Kitabı oku: «My One and Only», sayfa 3

Telemarketer, most likely.

Almost without thinking, I padded barefoot into my bedroom. I dragged the chair from my dressing table to the closet and stood on it, groping along the highest shelf, and took down an old hat box. I sat on the bed and slowly…very slowly…opened the box. There was the silk scarf Willa gave me three birthdays ago, in shades of green that made me look like an ad for the Irish Tourism Board with my curly red hair and green eyes. The black wool cap my grandmother had knit when I went off to Amherst, shortly before she died. My tattered copy of To Kill a Mockingbird. I’d always assumed I’d been named after Harper Lee…how many Harpers are out there?…and in the year after my mother had left, I’d read the book nine times, searching for some clue as to how my mother could’ve loved the story of literature’s most steadfast hero but still abandon her only child.

There, underneath everything else, was what I wanted now.

A photo. I picked it up. My hands seemed to be shaking a little, and my breath stopped as I looked at the picture.

God, we’d been young.

The photo had been taken the morning of my wedding day; Dad had been testing his camera settings for the ceremony that afternoon. Nick and I hadn’t done that can’t see you till the altar thing, not buying into those superstitious rites (though in hindsight…). That morning had been cool and cloudy, and Nick and I had gone outside to sit on the steps of Dad’s house, cups of coffee in our hands, me in a flannel bathrobe, Nick, a New Yorker, in a faded blue Yankees shirt and shorts, his dark hair rumpled. He was smiling just a little as he looked at me, his dark eyes, which could be so tragic and vulnerable and hopeful all at once, happy in this moment.

You could see it on our faces…Nick, confident, happy, almost smug. Me, a secret wreck.

Because sure, I had doubts. I’d been twenty-one, for God’s sake. Just graduated college. Marriage? Were we crazy? But Nick had been sure enough for both of us, and on that day—June 21, the first day of summer—for that one day, I believed him. We loved each other, and we’d live happily ever after.

Live and learn.

“You’re not a dumb kid anymore,” I said aloud, still staring at the image of my younger self. Now I was somebody in my own right. Now I had a job, a home, a dog, a man…not necessarily in that order, but you get my meaning.

I put the picture down and took a deep breath. Straightened my spine and pulled my BeverLee-enhanced hair back into its customary, sleek ponytail. So I’d be seeing Nick again. The tremors that thought had induced earlier were gone now. I had nothing to worry about regarding Nick. He was a youthful mistake. We’d been caught up in each other…and yes, we’d been in love. But you needed more than love. Certainly, eight years as a divorce attorney had reinforced the truth of that idea.

But once, Nick could reduce me to pudding with one look. Once, a smile from Nick could fill me with such joy that I’d nearly float. Once, a day without Nick made me feel as if my skin didn’t fit and only when he came home would I feel right again.

No wonder we hadn’t worked. That kind of feeling…it couldn’t last.

I’d spent years getting over Nick, and over him I was. When I saw him—if I saw him, that was—I’d be cool. Dennis and I were solid…maybe not engaged, alas, but solid enough. Whatever Nick had once meant to me, well, that was ashes now.

It almost felt true.

CHAPTER THREE

ELEVEN DAYS LATER, I was about to put the ashes theory to the test. Needless to say, my mood was not in the chipper range.

“Tommy, look. Sometimes our hearts need time to accept what our heads already know.” I suppressed a sigh; Tommy was in my office (the eleventh time this week), once more debating whether his wife’s transgressions were really that bad.

“It’s understandable, isn’t it? She’s young…we’re both young…and I work a lot, right? Maybe she was just lonely.” Tommy looked at me across my desk, his birdlike face hopeful. My paralegal was six-foot-four and skinny as Ichabod Crane. In fact, he looked like a crane…long legs, rather hooked nose, small mouth. Despite that, he was awfully cute somehow, all those misfit features working together. He’d been married for seven months to Meggie; I’d been at their wedding, and alas, had known even then their days were numbered. Call it my sixth sense.

