Everyone loves Jack Holland, but Emmaline Neal needs him.

Her ex-fiancé is getting married in Malibu and, obviously, she can’t go to the wedding alone. In Manningsport, New York, tall, blond and gorgeous Jack Holland is practically a cottage industry when it comes to rescuing desperate women. He knows the drill, Em figures, so he won’t get the wrong idea.

What Jack needs is an excuse to leave town. Ever since rescuing four teenagers from a car wreck, he’s been hailed as a hero and the attention is making him itchy, especially since his too-pretty ex-wife is back, angling for a reunion. He’s always liked Emmaline. She needs a weekend date? No problem.

So when they wind up in bed together, Em chalks it up to red wine and chocolate cake, just one impulsive night not to be repeated. But Jack’s pushing for more, and if she lets down her guard, either she’ll get her heart crushed again, or discover that Jack’s worth more than just dreaming about.

Praise for Kristan Higgins’ Blue Heron series

THE BEST MAN

~Named a Best Book of the Year by Amazon,

Library Journal and Kirkus Reviews~

“Another sweet, touching must-read for Higgins fans and anyone who enjoys a perfect combination of humor and romance.”

—Kirkus, starred review

“A deliriously funny story.… The Best Man is Kristan Higgin’s best book—and that’s saying a lot.”

—Eloisa James

“You’ll adore every bit of this story—the setting bits, the funny bits, the sweet bits, the sexy bits and the emotional bits.… Higgins’s latest is sexy, screwy, funny and fulfilling—a simply radiant read.”

—USA TODAY

“Emotional resonance balances zany antics in a powerful story that feels completely real.”

—Publishers Weekly, starred review

THE PERFECT MATCH

“Higgins offers readers a journey filled with tears and laughter and the best kind of sighs, proving she only gets better with each book.”

—New York Times

“Tender insight, bright humor and flawless character development.… Another delightful, funny, yet heart-wrenching must-read romance from Higgins.”

—Kirkus Reviews, starred review

“Zingy dialog and hilarious asides…make this refreshing riff on the classic marriage-of-convenience plot a delightfully unorthodox, captivating winner.”

—Library Journal

WAITING ON YOU

“Romance star Higgins continues the Blue Heron series with her signature combination of wit, humor and soul-jarring emotional depth.”

—Kirkus Reviews, starred review

“Fans should take care not to read this one in church or anywhere else a gut-busting laugh would be inappropriate.”

—New York Times Journal of Books

“Embodies everything fans of contemporary romance are looking for.”

—RT Book Reviews

In Your Dreams

Kristan Higgins

www.millsandboon.co.uk

This book is dedicated to my great friend—the wonderful, the generous, the mighty Robyn Carr.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Praise

Title Page

Dedication

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

CHAPTER THIRTY

EPILOGUE

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Extract

Copyright

PROLOGUE

Well, now, it goes without saying that we all love Jack Holland. Especially us women.

But the Midwinter Miracle... Oh, gosh, can you even imagine? Not that we were surprised that Jack was wonderful—of course he was! First of all, he’s John Holland’s son, the only boy in the family, though I guess we’d have to say “man” now, of course. And he was in the navy, too, just in case he hadn’t already won us over by being the nicest thing ever. Not to mention handsome! Those blue eyes... Even Cathy and Louise were talking about those eyes the other day!

Jack’s just about royalty around here, since the Hollands are a founding family of Manningsport, and Jack’s the head winemaker at Blue Heron, the Hollands’ vineyard. Guess we won’t have to worry about them selling their land to a developer, not with all those kids in the family business. And then there’s the way Jack treats those three sisters of his, and his stepmother! A prince, that’s what he is! Don’t get us started on that ex-wife of his. She never deserved him.

Anyway, what we were saying? Oh, yes, the Midwinter Miracle! Well now, sure, it was a group effort. Levi Cooper, our police chief, he was wonderful (no relation to Anderson, and don’t think we didn’t ask). Levi and his deputy, Luanne Macomb’s granddaughter, what’s her name again? Emily? Emmaline? Anyway, they did the CPR. And that handsome Gerard Chartier, him, too.

But mostly, it was Jack.

Which was no surprise to us.

It was quite...well, exciting isn’t quite the right word, is it? But it was remarkable, no disrespect meant to that poor family, of course. Manningsport just about shuts down in the winter, just us year-rounders left, no tourists until spring when the wine tastings start up again. So the Midwinter Miracle brought all sorts of media celebrities here—Brian Williams stayed at the Black Swan; did you know? So charming! And just about everyone and their brother had to drop by O’Rourke’s when Anderson Cooper was in there.

That night put our little lakeside town on the map, and given that it happened in January, well, we could all use the distraction. Laney Hughes even opened up the gift shop off-season, there were so many people flocking to town. Unloaded plenty of Keuka Lake T-shirts, she sure did. Lorelei’s Sunrise Bakery sold out of everything by 8:00 a.m. that entire week.

What’s that? How’s Jack doing? He’s fine! He’s wonderful! A true hero. Anyone will tell you that.

Why would you even ask?

CHAPTER ONE

NOTHING KICKED OFF Emmaline Neal’s weekend like using a Taser.

Okay, okay, she hadn’t used the Taser yet and she probably wouldn’t get to (dang), but the tiny thrill of anticipation didn’t lie. If indeed there was an intruder in the McIntosh house, it would be deeply satisfying to apprehend him. Barb McIntosh suspected a sex offender, and, if she was right, Em knew exactly where she’d target the electrodes.

Granted, Barb had already admitted to being addicted to Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (“That Christopher Meloni! So handsome!”). But she’d heard strange noises in the utility part of her basement, and her grandson, the notoriously creepy Bobby, wasn’t home.

“Approaching cellar stairs,” Everett Field whispered.

“Yeah, I can tell that, Ev, since I’m right behind you,” Emmaline said. “And there’s no need to whisper.”

“Roger that,” Everett whispered.

Despite the fact that Emmaline had only been on the job for nine months and Everett was more senior, they both knew she was a better cop. Ev wasn’t the crunchiest chip in the bag.

“You sure Bobby’s not here?” Em asked Barb over her shoulder.

“No. I called him on the phone and yelled down there, so...”

“Roger that,” Everett said, reaching for his holster. “Alert for incoming hostiles.”

“Get your hand off that gun, Everett,” Emmaline said. “And where do you get this language?”

“Call of Duty.”

“Great. Just calm down. We’re not shooting anyone.” Taser at most, and only then if there was a struggle.

The crime rate was pretty low in Manningsport, New York, population 715, a tiny town at the base of Keuka Lake. Everett and Em made up two-thirds of the police department; their boss, Levi Cooper, was the other third. Traffic patrol, the occasional DUI, vandalism, parking tickets... That was about as exciting as it got around here. Em ran a group for at-risk teenagers, of whom there were four. In the summer and fall, when the tourists came to taste wine and swim and boat on Keuka Lake, they were busier, but this was January, and things were quiet. In fact, this was their first call in three days.

Something thumped, and Everett squeaked. Chances were that it was a malfunctioning furnace. Possibly a raccoon. Levi always said if you heard hoofbeats, expect to see horses, not zebras.

They were in the cellar now; in front of them was Bobby’s apartment; to the right was the door to the other half of the cellar, which housed the furnace and water heater and, Barb had told them, several dozen jars of pickled vegetables she’d put up this summer.

Thud.

Okay, something was in there.

“It’s probably an animal,” Em murmured, taking the Maglite off her belt. The utility room wasn’t accessible from the outside, so a person would’ve had to come in through the house. And Barb always locked up (again, the mighty influence of Law & Order).

Everett put his hand on the doorknob and looked at Em, who nodded. Then he flung open the door, and Em flashed the light, and something moved inside, and Everett screamed and, before she could stop him, drew and fired.

Damn! The noise slapped her eardrums hard.

“It’s a cat! Everett, it’s a cat!” she yelled. “Holster your weapon!”

Everett obeyed. As he did, a ball of black and white leaped on him, hissing, and sank its teeth into his thigh. Apparently Puss in Boots didn’t appreciate being shot at.

