Free Lifeline Echoes by Kay Springsteen Page A

for walks, watch old movies on video. I do
community theater."
    "An actress, huh? You're in the right city
for it."
    "Oh, no. I'm not looking to be discovered,"
she assured him. "I can't imagine a worse life than acting for a
living. It's just a fun little storefront group."
    "What plays have you been in?"
    "I did some Shakespeare in college," she
told him. "Romeo and Juliet, The Taming of the Shrew."
    "'Kiss me Kate, we will be married o'
Sunday.'"
    "Quoting Shakespeare?" she exclaimed in
delight. "You've managed to completely surprise me."
    "Good. I like my women off balance," he
said. "Tell me more."
    "Okay, I played Marian the Librarian in the
Music Man last year."
    "A musical. So you sing?"
    "Just something I dabble at," she
admitted.
    "Sing something for me," he pleaded.
    "Sure. When you get out you can come see me
in Oliver."
    "I don't want to wait. 'If music be the food
of love, play on,'" Mick quoted softly.
    Sandy chuckled. "I can see I shouldn't have
told you about singing. Or about Shakespeare." Though she silently
admitted her heart would always melt for someone who could quote
the Bard of Avon so easily.
    "Too late. You did. Now you get to
sing."
    "You make my head spin," she said, only half
joking. "I'll bet you're a real tornado on a date."
    He laughed. "You'll find out. Stop
stalling."
    "Okay, let me think. Um, do you like Bette
Midler?"
    "Sure."
    Sandy looked around the office. The other
operators were engaged, no one was paying attention to her. A
little self-conscious, she quietly sang part of "The Rose."
    "I love your voice," he said on a sigh. "I'm
gonna want to hear a lot more of it. Maybe you'll do a private
concert." He chuckled. "Makes me really want to kiss you,
though."
    Sandy was already desperately wishing their
meeting could really go somewhere. She'd never felt so easy with a
man before. "Maybe your voice makes me want to kiss you back."
    "Tell me more about you," he begged. "I'd
sure like to get to know you, Angel. Get a head start on those
kisses I'm giving you as soon as I get out."
    In between bursts of static they talked,
sharing the inane bits of information two people getting to know
one another often exchanged, as if they were meeting for the first
time over coffee.
    He liked the color of the sky on a clear day
in the mountains. She liked ice cream in the winter. He liked to go
for runs on the beach at sunrise. She liked puppies and kittens. He
didn't have any pets but he'd saved a mother dog and her pups from
a fire once and she'd gone crazy kissing his face.
    "My hero!" Sandy sighed in her best Southern
Belle voice.
    After a long pause, he finally whispered,
"Naw, I'm not a hero. I'm just a man stuck under a building,
talking to an angel he'd really, really like to kiss now."
    ****
     
    "Here you go, Chicory." Ryan emerged from
the stable leading a pair of horses. "You ready to ride?"
    "Now that kind of depends what I'm going to
be riding."
    His startled blink signaled a direct hit by
her double entendre and Sandy smiled.
    "I noticed you go out without a hat. Not a
good idea to ride without protection." He tossed a white hat in her
direction.
    Those green eyes of his lit with mischief
when she caught his own double meaning and she licked her lips.
    "Nice to know you're thinking about me,"
murmured Sandy, setting the hat in place. Especially since she'd
been thinking about him nonstop for the past few days.
    Ryan gave her a leg up onto a small but
sturdy sorrel gelding named Galaxy. With a carefree grin, Ryan
mounted the gelding he'd chosen for himself, a buckskin with the
rather unimaginative name of Buck. Side by side, they moved onto
the trail without speaking. Early morning sun slanted across
dew-coated fields of hay ready for harvest, turning them the color
of fresh honey.
    The silence between them swelled to its own
life, and with it, Sandy's uncertainty. What was he thinking? Why
didn't he talk? Why didn't she? What was she doing here? As soon as
they came to even ground, they