“Tom,” I said. “Buddy. Let’s take a look at the facts. Not what you hope, but just the facts.” His expression was blank with a side of confused. “Tommy, she screwed FedEx.” Personally, I thought Kevin from UPS was much cuter, but that probably wasn’t relevant.

“I know,” Tom said. “But maybe there was a reason. Maybe I should just forgive her?”

“You could,” I said, sneaking in a glance at my watch. “Sure. Anything is possible.” Could a person really forgive and forget a spouse shtupping someone else? Really? Come on. Hell, I hadn’t shtupped anyone, and Nick still thought—

I cut the thought off at the knees. Didn’t want to think about my ex-husband any more than I had to. I’d be seeing him in…crotch…about twenty-four hours.

This evening, Dennis and I would be taking the ferry to Boston so we could catch a flight first thing tomorrow morning. We’d land in Denver, switch to a smaller plane and head for Kalispell, Montana, which sounded suspiciously tiny. Then we were renting a car to go to Lake McDonald Lodge in the park itself. Christopher, my once and apparently future brother-in-law, had worked out in Glacier once upon a time—I even had a vague recollection of Nick talking about wanting to visit him out there.

“So what do you think I should do, Harper? I mean, I can’t help still loving her, and I wonder if I drove her to this…”

“Tom. Stop. You can’t blame yourself. She slept with the FedEx man. This doesn’t bode well for a long and happy marriage. I’m really sorry you’re hurting, I truly am. And you’re welcome to stay with Meggie, just as you are welcome to slam your testicles in the car door for days on end.” He closed his eyes. “In both cases,” I said in a gentler tone, “you’re just going to get more hurt. I wish I could say something more hopeful, but I’m your friend, I’m a divorce attorney, so I’m not gonna blow smoke.”

He sighed, deflating before me. “Right. Thanks, Harper.” With that, he slumped out of my office, listlessly muttering hello to Theo Bainbrook, the senior partner at Bainbrook, Bainbrook and Howe.

“There she is. My star.” Theo, dressed in pink pants printed with blue whales and a pink-and-white-striped polo shirt, leaned in my office doorway. “Harper, if only I had ten lawyers like you.”

“And for what would you like to praise me this time, Theo?” I smiled.

“You were right about Betsy Errol’s account in the Caymans.” Theo did a little shuffling dance, humming “We’re in the Money.” I smiled…not because we were in fact now going to be paid more (which of course we were), but because Kevin Errol was one of those I just want it to be over, I don’t care about the money types. As his attorney, it was my job to make sure he got a fair shake. He deserved his half, especially having been married to a shrew like Betsy. Betsy had hidden funds…I’d found them. Well, I had found them with the help of Dirk Kilpatrick, our firm’s private investigator, bless his heart.

“That’s great, Theo. Unfortunately, though, I have to get going. Sister’s wedding, ferry to Beantown, remember?”

“Ah. The wedding. If you’re going to Boston, you’re welcome to stop in the office there and do a little work before you…”

“Not gonna happen, Theo.” Bainbrook did have offices in Boston, and sadly, Theo was absolutely serious. He himself hadn’t actually practiced law for some time, having found that his minions could do the real work and thus enabling Theo to put in more time on the golf course.

“Would you like to hear who I’m playing golf with, Harper?” he asked, eyes twinkling. “Tiger Woods?”

“No. Sadly, no.”

“Um…gosh. A politician?”

“Yes. Think big, Harper. Backroom deals, war, clogged arteries.”

“Is this person a former vice president with a propensity for friend-shooting?” I asked.

Theo beamed and twinkled. “Bingo.”

“Oooh,” I said. “Very impressive.”