“Officer down, officer down!” Ev yelled, swatting at it. “Ten double zero, officer down!”

“Shut up,” Em ordered. “You deserve it.” He’d missed the kitty, of course. The guy was a terrible shot.

She lifted the cat gently by the scruff of the neck and pulled it off Everett’s leg. All of a sudden, Everett was grabbed around the throat by Bobby McIntosh, who apparently was home after all.

“Why did you shoot my cat?” he yelled.

“Bobby! Let go of him!” Emmaline said.

“We don’t have a cat!” Barb said from upstairs. “Bobby, did you bring a cat home?”

Everett was sputtering and red-faced. Em sighed. “Let him go, or I’ll have to use this,” she said, taking her Taser off her belt. “It hurts.”

He hesitated. She cocked an eyebrow, and, with a sigh, he released her partner.

Drat. “Thank you, Bobby,” she said. So close.

“Bobby! What were you doing down there?” Barb said. “I called you and you didn’t answer! Where did you get that thing, anyway? I hate cats.”

“I love them,” Bobby said. “I got it from the shelter.”

“Okay, so we’re good here,” Emmaline said. Everett’s eyes were wide. “Come on, Ev—let’s go. You’re gonna have to file a report for discharging your firearm, you know.”

“I thought it was a sex offender,” Everett said, his hands shaking.

“It wasn’t. You’re safe now, buddy,” she said, patting his arm. “Come on. Back to the station.”

* * *

“YOU SHOT A CAT?” Chief Cooper said fifteen minutes later, staring at Everett.

“I’m sorry.” Ev stood there like a chastened kid.

“He missed,” Emmaline said. Now that the ringing in her ears had faded, it was hard not to laugh. “The suspect was quite fast.” Levi gave her a look.

“File the report, Everett. The incident is under review, which means you just increased my workload.”

“Sorry, Chief. Um, Bobby McIntosh attacked me.”

“Because you shot at his pet.”

“In self-defense.”

“Not really,” Emmaline said. “The cat was the one acting in self-defense.”

Levi bit down on a grin. “Your mother won’t be happy about this, Ev.”

“Do you have to tell her?”

“She’s the mayor. So, yes.”

“Shit.” Everett heaved a sigh. “Anything else, Chief?”

“No. Fill out the report and get out of here.”

Everett left the office and swiped a cookie from the desk of Carol Robinson, their newly hired administrative assistant, who’d been shamelessly eavesdropping.

“Thanks for not letting Bobby kill Everett,” Levi said to Emmaline.

“I was kind of hoping to use the Taser.”

“Could’ve used it on Everett,” he said. “But good to see cooler heads prevailed.”

It was about as high praise as the police chief gave, and Emmaline felt a small rush of pride. Granted, it had been an idiotic call in the first place, but still.

Levi, who’d been a year behind her in high school, stood and picked up a bouquet of red roses wrapped in green florist paper and tied with a white ribbon. His look warned her not to say anything.

“Aw,” she said. “Flowers for the wife? You’re such a snuggly teddy bear, Levi.”

“Inappropriate, Officer Neal,” he said, giving her his famous “I tolerate you because I have to” look. “By the way, about that crisis negotiations class. I got you a grant. You start in two weeks.”

“You did? Oh, you’re the best! I take back every complaint I ever filed about you.”

“Very funny,” her boss said. “I’m going home. Maybe I’ll see you at O’Rourke’s later.”

“Maybe. Tell Pregnita I said hi.”

He smiled and left the office, stopping to say something to Carol before he left the station.

It was hard not to feel a little jealous. Levi and Faith had been married a little over a year and had a baby on the way. Seemed like everyone was getting married these days; Em had been to three weddings over the summer. In fact, she was considering marrying herself, just so she could register for the fun housewares.

Well. Time for her to go home, too. The O’Keefe Emergency Services Building, which housed the fire, police and ambulance departments, was about five minutes from town. Em drove past Hastings Farm, past the high school and into the Village part of Manningsport, three blocks around a small green at the edge of Keuka Lake.

Emmaline lived on Water Street, right next to the library, and often parked the cruiser along the green where the good people of Manningsport could see it and reconsider any bad decisions, like driving under the influence. O’Rourke’s Tavern, the only place in town open year-round, glowed warm and bright. Maybe she’d eat there tonight, since she didn’t have any plans. But first, home to the Wonder Pup—Sarge, her recently acquired German shepherd puppy, who’d need a walk and some exercise, despite his doggy door to the backyard.

She got out of the cruiser, her breath fogging in the cold, clean air.

“Hey, Em!” called a voice. Lorelei Buzzetta and Gerard Chartier waved as they went into O’Rourke’s, and Em waved back. Gerard was a firefighter and paramedic. Em saw him nearly every day at work (and also saw Lorelei, who owned the bakery and could make the angels weep with her chocolate croissants). The two had started dating a while back.

Through the windows, she could see Colleen O’Rourke, now Colleen Campbell, kissing her gorgeous husband, Lucas. There was Honor Holland and her husband, the lovely Tom Barlow. Paulie Petrosinsky and Bryce, who ran the animal shelter and had fixed her up with her puppy just two weeks ago.

Seemed like couples’ night at the pub.

Maybe she’d stay in tonight. She and Sarge could watch YouTube videos of hostage negotiators, eat Kraft Mac & Cheese (don’t judge, it was delicious). Maybe binge-watch The Walking Dead. She had a stack of books from the library, too. Or she could call around the Bitter Betrayeds, the name her book club had given itself, and see who else was climbing the walls.

Suddenly, the weekend spread vast and empty in front of her. No shifts till Monday. No plans other than a hockey game on Sunday—she played in the town league. She could do laundry and clean. Um...maybe buy some new towels. Go to the shooting range. That’d be fun, if solitary.

Her feet were getting numb. Time to get moving. Still, she stood there on the tiny town green, looking into the cheerful pub.

Maybe she’d drive to Penn Yan and see a movie, but it was a half an hour away, and there was more snow in the forecast. And after the big accident, everyone was feeling a little wary about winter driving.

Speaking of that, there was Jack Holland.

He stood outside O’Rourke’s, staring at the building as if he’d never seen it before. Maybe she should check on him. They played hockey together, and he was her boss’s brother-in-law and an EMT, so it wasn’t as though she didn’t know him.

He didn’t move, seeming to be trying to decide whether or not to go inside the bar.

Em crossed the street. “Hey, Jack,” she said.

He didn’t answer.

“Hi, Jack,” she said again. He jerked, then looked at her.

“Hey, Emmaline,” he said, forcing a smile.

“How you doing?”

“Great.”

He was so not great that her heart ached, looking at him stalled there, dead in the water.

Poor choice of words.

But he was clearly not great.

“You going in?” he asked, aware perhaps that too long a pause had elapsed.

“No. I’m headed home. I just got a puppy. Sarge. He’s a German shepherd. Very cute. Hopefully he hasn’t pooped on the floor.”

Oh, yeah, the babbling thing. See, in addition to all the above, Jack Holland was ridiculously gorgeous. As in, Hi, I’ve just dropped down from Mount Olympus. How you doin’? Tall and blond with eyes that were so clear and perfect and pure that they made a person think of all sorts of ridiculous synonyms for blue—azure and cerulean and aqua. His smile stopped traffic and made trees burst into flower and all that crap.

So yes, he rendered women stupid. Even women who were slightly prejudiced against very, very good-looking men. But everyone, including Emmaline, also knew that Jack was a tremendously nice guy.

“Jack? You okay?”

“Yeah!” he said too quickly. “Sorry. Just a little tired. You take care, Emma.”

No one called her that. More than likely, Jack Holland had just forgotten her name. He opened the door to the pub. There was a roar of “Jack!” and “Hey! The hero!” and general cheering. The iron bell behind the bar clanged; the O’Rourke twins rang it in times of celebration.

Poor guy.

Emmaline knew that the good folks of Manningsport—and America—had been quite dazzled with what Jack Holland had done. So had she. How many people could have done what he did, after all? It was dazzling.

Which didn’t explain the look on Jack’s face.

Well. He had a big family and a lot of friends. Everyone loved the Hollands. He’d be well taken care of.

