A Bridge to Dreams by Sherryl Woods Page A

love nest at the Pacific Heightshotel. “Is this the lady who finally lured Brad Willis away from fast cars?” the newspaper asked. “Karyn Chambers might be beautiful, but can she compete with his Porsche? Others have tried, but none have succeeded.”
    They made it sound like some tawdry competition. Love nest! The very phrase left her trembling and feeling sick to her stomach. It was bad enough that she’d made a fool of herself over the domineering jerk, but now the whole world knew about it.
    After putting the paper back on the rack, Karyn turned and walked out of the store, leaving behind a shopping cart filled with frozen low-cal meals and three pints of chocolate-crunch ice cream. The dinners had been for her conscience. The ice cream had been a futile attempt to fill the void that Brad’s departure had left in her life.
    He’d only been gone for a few days and already she was lonelier than she’d ever been in her entire life. He hadn’t called, not even once. Though she’d been the one to break things off, she regretted it hourly as the minutes dragged by and she missed hearing the sound of his voice. Maybe if she’d been wiser in the ways of love, she’d have recognized what they had sooner. Maybe she’d have fought harder to work things out, rather than running at the first hint of trouble. Brad’s actions might have been wrong, but she was a coward.
    For one fleeting second she was almost tempted to go back for that awful newspaper just so she could stare at Brad’s picture. Though her memory was good, it didn’t capture him as vividly as that sleazy photographer had. Even she was able to recognize the irony in that. As for her own pictures, they had remained in thecamera that Brad had nabbed from her while they were on their balloon ride.
    Still dazed by the discovery that love didn’t vanish immediately upon the arrival of disillusionment, Karyn was even more confused at finding herself a media celebrity. She walked slowly home, her thoughts in turmoil. At her apartment she was greeted by the sound of the phone ringing and the sight of the light on her answering machine blinking insistently. Incapable of dealing with either until she’d sorted out her thoughts, she ignored both and sank down on the sofa.
    â€œNow what?” she murmured. How was she going to live down this latest fallout from her brief affair with Brad? The law firm had been supportive and lenient during her long struggle to complete the training to become a paralegal, but it was a staid, old organization. Seeing her picture by every grocery-store checkout stand was not something her bosses would condone. The partners didn’t even like to take divorce cases in which they expected a lot of dirty laundry would be aired publicly.
    As for her brothers, she had no doubt at all that once one of them had spotted the report, they’d begin pestering her all over again about moving back home. She wouldn’t be surprised if they personally packed her bags for her or at the very least permanently locked the hinges on her foldout bed.
    One thing was certain, she wasn’t going home again. If she had to find another job, so be it. Nothing was going to make her regret her week with Brad. He had opened new worlds and no matter who tried to turn that into something dirty and capricious, she knew better. She believed in her heart that what they had shared wasa kind of love, fleeting perhaps, but love nonetheless. If only he hadn’t been so overly protective. If only she’d listened to his explanations. If only he’d fought harder to overcome her doubts.
    There were those two sad words again— if only .
    The rattling of the doorknob warned her that the family onslaught was about to begin. There was no place to run, so she sat right where she was and waited. She refused to help by getting up and opening the door.
    Fortunately, it was Tim who came in holding a copy