I liked Theo, despite the fact that he was lazy, had four ex-wives and dropped names more often than a seagull poops. He was an amiable boss, especially to me, since I put in oodles more hours than the other three lawyers here in the Martha’s Vineyard office. My divorce was one of the last cases Theo had handled himself. As I’d sat in his office, shaking like a leaf, gnawing on my cuticles, Theo’s gentle voice had given me a lifeline—Sometimes our hearts just need time to accept what our heads already know. He was the one who showed me that divorce attorneys were shepherds, helping the dazed and heartbroken across the jagged landscape of their shattered hope. He hired me the instant I graduated law school—I’d never worked anywhere but here.

“Well, enjoy yourself in Montana, Harper,” Theo sighed. “Great fly-fishing up there. Would you like to borrow my gear?”

“That’s okay. I’ll be back Monday. In and out.”

“Watch out for grizzly bears.” Theo winked and went off to schmooze Carol, the firm’s ill-tempered and all-powerful secretary.

I answered a few emails, checked my calendar for next week, tidied my desk. Then I stared out at the garden my office windows overlooked. Edgartown was the poshest town on the island. Graced with large and tasteful homes, brick sidewalks and our stout white lighthouse, the area was imposing but charming, much like Theo in some ways. In the winter, it was deserted, as most of the homeowners had their primary residences elsewhere. In the summer, it was so crowded that it could take half an hour to drive a mile. Most days above sixty degrees, I rode my bike to and from work; it took me about forty-five minutes of mostly flat pedaling and was a lovely way to get some exercise.

I sighed, unable to distract myself any longer. So. Soon I’d be thirty-four, an age that boiled with significance for me. I had no kids, no husband, no fiancé. Tomorrow I’d be seeing my ex-husband and, no doubt, ripping a few scabs off memories I’d buried long ago and watching my sister marry a man she barely knew. Super fun.

But speaking of scabs and memories…

Very slowly, I opened the top drawer of my desk, took out a little key from where it was taped to the back and unlocked the bottom drawer of the file cabinet to my left.

Last year, on my thirty-third birthday, I’d hired our firm’s private investigator for personal reasons. Half a day later, Dirk had given me this envelope.

Just looking at it made me feel a little sick. But I wasn’t a weenie, either, so I opened it, just a little, and glanced inside. Town, state, place of employment, place of residence. As if I needed to see the words. As if they weren’t already branded on my temporal lobe.

I hesitated, then dropped the envelope back in the drawer. “I have other stuff going on,” I told it. “You’re not a priority. Sorry.” I closed the drawer, locked it, replaced the key.

Then I gathered up my stuff, went into the waiting room, waved to Tommy and told him to keep his chin up—he’d get through this, they all did—and reminded Carol that cell service might well suck out there in Big Sky country and not to panic if she didn’t hear from me.

“Have I ever panicked, not hearing from you? Have I, in fact, ever gone twenty minutes without hearing from you?” she said, scowling at me. “Take a damn vacation, Harper. Give us all a break.”

“Aw. Does that mean you want some moose antlers as your souvenir?”

“That would be nice.”

I tapped the bobblehead figure of Dustin Pedroia on her desk. “Hope the Sox win tonight,” I said.

“Did you see Pedey last night? Unbelievable,” she said, sighing orgasmically.

“I know,” I said, having watched the rerun somewhere around 2:00 a.m. as I battled insomnia. “He’s so good now…just wait till he hits puberty.”

Carol’s dreamy expression turned murderous. “Get out.”

“Bye, then,” I smiled.

But just before I left, I went back and got that envelope from the bottom drawer, stuck it in my bag and tried not to think of it.

Out on the street, I took a deep breath. School was back in session, and most of the tourists were gone, though they’d be flooding in like the red tide on Friday. Glancing down the street at the Catholic church, I decided to pop in on Father Bruce before herding Dennis into readiness.

The church was quiet. Ah. A sign. The Sacrament of Reconciliation is held Thursday afternoons from 5:00 till 7:00 p.m. The little door of the confessional booth was open. I went in. Sure enough, Father Bruce was seated on the other side, apparently dozing.