With a deep breath of the frigid air, Emmaline went around the corner to her house, a little bungalow. She’d left a couple of lights on for the puppy, and her little house fairly glowed with welcome.

Emmaline wasn’t a Manningsport native, but she’d gone to high school here, living with her grandmother in this very house. Nana had died four years ago and left the house to Em and her sister, Angela, who lived in California. But to Em, the bungalow meant more than just home—it was where she’d found refuge and normalcy back in the day...and again when she’d moved here three years ago. She’d kept a lot of Nana’s furniture, bought some of her own, painted here and there, and the result was a pleasing mix of old and new, no real style per se, but comfortable and cheery, and it never failed to make her smile.

She scooped her mail from the little brass mailbox, unlocked the door and got down on all fours. “Mommy’s home,” she said.

The scrabbling of paws and yips of joy were happy music of the soul.

Sarge ran to her, Squeaky Chicken, his favorite toy, in his jaws as an offering.

Emmaline gathered the puppy into her arms and kissed his furry head. “Hello, puppy,” she said. She resisted the strong urge to indulge in baby talk to the dog to preserve his dignity and her own, but she couldn’t help laughing as he licked her face, wriggling like a little otter.

She stood up, did a few twirls, since he loved that, then encouraged him to go outside before he peed on the floor from excitement. He galloped out, chasing a leaf across the small, fenced-in backyard.

Em flipped through her mail. A flyer for a discount on heart-shaped cookies and cupcakes at Lorelei’s Sunrise Bakery—Valentine’s Day preorders now accepted. No need to save that, unless she wanted to buy herself some goodies (which she did, though her uniform pants seemed a little hostile these days). A bill from the cable company. A postcard from her sister. Saluti da Milano! Right. Flawless Angela had been in Italy at, yes, an astrophysicists’ convention.

Em flipped the card over. “Hello, sis! Hope you’re doing well. I haven’t been able to see much of Milan yet, but I hope to squeeze a few days of holiday after the convention. Hope to catch up soon! Love and kisses, Angela.”

That was nice. Her sister, younger by four years, was incredibly thoughtful. She was Daughter 2.0, adopted from Ethiopia when Em went away to high school. The kind of daughter Dr. and Dr. Neal hoped to have, though they never said anything like that. Angela was brilliant, kind, cheerful and also stunningly beautiful with her glowing brown skin and enormous, expressive eyes. She’d modeled in college, even. If Emmaline didn’t love her so much, it’d be really easy to hate her.

Sarge came back in through his doggy door, a clot of snow right on his nose. Ridiculously cute. She gave him his supper, then poured herself a Blue Point Toasted Lager. Yeah, yeah, the Finger Lakes were known for their vineyards, but there were plenty of great microbreweries, too.

Oops. There was one more piece of mail on the kitchen floor. She leaped for it, snatching it up just before Sarge pounced. He loved paper.

It was a wedding invitation, from the look of it. Thick ivory envelope, red calligraphy, a flower stamp.

It was postmarked “Malibu, CA,” her hometown.

Her knees gave a warning tingle.

She sat down at the little enamel-topped kitchen table. Opened the envelope to find another envelope inside. “Miss Emmaline Neal & Guest,” it said. She opened that, as well.

“Together with their parents, Naomi Norman and Kevin Bates joyfully request the honor of your company at their marriage ceremony.”

Sarge put his paws against her knee, and she scooped him onto her lap. “So,” she said to her dog, her mouth dry. “Looks like my fiancé is getting married.”

CHAPTER TWO

ON SATURDAY AFTERNOON, Jack Holland drove from the hospital in Corning back to Blue Heron, the vineyard owned and run by his family. The radio was tuned to a talk show, though what the topic was, Jack didn’t quite know. Still, the voices were comforting.

It occurred to him that he was probably alone too much these days. That a battered cat was insufficient company. That he should be with people. But last night at O’Rourke’s had been a circle of hell, all those people clapping him on the back and offering to buy him beers. Asking how he was doing. How Josh was doing. Thanking him. Telling him he was one brave son of a bitch and the town wouldn’t stop talking about this for years, which made Jack’s hands sweaty.

Still, he’d smiled and thanked people for whatever it was they were saying, because he knew in one corner of his mind that they were saying nice things, or what they thought were nice things, and he knew that the longer he stayed away from regular things, the harder it would be. He was fine. It was all fine. It was okay.

He’d stayed as long as he could take it. Colleen O’Rourke, who was like yet another sister in addition to the three Jack already had, gave him a hug, and so far as he could tell, he’d returned it. But once he’d gotten home, he just sat on the couch, Lazarus next to him, not touching but still there.

So being with his family, doing normal things, that was a good thing. He loved his family. They weren’t a circle of hell. Well, not completely.

He put on his turn signal even though he was alone on the country road. Ever the cautious driver.

If only he could see Josh. Go when the parents weren’t around. Just to see him.

Shit. He might have to pull over.

Once, when Jack was building his house, a bobcat had wandered in, lured by the smell of Jack’s meatball sub there on the sawhorse. Jack came into the great room, and the animal panicked, ran straight for the closed slider and hurled itself against it again and again.

That’s what Jack’s heart was doing right now. Smacking and thudding against his ribs. His hands were slick on the steering wheel, but it was okay; it was fine—he didn’t have to pull over. He was fine.

There looked to be a thousand cars at Honor’s house. Jack and his sisters, Prudence, Honor and Faith, had grown up here in the New House, built in the 1800s. His middle sister, Honor, now lived with her husband, Tom, and Charlie, the teenager they’d sort of adopted. Jack’s father and stepmother, Mrs. Johnson (technically Mrs. Holland, though no one called her that), lived in a spacious apartment over the garage.

Today was Faith’s baby shower.

“Hey, Uncle Jack.” Pru’s son, Ned, approached Jack as he got out of the truck. “Why are we here again?”

“I have no idea,” Jack said. “Solidarity for Levi, I guess.”

Sure enough, the men of the family—Jack, his father and grandfather, his three brothers-in-law, and unofficial nephew, Charlie—were manfully hiding in the kitchen as a wave of feminine laughter came from the living room.

“Jack!” said his father. “Wine?”

“Thanks, Dad. Hey, Levi. How you doing?”

Levi looked pained. “They were just talking about nipple infections,” he said, nodding toward the living room, which was hung with blue streamers.

“I call them the Coven for a reason,” Jack said.

“Levi!” called Faith. “Come see this, honey. It’s a Diaper Genie!”

“Ooh. A Diaper Genie,” said Ned. “Grandpa, can I have some wine, too? Please? Quickly?”

“Are you old enough?”

“I am. Hurry.”

“Levi!”

“They’re calling for you, mate,” said Tom, slapping Levi on the shoulder. “Best not keep the pregnant wife waiting.”

“Your turn will come,” Levi muttered darkly. “The baby, I’m all for. It’s the...stuff...that’s making me nervous.” He sighed and went into the living room to admire the diaper thing.

“A new baby,” Dad said contentedly. “About time. Right, Jack? Another nephew for you.”

“We can only hope he’ll be as cool as Charlie and I are,” Ned said.

Jack smiled. His wine was gone, he noticed. Funny. He didn’t remember tasting it.

Mrs. Johnson bustled in, a towering plate of food in her hands. “I thought I heard your voice, Jackie, my darling boy! Would you like something to eat? You look thin.”

“Mrs. J.,” Jack said to his stepmother, “you look beautiful today. And every day, now that I think of it.” His voice was pretty normal, he thought.

“Oh, you terrible liar!” She cuffed his head and beamed. “Come. See your sister. Make haste, and then you can eat.”

Jack allowed himself to be led into the living room, where Faith sat, a plate of cake balanced on her baby bump, pastel-colored wrapping paper and tiny outfits strewn around her.

A dozen or so women talked at once, sounding like a slew of metal trash cans bouncing down a brick staircase. “Jack, how are you? Jack, you were amazing! Jack, thank God you were there! Jack, Jack, Jack!”

“Ladies,” he said. The bobcat started ramming the door again, over and over and over. “Hey, sis.” He bent down and dropped an obligatory kiss on his sister’s head.

