Magnificent Folly - Iris Johansen [59]
“Perhaps you are.” He kissed her with glowing sweetness and then let her go. “And now I want to examine this magnificent sand castle you’ve built for me.”
Her eyes widened as she put out a hand to stop him. “You can do that later. Why don’t we go get Cassie from her room? I promised we’d have a really festive dinner.”
Andrew looked at her in surprise. “It will only take a minute.”
“But you know how testy Muggins is when you’re late to dinner. She’ll nag you to—” She stopped as she met his quizzical glance, and heaved a resigned sigh. “All right, you might as well know now as later. Go look at it.”
Andrew turned and crossed the few yards separating them from the sand castle on the table. “Now, what could you have done to make you look so guilty?” he muttered as he bent down and examined the wall surrounding the castle. “It’s a great castle, a fantastic castle. I couldn’t have done better myself. Why are you—” He reached out and touched the wall surrounding the sand castle with a probing index finger.
He stiffened in surprise.
He touched the wall again.
Then he threw back his head and started to laugh.
“I just couldn’t bear it,” Lily said quickly. “This sand castle was going to mean something. It’s all very well to believe in things that we can’t see, but won’t it be nice to have something substantial to look at and remind us of tonight and—”
“Lily, stop apologizing.” Andrew wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. “What the devil did you use?”
“Quick-drying cement. I mixed it with the sand and water. We had to work very fast.”
“I just bet you did.”
“You’re not angry?” she whispered. “I told you I’m not like you. I need to have some of my dreams founded in cement, where I can touch them. You said it was only the fundamentals that mattered, and I promise you those will stand alone, Andrew.”
He shook his head in amusement as he turned to look at the sand castle again. “Why should I be angry? I think it will be great to have a castle around the house. I’d like to put it in my pocket and take it with me everywhere.”
“Really?” She knew Andrew didn’t need to carry his sand castles with him, but he understood that she did. He always understood what was important and tried to give it to her. “You’d find that difficult to do.” She smiled brilliantly, her face illuminated with love. “And besides, it’s not necessary. No matter what road we travel, we’ll always know it’s here waiting for us.”
His joyous smile mirrored her own. “Yes,” he said softly. “We’ll always know what we have waiting for us.”
Magnificent Folly is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
2010 Bantam Books Mass Market Edition
Copyright © 1989 by Iris Johansen
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Bantam Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
BANTAM BOOKS and the rooster colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Originally published in mass market in the United States by Bantam Loveswept, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., in 1989.
eISBN: 978-0-553-90777-3
www.bantamdell.com
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