“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned,” I said. Always envied my Catholic friends for this little rite.

Father Bruce jerked awake. “How long has it been since—oh, Harper, it’s you. Very funny.”

“How are you?”

“I’m fine, dear. But this time is reserved for those seeking the sacrament of reconciliation.”

“They’re not exactly lining up around the block, Father.”

He sighed. “You have a point. Can I do something for you, dear?”

“No, not really. I’ve just always wondered what you do in here.”

“I knit.”

“I figured.”

We sat there in silence for a minute. One thing about churches—they all smelled nice. All those candles, all that forgiveness.

“Is there something on your mind, my dear?” Father Bruce asked. I didn’t answer. “As your confessor, I’m bound by the same confidentiality you give your clients,” he added.

I looked at my hands. “Well, sure, in that case, yes, something’s on my mind. I’m about to see my ex-husband after twelve years.”

As Kim had done when she heard this news, Father Bruce sputtered. “You were married?”

“Briefly.”

“Go on.”

I shrugged. “It just didn’t work out. We were too young and immature, same old story, yawn. Now my sister’s marrying his brother. My stepsister, his half brother. Whatever.” Suddenly uncomfortable, I sat up. “Well, I should go. I have to pick up Dennis.”

“Does Dennis know?”

“Know what? That I was married? Sure. I told him last week.”

“And this was the first conversation you had on that topic?”

“It’s not really a topic. It’s more of a fact. Sort of like, ‘I had my tonsils out when I was nine, I got married a month after I graduated college, we were divorced before our first anniversary.’”

“And have you seen your husband since?”

“Ex-husband. Nope.”

“How telling.”

“You priests. Armchair psychologists, the whole lot of you.”

“You’re the one sitting in a confessional booth, seeking my wisdom under the guise of curiosity.”

I smiled. “Okay, you win this round. Sorry I can’t stick around so you can gloat, but I do have to go. Ferry leaves in an hour.” But I didn’t move.

Since my sister had called, there’d been a thrum of electricity running through me. Not a pleasant thrum, either. Sort of a sick feeling, as if I lived too near power lines and was about to be diagnosed with a horrible disease. As if opposing counsel just dropped a little bombshell about a secret bank account and a mistress in Vegas. For twelve years, memories of my marriage had been locked in a safe at the bottom of some murky lake of my soul. Now, through some whim of fate and through no desire or action of my own, I was going to see Nick Lowery once more.

“Here.” Father Bruce pulled something from his back pocket and then opened his side of the booth. I stood as well and opened mine, joining him in the church proper. “It’s my card. My cell number’s on it. Give me a ring, let me know how things are going.”

“I’ll be back on Monday,” I said. “I’ll buy you a drink instead.”

He winked. “Call me. Have fun. Tell your sister hello for me.”

“Will do.” I gave his shoulder a gentle punch and left, my heels tapping on the tile floor.

TWENTY-TWO HOURS LATER, I was ready to strangle Dennis with Coco’s leash and leave his body for the vultures or bald eagles or hyenas or whatever the hell else lived up here.

Yes, yes, I’d originally wanted him to come with me. One doesn’t face an ex-husband alone when one has a brawny firefighter boyfriend who looks like the love child of Gerard Butler and Jake Gyllenhaal. But the “and guest” idea had played out better in my imagination than in reality. Also, the thought kept popping up that this would’ve felt much better if Dennis been my fiancé instead of boyfriend, but that subject had not been broached since the night of the fateful phone call. Plus, I was about to murder him.