“Jack!” Faith said, reaching up to pat his arm. “Thanks for coming, buddy.”

“Sure. Which sister are you again?”

“The pregnant one. The queen.”

He smiled. See? Perfectly normal. Faith was funny, and he reacted appropriately. Honor flashed him a smile, telling him he was doing okay.

“Well, I hope your labor will be better than mine, Faith,” their grandmother said grandly. “Three days. No painkillers back then, either. It was the ether, or you toughed it out. Sometimes you died. John! Where are you, son?” Dad appeared in the kitchen doorway, already looking guilty. “Three days of labor with you.”

“I’m sorry, Mom,” he said. “Still.” He sent Jack a pained look.

“I loved giving birth,” Prudence said. “Ned slid out like a little otter, and with Abby, I didn’t even have time to get to the car. She was born on the kitchen floor. Ass-first, no less.”

“Thanks, Mom,” Abby said. “I’m so glad everyone got to hear that.”

“It explains a lot,” her brother yelled from the kitchen.

“Make sure you get an episiotomy, Faith,” said another woman. “Otherwise, you tear, and you wouldn’t believe how much. Anyone else have stitches in their butts?”

Sadly, Jack had heard it all before. Three sisters who took no prisoners when it came to “sharing.” It was like comparing war stories, he guessed, though his own stint in the navy hadn’t resulted in any; he’d been in research down in D.C.

It was a little weird being in the New House—so called because it was newer than the original house built on the property, which had burned down last year. Honor had overhauled the New House this past summer, and while it was still the same friendly, sprawling old place Jack had grown up in, it took some getting used to. More power to her, but still a little disconcerting.

Or maybe that was just how everything was these days. The same, but off.

Levi came over and sat down next to him. “You hear some of those stories? Good God.”

“Yeah, well, I grew up with three sisters. They can’t be in the same room without talking about blood and ovaries. And then there was the crying and snarling when they were teenagers. Terrifying.”

“Makes me glad I was in Afghanistan when my sister went through puberty,” Levi said. “Probably a lot safer there.” He was quiet for a minute. “You doing okay, Jack?”

“Oh, sure.”

“Sleeping all right?”

“Pretty much,” he lied. Levi shouldn’t have to worry about him.

“Well, even with a good outcome, sometimes these things can be...traumatic.”

“Yep. Sure.”

“If you ever want to talk, just say the word.”

“Thanks, pal. I appreciate it.” The bobcat was back. Thud. Thud. Thudthud. Thud. He wondered if Levi could see the pulse in his neck.

Jack stood up as another peal of laughter came from the living room. “All right, I’ve had my estrogen dose of the day.” He paused. “Have you heard anything about the Deiner kid?”

Levi looked up. “No change.”

“Okay. Thanks.” He tried to take a deep breath, but the air wouldn’t fit in. Nodded at Levi, waved to the women, then made his way into the kitchen, where the other guys were now playing poker.

“Pull up a chair, Jack,” said his grandfather. “We can deal you in.”

“I have some stuff to do at home,” he said, squeezing Pops’s shoulder. “Dad, we should check the pinot tomorrow, okay?”

“Whatever you say, son.” His father smiled at him, and Jack made sure he smiled back.

He went out to his truck. The sky was nearly dark. Another day past, so that was good. Not that the nights were easier. Just the opposite, in fact.

The door closed behind him. Tom this time.

“Hang on, mate,” he said. “Just wanted a word. How are things?”

“Thanks, Tom. Things are fine.”

His sister’s husband was a good guy. In fact, all his sisters’ husbands were good guys. They were even his friends, though he hadn’t known Tom, a transplanted Brit, as long as he’d known Carl and Levi.

“If you need anything, say the word, yeah? You’re always welcome here, of course. Honor’s hoping you’ll come watch one of those disgusting medical shows with her.” Tom smiled, his eyes kind.

“I definitely will,” Jack said. He probably wouldn’t. “Thanks, Tom.”

He got into his truck and headed down the driveway.

The road crew still hadn’t repaired the guardrail, and a makeshift memorial had sprung up there the first night. Now the flowers were dead, rotting in their plastic florist wraps. A sodden teddy bear holding a heart had tipped over in the snow.

Don’t look.

The truth was, he thought as he drove up the road, turning onto the long driveway that wound through the woods to Rose Ridge, he didn’t want all the concern and attention and questions and hugs. He wanted not to think. He wanted Josh to get better. He wanted to have a do-over.

He put his key in the door and stopped dead in his tracks.

The house smelled like perfume.

Candles were burning on the table, and a fire flickered in the fireplace.

A beautiful woman unfolded herself from the couch. “Jack. Oh, baby, how are you? I’ve been so worried.”

Shit.

The very last person on earth he needed.

“Hadley,” he said, and with that, his ex-wife wrapped her arms around him.

* * *

SHE WAS HERE, she said, because of course she’d seen the coverage on TV and come as soon as she could. What a wonderful, amazing thing he’d done! The Midwinter Miracle indeed! Daddy was so proud, all of them were, of course it was just like Jack to—

“Hadley, what are you doing here? Really?” he interrupted.

She settled back on the couch, wrapping the throw around her. He’d have bet that she’d checked herself out in the mirror before he got home. Blanket on or off? Do I want to look waifish and lost, or confident and strong? Hair up or down?

She sipped her wine (which she’d helped herself to, he noticed). “I just had to come,” she said. “And I don’t want you to worry about a single thing. I took a leave of absence from my job, and I’m here for as long as it takes.”

“As long as what takes?”

She took a deep breath. “Jack, I know how hard this all must’ve been for you, and I know we’ve had our problems—”

He laughed. That was one way of spinning it.

“And I want to be here for you. Take care of you.” She paused, looking him directly in the eye. “Make things up to you.”

“I haven’t seen you for two years, Hadley.”

“I know exactly how long it’s been. I can’t tell you how much I’ve regretted what happened between us. I’ve done some serious growing up these past couple of years, and I want to show you I’m not that person anymore.”

It was a pretty good speech, he thought. “That’s nice, but I’m not interested.”

She looked down at her hands. “Can’t say I blame you one bit.”

She’d always had a way of making everything she did look beautiful.

“You need to leave now,” he said. “Thanks for coming by.”

“I understand,” she said, and her voice was husky. She stood up and folded the throw. “Well, I’m staying in town for a little while, at any rate.”

“Why?”

“Because even if you don’t see it yet, I know we have unfinished business. And I want to help, Jack. I do.”

“I don’t need help. But thank you and good luck in the future and all that crap.”

“You’re angry. I don’t blame you. Be that as it may, I’m here for the duration. Besides, it’ll give me a chance to be closer to my sister.”

Right. Frankie Boudreau, the youngest of the four Boudreau sisters, was in her final year at Cornell, getting her veterinary degree, which Jack knew quite well, since he still had the occasional dinner with his former sister-in-law.

“Well, don’t let me keep you,” he said. “Have a good night.”

“That’s fine. I...I just need to call a cab. I haven’t rented a car just yet.”

He closed his eyes briefly. Manningsport didn’t have cab service in the winter. She’d have to wait a half hour, maybe more, for one to get here from Penn Yan. “I’ll drive you. Where are you staying?”

“The Black Swan. Oh, Jack, thank you. You’re such a gentleman.”

Her suitcases were by the front door. Four in all, enough for her to stay for months. He grabbed them and went back to the truck. Hadley followed, shivering delicately. He held the door for her, the politeness ingrained.

“Thanks.” She gave him a soft smile as she climbed into the passenger seat.

Jack had a feeling his life had just gotten considerably more complicated.

CHAPTER THREE

“WHAT THE HELL are those?” Emmaline looked in horror at the...the...the things in Shelayne’s hands.

“Trust me,” Shelayne said. “They’re gross, but they work.”

The Bitter Betrayeds had taken her clothes shopping, because, yes, she was going to the Wedding of the Damned. Every time she thought of it, she was tempted to channel Edvard Munch’s painting The Scream, but she was going.

It would be worse to stay away. Kevin would think that she still wasn’t over him. Naomi would gloat.

