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With a sigh, Sara closed the book she had been reading Another happily-ever-after ending, she thought despondently If only real life, her life, would end like that If only there were a Prince Charer to carry her off on his prancing white charger; a tall dark handsome man who could look past the wheelchair and see the wo the ht A faint sht of hi one fantasy after another

He was a prince in disguise looking for his own Cinderella

He was an eccentric noble for the perfect mate, and she was it

He was a depraved monster from a childhood dreaust erupted from her throat No man, whether prince or monster, would ever want a woman bound to a chair What prince would want a princess who couldn&039;t walk? Whather eyes and she dashed them aith the back of her hand Lately, all she wanted to do was cry, toin self-pity She was tired of it, ashamed of it, but she couldn&039;t seem to stop She was alh a sunlittree-lined paths, swie And lanced at the beautiful little ballerina music box beside her bed Her one dreairl, had been to be a dancer It was a hope she had held close to her heart through all the years of her childhood, a hope that had grown fainter each tis, until, in the end, they had reether Any hope she had ever had for a normal future had died that day, killed by the cold, implacable realization that she would never walk She would never be a ballerina She would spend her whole life in a wheelchair

She wouldn&039;t cry! She wouldn&039;t!

Sara choked back a sob as the door swung open and Sister Mary Josepha ca her into bed

"Sleep well, child," Sister Mary Josepha said

Aftersure the bell pull was in place in case Sara Jayne needed soht, the nun left the room

Sara lay in her bed, wide awake, as silence fell over the household She was drawing the covers up to her chin when she saw a shadow auzy curtains that covered the veranda doors

"Gabriel?" She peered into the darkness "Gabriel?" She called his na in the lonely corridors of her heart "If you&039;re there, please co, and then the doors swung open, revealing a dark figure silhouetted by the ht

"Gabriel"

"Sara" He inclined his head in her direction as he stepped into the room and closed the doors behind him "You&039;re up late"

"I&039;," he reret

She shook her head "No, I haven&039;t"

She pulled herself into a sitting position, then lit the laain?"

Gabriel nodded He had stood in the shadoatching her read, watching the play of ehts as the story unfolded, to know that she had iined herself as the heroine, that she yearned for the perfect fairy-tale kind of love and fulfillment that existed only in books

"I&039;ve seen you before, haven&039;t I?" she ht, I ray eyes, the sharp planes and angles, the strong square jaw "I remember you"

Gabriel shook his head She couldn&039;t remeht e"

"How can you possibly remember that? You were only a child"

"So it was you!" She suardian angel?"

Arose up within hiel of death

"And you&039;ve been watching over ht He couldn&039;t tell her she represented everything he had lost, that her innocence drew hirow from a beautiful child into a beautiful woroith her No, never that! He shoved his hands into his pockets and curled theht fists She must never know that

"Why?" He forced a smile "Curiosity, of course"

"I see," Sara said dryly "Since you saved my life, you wanted to see how I turned out?"

"You could put it that way"

"And how have I turned out?"

"Beautifully," he murmured

"Beautiful but useless"