Let me explain. We’d been bickering since the moment I found him guzzling a beer and watching a rerun of the 2004 World Series instead of standing at the door with bag packed, as I’d requested. Granted, things had been a little off since my marriage proposal—and by off, I mean we hadn’t done it since then, which was causing all kinds of issues. But just because I was unsettled about Willa getting married didn’t mean I’d forgotten that Dennis had not exactly been thrilled with the thought of marrying me. Which meant, of course, that he wasn’t getting any. But we were still together, and when I asked if he’d come with me to Montana, he said yes. Eventually.

Unfortunately, Dennis, who was prone to back trouble, conveniently suffered a back spasm just before we left his grubby little apartment, which required me to wrangle all our luggage from our respective homes to my car to the ferry to the cab to the hotel, and then again to the cab to Logan, and then from Gate 4 to Gate 37 in Denver, and then from Ye Tiny Airport here in Montana to the rental car. Not just the luggage, but Coco (sulking in her crate with her bunny), my laptop, my purse and Dennis himself, who had a tendency to wander. Add to this that he’d charmed two flight attendants (a straight woman and a gay man) into giving him the last seat of first class due to said back spasms, leaving me to sit wedged between an impressively overweight Floridian and a frat boy who drooled on my shoulder as he slept, oblivious to the sharp elbow I kept jamming into his side. And oh, yes, my sister was marrying a stranger, my father was apparently having marital problems and my ex-husband was at the end of this hellish journey.

I was a little tense.

Which brought us to now, standing in a parking lot outside the Kalispell City Airport, squabbling like third-graders.

“Dude, I’ll drive,” Dennis said. “Give me the keys.” He stretched and twisted so that his lower back cracked, making me wince.

“I’ll drive, Dennis.” Honestly, concentrating on driving would distract me from what (and who) lay ahead.

“Dude, come on!”

“Stop calling me that!” I snapped. “Please, Dennis! Don’t call me dude, okay? I’ll drive. You get lost between your house and mine, Dennis, on the island where you grew up—”

“Maybe I’m not really lost,” he interjected, uncharacteristically prickly.

“—and we have forty miles to go through grizzly-strewn wilderness,” I continued, my voice rising in volume, “so please. Please, Dennis. Can we please get going here?”

Unlike Dennis, Coco obeyed, leaping lightly into the driver’s seat. I’d been forced to bring her, as she’d feigned a hurt paw when she heard the word kennel and limped around until she saw her travel crate. The dog was an evil genius. She sat happily, sniffing the Montana air, which was strangely clear and pure, unlike the salty winds of Martha’s Vineyard, always redolent with the smell of garlic and fish or, in the morning, doughnuts.

Realizing that a spat was not going to advance my case, I took a cleansing breath and tried to unlock my jaw. “Honey? We don’t want to be late for dinner.”

“My back is killing me,” Dennis grumped. “Harp, can’t you give me a massage or something?”

Wondering briefly if Father Bruce had a patron saint of patience, I said, “Dennis, we’re standing in a parking lot. I’m sorry your back hurts, honey, and I will rub it later, but I can’t help you now. Maybe at the hotel, okay? Please, Dennis? Can you please get in the damn car?”

With another sulky (and yes, kind of hot) scowl, he got into the car, grumbling. I followed, and Coco jumped onto my lap. She loved to steer.

I glanced at Dennis, sighed and started the car. “I’m sorry. I’m a little…stressed, Den,” I said, adjusting the rearview mirror.

“I guess I would be if I had to see my ex, too,” he said with an understanding grin. Then he tipped his seat backward and closed his eyes.

It was, admittedly, stunning out here. Mountains rose around us, patchy with snow—or glaciers, I supposed, great expanses of gray rock and swathes of dense green pine. Already, the trees glowed with autumn color. Clouds stretched through the blue sky, which seemed much higher here, much more vast, for some reason. Big Sky country indeed. I’d never been west before…never really taken a proper vacation, to be honest, just a few days here and there, usually tacked onto conferences in big cities. This…this was different.

