Read Daniel and the Angel for Free Online Page B

toll."
    She could hear someone coming down the path. She didn't want to turn around and see triumph in D.L. Stewart's dark face. Directly behind her, she heard his skates crunch in the snow.
    "What's the matter?" he asked in that deep voice.
    She stared at the ground for a long moment, then finally admitted, "I was wrong. There's a fee to skate."
    A second later she heard the sound of coins and looked up.
    He held out a hand filled with gold pieces.
    She shook her head. "No."
    He turned to the official. "How much does this booth take in on a good day?"
    The man shrugged. "Fifty dollars. Maybe sixty.'
    He gave him three twenty-dollar gold pieces, then added a fourth. "Consider this a good day and close the booth."
    She started to say something, but he grabbed her arm and was pulling her along. A second later his hands were on her waist, and with a gentle shove he propelled her onto the ice.
    Lillian would have protested, loudly, that he'd paid for something she had planned to be free, that they didn't have to do this, that she would find something else they could do.
    Except that she'd forgotten one .. . little ... itsy-bitsy thing.
    She had never ice-skated.

5
     
    If I have freedom in my love,
    And in my soul am free,
    Angels alone that soar above
    Enjoy such liberty.
    —Richard Lovelace
     
     
     
    For the second time in two days D.L. stared down at Lillian. Only this time she was sprawled facedown on the hard ice.
    She turned her head and looked up at him. "I've discovered something. Without wings, you can't hang on to thin air."
    D.L. squatted next to her. "Are you hurt?"
    "Only my pride." She pushed herself up on her hands and knees.
    He straightened, grabbed her waist again, and picked her up. He set her carefully on the ice and kept his hands on her waist because it felt right. "I assumed that you could skate."
    "So did I." Her blades slipped and she squealed, then wrapped her arms in a death grip around his waist. She peered up at him, her face sheepish. "It looks so easy."
    "Turn around."
    "I can't without letting go."
    "Let go and turn slowly."
    "I don't do miracles," she muttered.
    He braced his skates and spun her around so her back was to him. He still held her waist.
    She blinked at him for a second.
    "Keep your ankles together and your back straight. I'll help you."
    "You can skate," she said flatly.
    His answer was to tighten his hands on her small waist and push off, skating smoothly and keeping her in front of him. He moved them both swiftly around the pond. "You're wobbling, Lilli. Keep your shoulders back."
    She placed her hands over his and straightened. "You're right! It is easier."
    She looked back over her shoulder as he picked up speed. Her cheeks were flushed pink and she was grinning. "This is fun!" Then she giggled.
    He skated faster, until he could feel the cold air on his face. She laughed louder and clearer.
    Before long the subtle scent of lemons drifted back to him, and her laughter—well, the sound of it did something queer to him. It made him want more. 'Round and 'round he skated, just to hear that joy.
    He looked down at her at the same moment that she looked up. And it was strangely humbling to look into her face and see such honest emotion.
    Over time he had come to accept that he was an outsider in a world where, no matter how much he spent or how much he made, he never felt as if he belonged.
    For thirty years there had been an emptiness in him somewhere.
    And now, for this one brief instant, skating on the ice with her looking at him as she did—as if he had given her the whole world—he thought that perhaps that emptiness inside him could be filled.
    It was astonishing to think he might have seen in her, this odd woman who claimed to be fallen, a small glimpse of that part of him he had thought was lost—the part that could make him complete.
    He forced himself to break contact. "Now you try." He gave her a small push, and she screamed for help. He stood there watching her