The thing was, way back when Emmaline and Kevin had first become friends, so had their parents, both sets so relieved their kids had found someone. When Em’s parents had divorced ten years ago (yet remained in the same house, how was that for Dysfunction with a capital D?), the Bateses and the Neals would have dinner every third Saturday of the month. They went to Alaska together and, a few years later, to Paris.

So Emmaline’s parents would be going to the wedding, as well as Angela. And if Em didn’t go, there was a strong chance that both psychologist parents would analyze her motives in front of anyone who asked, saying that Em hadn’t mustered the emotional fortitude to undertake this painful journey and find closure. Mom had already called three times this week to share her thoughts, and that would break the strongest resolve.

Allison Whitaker, unofficial leader of the Bitter Betrayeds, had leaped on the chance to avoid discussing another book no one had read and arranged an en masse shopping trip to the mall.

The Bitter Betrayed Book Club wasn’t really about reading. As the name implied, you had to have been dumped. Allison, a Southern transplant and pediatrician, had divorced her husband after he became consumed with a passion for collecting antique cookie jars “and didn’t even have the decency to turn gay, the way that hot Jeremy Lyon did.” Shelayne Schanta, the head nurse at the E.R., had been thrown over for her own aunt. Jeanette O’Rourke’s husband had impregnated a much younger woman some years back. Grace Knapton, who ran the community theater group and directed the school play, had been tricked into giving five grand to a Pakistani man she’d met online who professed to be in love with her, never to hear from him again. Granted, Grace wasn’t really bitter—she laughed about the experience more than anything. But she was gifted in the art of cocktails (her Peach Sunrises were the stuff of legend) as well as cheese puffs, so they let her join.

Clearly, going to the wedding of the man who’d made Emmaline’s membership possible was going to be discussed.

“You know what I think you should do,” Allison drawled in her glorious Louisiana accent as she fondled a black lace bra. “Put some high-test laxatives in their drinks. I can prescribe you a little something on that front, darlin’. Or, even better, cut up a jalapeño right before the reception, see, and then rub it all over your hands—” she pantomimed this action “—and then touch their eyes. Hellfire and damnation, y’all!”

“How is she gonna touch their eyes?” Shelayne asked. “But actually, Em, if you could do what Allison said, then grab his junk, that would be fantastic. We had a case in the E.R. for that last year. It was hilarious. Well, to us nurses, anyway.”

“Yeah. So tempting,” Em said, unable to tear her eyes off the package in Shelayne’s hands. “But I probably won’t.”

“Try those on, Emmaline,” Jeanette said. “I might get a pair myself.”

“Isn’t it bad enough that I had to buy a bathing suit?” Em asked.

“Mandatory water sports.” Grace clucked. “Who ever heard of such a thing at a wedding?”

“Exactly,” Emmaline said.

“Shush, child,” Allison said. “We showed you mercy by letting you get a one-piece. Now get in there and show us your boobies.”

“This is so humiliating,” Emmaline said. But she obeyed, slinking into the dressing room with her bathing suit in one hand, and the...things...in the other.

Emmaline yanked her MPD sweatshirt over her head and took off her jeans. Put on the bathing suit, which was one of those “look ten pounds lighter” types, praise Jesus. But when she’d tried it on the first time, the Bitter Betrayeds had deemed her boobage to be unremarkable. All the squeezing and squishing from the miraculous fabric apparently minimized her bust as well as her stomach.

Enter Ta-Ta Ta-Dahs.

The Ta-Ta Ta-Dahs looked like raw chicken fillets. Their purpose: to boost the girls. The breasts. Yeah.

Em opened the package and grimaced. They felt like raw chicken, too. Em sighed, then hefted her left breast and stuck the thing underneath. Flinched. It was cold. Silicone, the package said. Maybe Em would just buy regular chicken breasts. It would cost less than these. She slid the right one in and looked.

Well, well. They worked. Ta-dah indeed.

She went out to show the group.

“Hello!” Allison said. “We have liftoff, people.”

“How do they feel, Emmaline?” Grace asked.

“Disgusting. I’m changing back into my clothes now. You people have had your fun.”

A little while later, seated around a table at the Olive Garden and sucking down Peach Sunrises that weren’t nearly as good as Grace’s, Em took a deep breath. “So, guys, I’d like to bring a date,” she admitted. “You know anyone?”

“Jack Holland,” came the chorus.

“Wow,” Em said. “Is he for sale or something?”

“No, no,” Jeanette said. She worked at Blue Heron and was therefore the resident expert on the Hollands. “He just does that kind of thing. You need a date, he’ll go.”

“Not Jack,” Emmaline said.

“Why? He’s so handsome! If I was twenty years younger... And he saved all those kids! I mean, he was gorgeous before, but now, I swear, things pulsate when I think about him. Lady things.” This was from Grace, who was on her third drink. At least she wasn’t driving.

“Jack took me to my sister’s wedding,” Shelayne said. “He’s a perfect date. Gorgeous, we all know that, but he can also hold a conversation, he smells fantastic, he’s not embarrassing on the dance floor. When we got home, he kissed me on the cheek. I offered sex, but he turned me down. Nicely, though, you know? My feelings weren’t even hurt.”

“His ex-wife is back in town,” Allison said. Em already knew this—Faith had stopped by the police station, presumably so Levi could kiss her and put his hand on her stomach and offer other married gestures of devotion, and spilled the news.

“His wife?” Grace asked. “The Southern belle? The blonde? When we did Sound of Music, I begged her to play Liesl, but she was...well. You know.” She dropped her voice to a stage whisper. “Not friendly.” This was about as mean as Grace got.

“Her name is Hadley,” Jeanette said. “And, yes, she’s gorgeous. She came in the gift shop at Blue Heron the other day. So stylish.”

Emmaline remembered Jack’s wife—tiny and blonde, as helpless and adorable as a newborn bunny. Once, they’d been at the grocery store at the same time, and Em had realized it was Mrs. Jack Holland because of the accent (small town, nothing else to talk about). Em had had her arms full of overpacked grocery bags, her Ben & Jerry’s threatening to topple out. Gerard Chartier had seen Em struggling, said an amiable hello, then practically trampled her to offer to carry Hadley’s one underfilled string bag, which seemed to contain an entire apple.

“Let’s just say it got really chilly, and fast,” Jeanette added with great relish. “Honor froze her out with that stare of hers, and Hadley got the point. She practically ran out the door.”

“Who in her right mind would cheat on Jack Holland?” Allison asked.

“If Jack had a vagina,” Grace said, “he could belong to our book club.”

“No more Sunrises for you,” Emmaline said. “Back to my problem, I don’t think Jack is up for it. He’s got enough on his mind.” Also, he was too beautiful for a mere mortal such as herself. “You guys know anyone else?”

“I’ll ask Charles’s cousin,” Allison said. The cookie jar–inspired divorce had not stopped Allison and Charles from talking every day. “He’s a man. He must know other men.”

Talk turned to what Emmaline should wear, if she should go on a crash diet beforehand, if she should color her hair and slut it up or, just to make Kevin feel guilty, wear smelly clothes and stop washing her hair a week beforehand.

“No, no,” Jeanette said. “You have to be extra beautiful.” She gave Em a hard stare. “Want me to send my daughter over? She knows about these things.” In fact, Colleen used to make the occasional appearance at the Bitter Betrayeds, mixing her fabulous cocktails, but she was back with the guy who’d dumped her and rosy with love and hormones, so they’d kicked her out.

“You know what?” Emmaline said. “I’ll just go alone and hang out with my family.” She paused, picturing that. “Actually, if anyone can come up with a guy willing to fly to California for a few days, I’d make all those parking tickets go away.”

* * *

AND SO IT WAS that two nights later, Emmaline kissed Sarge seven times, made sure Squeaky Chicken was with him and walked around the corner to O’Rourke’s to meet the man known to Allison’s ex-husband’s cousin. Mason Maynard.

According to Allison and the quick background check Emmaline had run, Mason was employed (score!) in marketing and didn’t live with his mother (double score!). Never married, forty-one and fairly nice-looking in an unthreatening way. “He likes dogs, eating out and French films,” Allison had said.