A sense of solemnity settled over me, and Coco, as well. Wildflowers bloomed on the side of the road as we quickly left the town of Kalispell behind. Dennis, too, seemed to be struck by the drama and size of the natural beauty, so different from our little island—or no, he was sleeping. Just as well.

Unexpectedly, my throat tightened as I saw the sign for Glacier National Park. I’d watched parts of the Ken Burns special on PBS, but I wasn’t quite prepared for the beauty around me…the craggy, sharp mountains, the fields of multicolored flowers, and that air, the sweet, pure air. God bless Teddy Roosevelt. I stopped at the entrance gate, and a park ranger opened her window. “Welcome to Glacier National Park, ma’am,” she said, adding “Hey there, cutie” when she saw Coco. I paid and thanked her, nodded dutifully at her warnings to watch out for wash-outs, as the last rainstorm had been fierce, and drove into the park.

The road wove through the forest, then came out into a more open space. My breath caught. To the left, the earth dropped steeply away into a field of long, golden grass twined with blue, red and pink wildflowers. It was breathtaking. After a while, I turned onto Going to the Sun Road…what a beautiful name! A vast, oblong glacier capped the bare and jagged ridge across the way.

Suddenly, my tires caught the edge of the road, and I jerked the wheel a little, adrenaline spurting. The rented Honda veered back onto the road. Coco’s tiny feet scrabbled on my lap. “Sorry, baby,” I muttered once we were straightened out. “Got a little caught up in the scenery.” Den slept on, undisturbed. I glanced at the dashboard clock…heck. Four o’clock already. I’d thought we’d be there by now. Stepping on the gas, I almost immediately caught up to a car in front of me.

A slow car, despite the fact that it was a classic red Mustang, built for speed and midlife crises. Or octogenarian females, I guessed, from the dedicated way the car stayed precisely on its own side of the road, never straying above thirty miles an hour. No more, no less. Great. Why buy a ’Stang if you were going to do the speed limit? Didn’t that defeat the purpose of the pointless effort to recapture one’s youth and laugh at the specter of death? I couldn’t see the driver, as the sun glared off the back window, but judging by the way we were inching along, Eeyore here was one hundred and three years old, blind in both eyes and had already cheated death. Many times.

Glancing at the clock again, I sighed. Everyone else should already be at the hotel…the lodge, I corrected silently. Lake McDonald Lodge, it was called, where Christopher used to work in his youth. Despite the last-minute nature of the nuptials, the happy couple was expecting a fair number of friends. According to BeverLee, Chris was still close to some of the staff at the lodge, strings had been pulled, rates were low as the tourist season was officially over. Willa, who collected people the way a black wool sweater collects lint, expected around thirty guests.

After three phone calls, it had dawned on my sister that perhaps I had some feelings about seeing my ex-husband again. “You’re okay with the Nick situation, right?” she said. “I mean, I know you guys were…intense.”

“Oh, I’m fine,” I said blithely. “That was eons ago. No, Wills, it’s just…honey, I just wonder why you’re rushing. You know, I see so many unhappy—”

But my sister was prepared. Sure, I knew her well…but she knew me, too. “Harper, I know you think you’re looking out for me. But maybe this time I’m right, did that ever occur to you? Have some faith in me. I’m not an idiot.”

And that was the argument that had me grinding my teeth in frustration. Willa wasn’t an idiot. Except…in a way…she was a dope. A sweet dope, but a dope. If I tried to remind her of the facts of her past marriages or drop statistics, she’d counter that she’d grown up since then. What could I say to that? No, you haven’t, you’re still as naive as a baby bunny?

“So you’re okay with Nick being there? Because he’s Chris’s best man, of course.”

Of course. “I’m fine.” So you’ve seen him? What does he look like? Did he ask about me? Is he still mad? How did he seem? Is he married? Any kids? Does he still live in the city? Still an architect? Is he fat? Bald? Please?

And by the way…how the hell did Willa meet Christopher, anyway? Was Nick involved? Willa said she’d “run into” Christopher in a city of eight million people and recognized him after twelve years.

