romantic conquests, her name and occupation and the recent discovery of their