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    Chapter
One
     
    FIVE YEARS AGO…
     
    It was just like in the movies. When
you least expect it he walks into the scene and turns your world
upside down.
    I first met Bryan in my driveway one
summer day when I was seventeen. I’d heard of him; my older brother
Nate had roomed with him through most of college and into business
school. But I’d never met Bryan myself. He grew up near Buffalo and
went home for school breaks. Then, the summer after I’d graduated
from high school, Bryan stayed with us for a few weeks to help run
Mystic Landing, the gift shop my parents ran in the center of
town.
    My parents rarely vacationed and
hardly ever took time off. My mother had spent most of my high
school years recuperating from a devastating car accident that had
required multiple surgeries and countless physical therapy
sessions. She was finally herself again and to celebrate, my mom’s
sister had convinced my parents to spend a few weeks at her lake
house in Maine. Nate and I would watch the store while they relaxed
by cool blue waters and underneath crystal skies.
    They packed up, hopped in the car
and drove north, and hours later, I met the man who’d become my
first love. From the moment he arrived, I was a done deal. I swung
open the front door, ran to the car, and gave Nate a huge hug. Then
Bryan got out of the passenger side, wearing a white tee-shirt and
worn jeans, which is near about the sexiest thing a man can wear.
When he slung his duffel bag on his shoulder his shirt rose up,
revealing a sliver of his firm and flat stomach. I tried to look
elsewhere because otherwise I’d only think about the way his blue
jeans hung just so on his hips, and where the cut lines of his
abdomen led to.
    So I checked out his arms instead.
I’ve always thought one of the reasons some men work so hard on
their arms is because of what women think when they encounter
nicely sculpted ones. You picture the man above you. You imagine
running your hands up and down those arms as he moves in
you.
    But he wasn’t just a beautiful body.
He was the whole package. He had a trace of stubble on his boyish
face, and the softest-looking dark brown hair I’d ever seen. His
eyes drew me in, those forest green eyes with flecks of gold. Eyes
you could gaze into, eyes that invited long simmering looks as they
saw inside you.
    Nate introduced us, and Bryan put
his bag down and gave me a sturdy hug, rather than a handshake. I
was wearing one of my own necklace designs, a silver chain strung
with a lone heart pendant in midnight blue. His chest pressed into
the pendant, and I could easily have let my thoughts run away right
there.
    Then he spoke to me. “I feel like I
know you already. Nate says you’re a huge movie fan. That when
you’re not making necklaces you’re at the local theater. I’ve
always said there’s nothing better than skipping class for a
matinee.” Then the grin came, the lopsided smile I’d fall hard
for.
    “Matinee and popcorn. Doesn’t get
any better than that,” I said, and I was sure the words came out
all bumpy and clunky, out of sync with what I was saying silently —
How did my brother have such a ridiculously good-looking best
friend?
    The three of us hung out that night,
ordered pizza, and lounged on old plastic chairs on the deck, under
the stars. I listened as they talked about school, and what was
next for them both on the work front. Nate planned to look for a
job in the technology industry at the end of the summer, and Bryan
had scored a gig in Manhattan that started in a month. They weren’t
college boys anymore since they both had MBAs, but they weren’t
working men yet either. They were in this sort of in-between
time.
    I was in an in-between time too.
Only I was five years younger, so I figured I should get out of the
way of their guy talk.
    “I better go to sleep. Since I’ve
got the Mystic Landing morning shift and all,” I said, and then
went to my room and pulled on a pair of loose shorts and a