Emmaline had winced. “That’s a red flag. And why ‘films’? Why not ‘movies’?”

“Attitude, Em. I have to go. I want to sext someone I met online.”

“That’s how serial killers—Allison? Hello?” Her friend had hung up.

But Allison had a point. Em would forgive the French films and even sit through one or two if Mason Maynard would be so kind as to go with her to the Wedding of the Damned.

Em took a deep breath and went into O’Rourke’s, which was warm and quiet tonight, the gentle lights glowing with just the right amount of flattering ambiance. The usual suspects were here—the Iskins, Bryce and Paulie, Jessica Dunn and Big Frankie Pepitone. Lucas was smiling at his wife as she shook a martini shaker.

“Hey, Emmaline,” Bryce said. “How’s Sarge?”

“He’s so great, Bryce,” Em said. “I owe you.”

“Aw, no, you don’t. Just make sure he’s happy.”

“Hey, girl!” Colleen called. “Want to sit at the bar?”

“I’ll take a booth, if that’s okay. I’m meeting someone.” She grimaced.

“A blind date?” Colleen was psychic about these things, as everyone knew. “You looking for someone, Em? Why didn’t you ask me? I’m hurt.”

Colleen was noted for many wonderful qualities; discretion was not one of them. “I’m not looking. I just need a date for a wedding.” She took off her parka and hung it on the hook.

“Did you ask Jack Holland? He’s always good for that. Except with me, come to think of it.”

“Well, you’re married now.”

“True. But if you just want a date, ask Jack. He loves women in distress.”

“He’s got a lot on his mind these days, I’d think.”

Colleen nodded. “He looks tired, poor guy.” She handed Emmaline a menu. “Who’s getting married?”

“My ex-fiancé.”

“Holy Saint Patrick! Okay, we need someone extremely good-looking. When’s the wedding and where?”

“Ten days. Malibu.” Em had frittered away the two weeks since she got the invitation, debating whether or not to go, whether or not to scare up a date, whether or not to simply move to Alaska and date a crab fisherman.

Colleen gave her an odd look. “Uh...is this Naomi Norman’s wedding?”

“Yes. How did you know?”

“I’m going, too. Naomi and I went to college together. Same sorority.”

“Ah. Well, she was the other woman back when I was engaged.” Might as well tell her up front.

“No! You know, I never liked her. I think she asked me to be a bridesmaid because she doesn’t have any other friends.”

“You’re a bridesmaid?”

Colleen grimaced. “Sorry. I said yes because I thought it’d be nice to get out of this snowy hell with my husband before I’m too pregnant to travel. Well, we can hang out, anyway. The resort looks great.”

“Sure does.”

“So you have a date tonight, and you never know, he might be great. I mean, they never are, but let’s keep a good thought. Wait, hang on!” She slapped her forehead. “You could go with Connor. Pregnancy brain. I’m forgetting everything, even my twin. Connor!” she bellowed toward the kitchen. “You have to go to that wedding in California with Emmaline Neal!”

“No, I don’t!” came the answering shout. “Sorry, Em.”

“No worries.” Em felt her cheeks ignite.

“Yes, you do!” Colleen shouted. “Her ex-fiancé is the groom!” And hey, why not announce her romantic woes to half the town? But it was too bad, because Connor was nice and attractive and manfully gruff.

“Stop trying to hire me out,” Connor said, appearing in the door to the kitchen.

“Fine!” Colleen said. “You’re a jerk, Con.” She turned back to Emmaline. “Want a drink?”

“Sure. Blue Point Lager, I guess.”

“Or maybe a nice glass of pinot noir?” Colleen suggested. “Sends the right message. Sensuous, but not too self-absorbed, and not too butch, either.”

“I’ll stick with beer.” She paused. “I’m not gay, you know.”

“I know that. You just look it.”

Em sighed. “Great.”

“Put your hair down. It’s pretty.” Colleen reached over and took out the clip that was holding up Emmaline’s hair. “There. Very hetero. I’m a whiz with makeup. Just putting it out there.”

“Thanks. You must have things to do.”

“Message received. I’ll keep an eye out for your guy.” Colleen smiled and bustled away.

Colleen’s pushiness aside, Em was hugely relieved. Colleen would be at the wedding, and Lucas, too. Angela, as well. She’d have allies, in other words. Her parents were in the neutral column. It depended on their moods.

Hannah O’Rourke brought her the beer, and Em took a sip. Jerked her chin at the Manningsport Fire Department, who’d trickled in for their weekly meeting, which consisted of poker and dirty jokes.

So. What was she supposed to do at this very moment? She hadn’t been on many dates since the breakup. She’d been on, oh, let’s see now...two.

It had taken a while to get over Kevin, of course, the only man she’d ever dated, slept with, kissed or even held hands with. And those two dates had been pretty terrible. One guy had had to go to the hospital to pass a kidney stone; Emmaline was going to wait with him, but he told her to leave before his wife got there. The other guy had asked her to pick him up, then invited her in, flopped onto a couch, picked up his bong and asked if she wanted to get high and watch SpongeBob. “You have the right to remain silent,” she’d said, and so the evening had ended in his arrest.

Also, men weren’t really beating a path to her door. She’d read the books, the ones that instructed her to feign idiocy and let the man do all the work and be feminine and unavailable and all that, and she was more than willing to try. It was just that not many guys asked.

Em got it. She was a police officer who played hockey and had a smart mouth. Not unattractive, not drop-dead gorgeous, either, not like Colleen or Faith or anything. Shoulder-length brown hair. Blue eyes that were not sapphire, ultramarine, cobalt, turquoise or cerulean. Just ordinary blue. Her body was average, she guessed. She was in good shape in that she ran and took a kickboxing class from time to time. Then again, she’d eaten an entire Pepperidge Farm coconut cake just last night.

Kevin’s parting words to her had been about her weight.

Sigh. Mason Maynard was forty-seven seconds late. Not that she was counting.

She’d been clear in her email to him that she was looking for a wedding date and nothing more. She’d pay for his flight and hotel for the weekend, of course, and all she wanted was an amiable companion. Someone to talk to and sit with and, when interrogated by her parents, to simply say they were friends.

She’d been to weddings without a date before, of course. But those had been the weddings of nice people. Tom Barlow and Honor Holland, Faith and Levi last year.

She looked at her watch again. Allison’s ex-husband’s cousin’s friend was now three minutes and fourteen seconds late. She took a sip of beer, but not too much, because she didn’t want Mason Maynard to think she’d been waiting too long or was the type to chug like a frat boy.

It was possible that Mason would be lovely. That at the age of forty-one, eight years her senior, he’d have a heartbreak story, too. That he’d completely understand why she needed a date, and, at the wedding, he’d be charming and self-deprecating. That they’d come back to Manningsport and he’d say, “You know, I had a great time. Want to have dinner sometime?”

Because, yes. Emmaline had always wanted to get married.

It’s just that she’d always wanted to get married to Kevin.

That’s what happened when you met the love of your life when you were in eighth grade.

“Emmaline?”

She looked up so suddenly she practically dislocated her neck. “Hey! Hi! Yes. That’s me.”

Mason Maynard was better-looking than his photo.

Much better-looking.

Now there was something that didn’t happen every day. He looked like Michael Fassbender. Hopefully in every way.

“Nice to meet you,” he said with a faint smile. Emmaline’s stomach did a flip, and she felt the start of a dopey grin.

He had beautiful dark eyes and graying hair, and he looked...he looked like a husband. Not that she was getting ahead of herself.

“Yeah. You, too,” she breathed.

His grin widened. Yep. Husband.

“This is my sister,” he said, stepping aside. A thin, similarly graying woman stood there, hatchet-faced and grim. “Patricia, this is Emmaline.”

“Hello,” Patricia said in a toneless voice.

“Hi,” Em said.

Crap.

But no, no, this didn’t mean anything. After all, it wasn’t weird that a guy would bring his sister on a date, right?

Fine. It was freaky. But maybe there was a good reason. Maybe her car had broken down, or she had dropped by unexpectedly. Or, from the look of her, she needed a keeper.

