How I Found the Perfect Dress by Maryrose Wood Read Free Book Online Page A

me ye lived in a mansion,” he said, wandering through the “great room,” as my mom called it, with its vaulted ceiling and total lack of privacy. “It’s a bloody big house yer folks’ve got here.”
    I tried to match his casual tone. “It’s medium sized by local standards, believe it or not. People love big houses in Connecticut.”
    â€œThree bathrooms!” He turned to me. “And that’s medium sized, eh?” He was standing in front of the sofa. How easy it would be for us to sink down on it together and start making out like ravenous beasts. How easy it is, I thought, to remember exactly what his lips feel like on mine. . . . Considering that I was a person who’d once traveled thousands of years back in time to the days of Irish lore, why couldn’t I just skip ahead a few years and be old enough for Colin? Why why why . . .
    â€œWill ye listen to me,” he said, catching my gaze. “We haven’t seen each other since the summer—”
    My arms were around him, and his were around me. “I missed you so much,” I murmured.
    â€œAnd here I am, talking about the—”
    â€œColin—”
    â€œâ€”plumbing . . .”
    I turned my face up to his, eyes closed, ready for a kiss. And it came, tenderly, on my right cheek, where it lingered until Colin gently pulled away.
    â€œThere’s some stuff I ought to tell ye, I think,” he said.
    I did not like the sound of that one bit.
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    â€œ i don’t Understand.” the adrenaline rush of fear was clouding my brain. “Are you saying you’re sick?” We were sitting on the sofa, but we weren’t making out. Instead Colin was busy scaring the crap out of me.
    Colin looked away from me and shrugged. “It’d be simpler if I were. They can’t find anything wrong with me. I’ve been to the infirmary at school and a private doctor as well.” He tried to joke, but it was forced. “They all say the same thing: I’m fit as a fiddle, if a bit on the ugly side.”
    Ugly, ha. Sparkling blue eyes, reddish-blond hair, a faery-dusting of freckles across his face and that naturally graceful, athletic bod. Colin was a hunk. Like mine, his hair had grown longer since the summer. It was softer now and tousled into silky curls. He was thinner, a little paler—he looked beautiful; that was the only word for how he looked.
    â€œColin, please,” I begged. “If you’re not sick, tell me what’s wrong.”
    He exhaled and took my hand. “All right. Ye know me, luv, I’m a fairly energetic chap by nature. But soon after I started university, something changed.” He shook his head. “I was tired all the time and kind of foggy-headed. It got so bad I even tried cutting out the Guinness.”
    I smiled at that.
    â€œYe’ll think I’m daft, Mor,” he went on, in a quiet voice. “I feel like I almost never get a proper night’s sleep—except for last night, here in this house, that was quite the exception—but I have these mad dreams.”
    My head started to ache. “What kind of dreams?”
    He opened his mouth, then stopped. “It’s completely nutters. Never mind.”
    Now the room was spinning and I had to hold on. I put my hands on his strong arms and felt the muscles moving beneath his skin, like there was a lean, wild creature that lived inside him.
    â€œColin—tell me about the dreams.” I wouldn’t let him go. “I promise I won’t think you’re ‘nutters.’ ”
    I could see the need to tell someone gathering behind his eyes, like the clouds of a distant, fast-approaching storm. I know that feeling, I wanted to say. When you know that no one will believe you, but you’re desperate to tell the truth anyway. If I didn’t have Tammy to tell all my faery stories to, I’d probably have gone nutters myself by