Please. I wasn’t born yesterday.

Dennis grunted in his sleep, which Coco interpreted as an invitation. She jumped onto his lap, then licked his hand, and he smiled without opening his eyes and petted her. I smiled, too, almost reluctantly. Exhibit A, Your Honor. Not only is Dennis physically appealing, he’s kind to animals. I turned my attention back to the road. Crap!

I slammed on the brakes to avoid rear-ending the red car in front of me. “Jesus!” I blurted, leaning on the horn. The Mustang driver had stopped, right in the middle of the road.

“Everything okay?” Dennis asked blearily.

“Yes. Sorry, hon. Some idiot who shouldn’t be driving.” The woman had just stopped. Yes, the ranger had warned about wildlife on the road, but there was no elk, no moose, nothing to explain the delay.

Dennis sat up, rubbing his eyes. Coco licked him on the chin, then poked her little nose out the window, snuffling. She whined and wagged. “You like it here, honey?” I asked my pet.

“It’s pretty,” Dennis said.

The red Mustang had not moved an inch. We were on a sharp curve, too, so passing would definitely be inadvisable, not that I’d seen many other cars. Should I try it? I tapped the horn again. Nothing. No grizzly bear, no elk, no goat, no response. “Come on,” I groaned. The sooner this weekend started, the sooner I could get back to normal. The driver didn’t move. Stroke? Heart attack? Flashback to the Civil War? I leaned on the horn again—alas, it was a rather friendly-sounding horn, as the rental was a Honda. Give me a good old-fashioned Detroit-made blare any day.

“Come on, Florence!” I yelled out the window. “Can you please move it?”

The driver of the car extended an arm out the window. And a finger.

It was a male arm…and finger.

And then the car door opened, and the driver got out, and was neither female nor a Civil War veteran. My hands slid off the steering wheel.

It was Nick.

He took off his sunglasses and looked at me and though I was fairly sure my expression hadn’t changed—I was rather paralyzed at the moment—my heart lurched, my mouth went dry, my legs turned to water.

Nick. He folded his arms and tilted his head, his eyes narrowed, and my heart flinched as if it had been punched. A roaring sound filled my ears.

Coco yipped.

“Problem?” Dennis asked.

“Um…no.” Without further explanation, I put the car in Park and got out.

“Harper?” Dennis asked. “Dude, don’t make a scene.”

Funny, to be so outwardly calm as I approached my ex-husband. You’re not a dumb kid anymore, I reminded myself distantly, but the words didn’t mean much, not when my entire being burned with electricity.

“Oh, Nick, it’s you,” I said mildly, pleased to find my voice sounded mostly normal. “I assumed you were an old woman riddled with cataracts.”

“And I assumed you were a Massachusetts driver with anger-management issues.” His tone was as pleasant as mine. “I see one of us was right.”

He was older. Abruptly, there was a lump in my throat. Of course he’s older, I told myself. So are you. It’s been a long time. His dark hair was shot with silver, and crow’s feet radiated from his eyes, those tragic dark brown gypsy eyes a little cool, a little suspicious. He was thinner now, his face bordering on careworn. His clothes immediately identified him as a cool New Yorker…dark jeans, white button-down with a quality and cut that made him look sophisticated and polished…all the things he’d wanted to be way back when.

Twelve years. What a horribly long time, and yet not even close to being long enough.

Then he smiled the way I remembered—that instant smile that flashed like lightning and had about the same results. Heat, electricity, light and possible injury and/or death, and I was glad I still had my sunglasses on. The last thing I wanted was for Nick to know he could still…affect me. One crack in the armor, and Nick would be in there with a hammer and a chisel, and he wouldn’t stop till there was nothing left but a pile of rust. That’s how it had been back then, and judging by my staggering heart, that’s how it was still.

“You look good,” he said, sounding almost surprised.