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slender waist and the modest flare of my hips without being too revealing. Nicholas always wanted me to look my best on these nights, and I had never let him down. I wasn’t vain, but I knew the way people reacted to me. It was the very reason Nicholas wanted me on his arm when he entered a room, but none of that ever mattered to me.
    At least shopping was a good distraction from the pain. It always fluttered around the edges, ready to burst through and send me spiraling, but I’d learned long ago how to push the ache aside until I was alone.
    By the time Katie had settled on a deep sapphire blue cocktail dress, it was nearing two.
    “Hey, Katie, we’d better get home if we’re going to have enough time to get ready.”
    She glanced at me as she slid her credit card back into her wal et. “I need to make one more stop at a little jewelry store up the street.”
    I hated jewelry stores. They al seemed to have a snobbish feel to them, a little like the house I lived in. I hated anything pretentious, yet somehow I’d managed to surround my life with those types of things and people.
    With one look at me, she squashed al my
    objections on the tip of my tongue. “This one’s different.
    They have an antique section. You’l love it.” Katie knew how to get me. I loved al things old.
    Old books, old furniture, old jewelry—anything somebody else had used and loved.
    I could spend hours walking around in an antique store. I could imagine a mother with her son on her lap rocking him in a wooden rocker as she read him a bedtime story. I could picture a beautiful young woman in her wedding dress, holding onto the arm of her lover as they posed for a black and white photo. I could feel the anticipation as a man proposed, sliding his grandmother’s ring onto his future wife’s finger, asking her to be his forever. I could almost feel the joy and sorrow forever etched into each piece.
    We entered the little store, and Katie left me to myself. I went straight for the antique section. I never bought anything but would immerse myself in another person’s world for just a few moments. I fingered the rings worn into the shape of the owner’s finger through years of use, feeling the stones set in gold. I smiled as I imagined al the places they had been. There were bracelets, some in perfect condition and others bearing the patina of age. Those were my favorites. I continued onto the necklaces, old pearls, and diamond pendants worn with pride to the most formal of events.
    I trailed my fingers along the display gasping aloud at what I found next, reaching out, and clutching the simple pendant in my palm as I was thrown into the past.
    Though it seemed impossible, it was the same.
    April 1998
    “You don’t have anything to be nervous about,” I kept telling myself over and over. “It’s Daniel—my Daniel.” The last seven months were indescribable. I would never have imagined that I could find a love like this, but I had known it that first day.
    When I’d finished my freshman year of high school in Dallas, I’d never planned to leave. But when Dad decided to move to Colorado after Cheryl kicked him out and filed for divorce, I had to go with him. He was hurting. I’d never seen him like that, and I couldn’t stand the thought of him moving out there alone. Mom had resisted at first but relented when I convinced her Dad needed me more than she did.
    I’d never traveled outside of Texas before and was amazed by the beauty of Colorado Springs. In Dallas, I’d been surrounded by skyscrapers built on flat plains.
    Here I found myself surrounded by snowcapped mountains. Everything was green and lush, the opposite of Dallas. I loved it, though the fondness I felt for Colorado Springs may have been completely due to the people I’d met here.
    I’d come for my dad, but it was here I’d found my life.
    I loved old romance novels and spent my fair share of time fantasizing about love at first sight and being swept off my feet