“She wanted to meet you,” Mason said, winking.

“No, sure. That’s...that’s great.”

Colleen came over. “Hello! What can I get you?” she asked merrily.

“I’ll have a vodka tonic,” Mason said. “And my sister will have water with a very, very thin slice of lemon, please.”

“You bet,” Colleen said, shooting Em a look. “Anything to eat?”

“No, thank you,” Mason said, as he and his sister sat down. “We’re just here for drinks.”

Emmaline wavered. On the one hand, weird already shimmered in the air. On the other, she was so hungry her stomach was growling. “I’ll have the nachos,” she said, food slut that she was. Patricia slid lower in her seat. “You can share, if you like,” Em added.

Mason smiled. Emmaline smiled. Patricia didn’t smile. Colleen walked back to the kitchen.

“So,” said Em. “This is great, meeting you both.”

“I have a small phobia about being alone with women,” he said smoothly.

“So I always come with him,” Patricia said. “Always. Every time.”

“Ah.” Dear God, where do You hide the normal people? Love, Emmaline.

Mason laughed warmly. “No, she doesn’t.”

“Yes, I do.”

“No. She doesn’t.” Mason smiled again. “Only the first time. I realize it’s a little strange.”

“It’s because of our mother,” Patricia said.

“Let’s not discuss it,” Mason said.

“You should tell her, Mase,” Patricia barked. “Keeping things bottled up is dangerous! It’s dangerous!”

The fire department was now staring openly. The firefighters loved this kind of thing.

“It’s fine,” Em said. “Some things are too personal to discuss with strangers.”

“He has boundary issues,” Patricia said urgently. “We both do. Boundaries become very fluid in communes.”

“Did you say commune?” Em asked.

“And the cats. Jesus.” Patricia shuddered.

“So many cats.” Mason’s voice broke. He took a steadying breath, then tried to smile at Emmaline. She tried to smile back.

“I’m more of a dog person myself,” she said.

“Thank you,” he said, reaching over to grip her hand. That was a little uncomfortable, given that he was staring intently into her eyes...and that his sister was now trying to get something out of her back molar. “You’re very kind. So! About this wedding. Difficult circumstances, I’d say.”

“You know, I’ll probably just go alone. I mean, it’s fine. But thank you.”

“He was your first love, you said in your email.”

Shit. Why did she tell him that? “Yeah.”

Patricia finished digging around in her teeth. “Mase, tell her about your first love. Do it. Tell her.”

“You don’t have to,” Em said. “Really.”

“No, no, I’d love to share the story. It’s actually quite beautiful.” He was still gripping her hand. “Lisbeth. She was so lovely, so very lovely. A friend of my grandmother’s—”

“It was the commune. We should’ve run away from there long before we did, Mase.”

“As I was saying,” Mason continued, “Lisbeth was a beautiful woman. Oh, sure, maybe a little mature for a seventeen-year-old boy, but—”

“She was seventy-four,” Patricia said, waggling a shaggy eyebrow at Emmaline. “Seventy. Four.”

“Here are your nachos!” Colleen said, setting down the veritable trough of food. Why had Em been so gluttonous and ordered them? Because now she had to at least pretend to eat.

Hang on. She was a cop. She always had an excuse.

“You know what?” she said. “I forgot to mention that I’m on call tonight. Just in case I’m needed. Patricia, I’m a police officer, and it’s such a small town that—”

“Actually, Levi’s on tonight,” Colleen said.

Dear God, could You please throw me a bone? Love, Emmaline. “No, I am.” She gave Colleen a pointed look.

“No, I’m sure of it. Faith came in for dinner because Levi’s working. So you’re off—oh.” Colleen seemed to realize she’d just bludgeoned a hole in Titanic’s last lifeboat. “Sorry.”

“No! That’s...that’s great. I thought I was on call. But I guess I’m not. Good! Fine. That’s good.”

“Eat your dinner,” Mason said with that broad, easy grin. Creepy, really. “Go ahead—enjoy while it’s still hot. We never had hot food in the commune, so I love it now.”

“Uh, would you like some? Feel free.” Do not. Do not feel free.

“We’re vegetarians,” Patricia said, taking a nacho and examining it. “Though I order ham from time to time. Did you know the French for ham is jambon? I find that fascinating.” She put the chip back on the plate. “Jambon. Jambon. Jambon.”

“Back to Lisbeth,” Mason said. “She and I were soul mates. It was so refreshing, not having to hide who I was anymore, not being blinded by what was traditionally considered beautiful. Which is one reason I think you and I will work out just fine, by the way.”

“Uh, thanks.”

“You’re welcome. So Lisbeth’s age was no concern. You see, at the commune, we didn’t believe in aging.”

Em took a nacho. “Really. How did that work out for you?”

“She died!” Mason cried. “Lisbeth died, dropped stone-cold dead when she was weeding the basil plants!” He burst into tears. “I never saw it coming!”

“Oh, Mase,” his sister said, wrapping her arms around his neck. “Don’t cry!” Apparently, her brother’s tears were too much for her, because she began sobbing, as well.

Emmaline glanced over to the bar. Colleen had her hand over her eyes, her shoulders shaking with laughter.

“Coll?” she called. “Can I get these to go, please?”

CHAPTER FOUR

WHEN HADLEY WANTED something, as Jack well knew, nothing could sway her. Not the opinions of other people, not common sense, nothing. And right now, she wanted Jack.

Which was an utter waste of her time.

“Marry in haste, repent in leisure,” Jack’s grandmother had intoned when he’d told her he was getting married.

“What’s wrong with being a bachelor?” his grandfather had asked. “I wish I was a bachelor. I’ve been wishing that for six decades.”

“So call a lawyer,” Goggy had replied. “I’m ready when you are, old man.”

In hindsight, they both had a point.

But Jack had been thunderstruck by love, and Hadley Belle Boudreau was unlike any woman he had ever met.

She was soft-spoken and smart and funny, and though Jack’s three sisters would bludgeon him to death if they heard him say it, she had manners the likes of which Yankee women—or at least Holland women—just didn’t have. Pru wore men’s clothes and smelled like grapes and dirt, same as their father did, and had enjoyed tormenting Jack with gory, detail-filled talk of periods and ovarian cysts for the past several decades. Honor was brisk and unsentimental. Faith, the youngest, liked to punch him (still, even though she was pushing thirty).

But Hadley was—how could he put this?—refined. Southern. She was, God forgive him, a lady, the kind they didn’t seem to make in the farming regions of western New York. And again, his death would be long, drawn-out and extremely bloody if his sisters (or grandmother, for that matter) heard him say that, which basically proved his point.

There was a vulnerability about Hadley; she was a tiny thing, five-foot-two, delicate frame, silken blond hair and big brown eyes, and her smile lit up a room. But she also had an occasionally bawdy sense of humor, which kept her from being too sticky-sweet.

They’d met at a wine tasting in New York City at a noisy, swanky restaurant near Wall Street populated by lean, fiercely fashionable women and loud, confident men, all aggressively eating hors d’oeuvres and trying to top each other’s stories of that week’s ballsy successes. But the restaurant was one of Blue Heron’s best accounts in Manhattan, and the owners were quite nice.

Honor usually handled these things, but she’d asked him to go, and he was happy to. Tastings (and schmoozing restaurant owners) were part of the family business, and Jack wanted to do his part. He’d joined the navy’s Reserve Officers Training Corps in college, and after he’d gotten his master’s in chemistry (because wine making was all about chemistry), he spent his time in the navy in a lab outside D.C., studying the potential effects and treatment of chemical contamination in large bodies of water. Then he came back to Manningsport and assumed the position of winemaker alongside his father and grandfather.

That had always been the plan: education, military service and a return home, and the plan had been working just fine. He loved his family, loved making wine, loved western New York. While he was exceedingly popular with the fairer sex, he was getting a little tired of dating. He wanted to settle down, have a couple of kids.

He just had to meet the right woman, and given that he knew virtually everyone in Manningsport, he was fairly sure she wasn’t there. He’d had his heart broken twice, once in college, once by a congressional aide, but since then, he hadn’t had a relationship with staying power.

So that night, he poured wine and described what people were tasting (if they were interested). In the eyes of the Wall Street men, Jack was just a bartender, and if they were threatened by the way some of the women were eyeing him, they countered by ignoring him. Which was fine. He was only there to represent Blue Heron.

The women weren’t his type, anyway—they all seemed to be dressed in stark, narrow black dresses and wore twisted pieces of wire for jewelry. Must be the trend that year, because they could’ve passed for clones, aside from variations in skin, hair and eye color.

“So what am I drinking?” one such clone asked, leaning forward to make sure he could admire the view (not that it was hard; her bra was an architectural wonder that presented her breasts as if on a platter).

“This is a sauvignon blanc,” he said, “with notes of tangerine and apricot and some great limestone elements.”

“Mmm,” she said, letting her eyes trail down his torso.

“It’s got a firm acidity and a long, clean finish. Great with any kind of fish or poultry.”

“Want to come to my place after this?” she asked. “I’m Renee, by the way. Associate over at Goldman.”

“Unfortunately, it’s against company policy,” he lied.

Another Wall Street clone sidled up to the bar and gave Jack the same speculative look as the first woman. He suppressed a sigh and forced a smile, poured some wine and delivered the shtick.

A male Wall Streeter stuck out his glass without even looking at Jack, and Jack poured obediently.

“Not that one! The cabernet!” the guy barked. Jack cocked an eyebrow and obeyed.

Then Jack saw her.

She was the only woman in the place not dressed in dark colors, which made her seem as if she’d just wandered off a Disney set. Her dress was bright pink, her blond hair was caught up in a twist with a few loose tendrils escaping and she looked a little lost.

A lot lost, actually. She glanced around, standing on tiptoe. Then, taking pains to say “excuse me” to the loud stockbrokers (who ignored her as if judging her to be inferior to their female counterparts), she made her way to the bar.

“Hello,” he said. “How are you tonight?” He could smell her perfume.

“Hi there,” she said. “I’m a little...overwhelmed, it seems. I’m supposed to meet my old college roommate, but she’s not here just yet. Guess I feel like a fish outta water.”

She had a Southern accent and a husky voice. It worked. Hell yes.

“Jack Holland,” he said, extending his hand.

“Hadley Boudreau.” Her hand was smooth and soft. “It’s awfully nice to meet you. You’re the first person who’s smiled at me all day, I swear. I’ve never been to New York before, and my goodness, it’s a whole different country, isn’t it?”

Before she’d finished speaking, he was in love. She didn’t fit into this loud, overconfident crowd, and Jack had the sense that if someone bumped into her or stepped on her foot, she’d burst into tears. You didn’t grow up with three sisters and not know how women thought.

And Jack’s sisters had always told him he had a thing for a woman in distress.

“Where are you from?” Jack asked.

“Savannah.”

“Beautiful city,” he said, smiling.

“Have you been there?” she exclaimed. “It is beautiful, isn’t it?”

He told her how he’d presented a paper down there a few years ago, and her eyes grew wide with the mention of the U.S. Navy (the hottest branch, Jack always thought). She actually squealed when he mentioned a restaurant she knew, and she was so sweet and energetic and easy to please, she stuck out like a flower growing in an abandoned parking lot.

She kept sipping wine and seemed to get a little tipsy, which was cute, given that she’d had maybe a half a glass. Then again, she couldn’t weigh more than a hundred pounds.

She was beautiful. Flawless skin, perfect nose, full, pink lips and a dimple in one cheek. She had a husky laugh that Jack found himself getting a little drunk on. Whenever he had to pour for someone else, he found himself looking back at her with a little wink or smile, and, each time, she blushed and smiled back.

When her friend came in (dressed in black, of course), Hadley introduced him, said how pleased she was to have met him and how grateful she was for the conversation. She extended her hand, and he took it, and held on to it for a long minute.

“I’m staying in the city for a few days,” he said. “Would you like to have dinner with me?”

Hadley smiled. “I think I’d love that, Jack Holland.”

They had dinner the next night at a gorgeous, expensive restaurant in South Street Seaport with a killer view of the Brooklyn Bridge. Was he trying to impress her? Absolutely. He walked her back to her friend’s apartment, and when he went to kiss her, she blushed and offered her cheek. “I guess I’m old-fashioned,” she said. “Hope you don’t mind, but I don’t kiss on the first date.”

Somehow, that kiss on the cheek was more special than anything he’d experienced to date.

The next day, Jack called his dad and said he’d be staying in the city for a few extra days. He called on some accounts, but mostly he saw Hadley. Her friend was working; Hadley had been planning to do some sightseeing before their girls’ weekend officially started. So Jack took her around and showed her the city—New York’s most famous places—Greenwich Village, the Metropolitan, the Empire State Building and Times Square, but also the High Line, the Cloisters and a bike tour of Governors Island.

They shared a pretzel in Bryant Park, rode the Staten Island Ferry, bought a cupcake from a street vendor in SoHo. In Central Park, Jack hired one of those hokey carriages, and Hadley was over the moon. She let him kiss her on the lips, and she was sweet and soft and lovely. But she also had a quick sense of humor and an earthiness to her that Jack found incredibly hot. The sight of her eating a hot dog had almost brought him to his knees, and she grinned as she chewed, well aware of the effect she had.

She was an interior decorator and loved popping into hotels to see the lobbies. On their way out of one building, a man held the door for them, and Hadley practically had a kitten. “Did you see that? That was Neil Patrick Harris! Oh, I had the worst crush on him! Think he’d turn straight for me, just for an hour?” Then she stood on her tiptoes and kissed Jack’s cheek. “This has been the best week of my entire life, Jack Holland.”

For him, too.

What followed was a very old-fashioned courtship. Letters (not just emails, either). Long phone calls into the night. He sent her flowers and a snow globe of Manhattan. She sent him cookies and a scarf she knitted herself. After three weeks, he went down south to visit her.

Hadley lived in a sweet neighborhood, not too far from her parents and two older sisters. Her house was a tiny bungalow, the yard filled with flowers. When Jack knocked, she answered the door (wearing a dress and heels and smelling incredible), took his coat, hung it up in a closet and poured homemade iced tea into a tall glass filled with ice. She added a couple of mint leaves picked from her garden. She’d baked sugar cookies for him and served them on a porcelain plate, first inviting him to sit down and relax.

They had dinner with her entire family that night, and everyone seemed like wonderful, upbeat, intelligent people. Mr. Boudreau was a lawyer; Mrs. Boudreau had been a college English professor. Hadley had three sisters—Ruthie was a pediatric surgeon, and Rachel was a state representative. Both older sisters were married, and each had a son and a daughter. Hadley’s younger sister, Frances-Lynne, better known as Frankie, was a senior in college, wanted to be a veterinarian and was looking at Cornell, Jack’s own alma mater.

Clearly, the Boudreaus were a wonderful family, and, even more clearly, Hadley Belle would make an incredible wife.

That night, he took her back to the Bohemian Hotel, and they slept together for the first time.

Afterward, Hadley said that being with him had felt different, not that she was too experienced. But she knew it had been special. Meaningful.

He flew her to New York a few weeks later. It was a great time to visit Manningsport; the trees were in bloom, the weather clear and warm, and it was the weekend of the Black-and-White Ball, a fund-raiser his family supported every year. That year, it was held at McMurtry Vineyard, another operation on Keuka Lake. Hadley loved it, charmed everyone and practically shimmered in a white sequin gown.

“What do you think?” Jack asked Honor. “Isn’t she fantastic?”

“She’s very pretty,” she answered, and it was only later that Jack realized Honor had dodged the question.

Hadley loved Blue Heron, loved Jack’s family, loved the house he’d built high on Rose Ridge, tucked in the woods at the west end of the fields. “I can’t imagine anything nicer than sitting on this here deck and watching the sunrise,” she said.

Nine weeks after they’d met, Jack flew down to Savannah for the third time and knocked on the Boudreaus’ front door. Mr. Boudreau ushered him into his study, poured him a glass of an excellent smoky bourbon and another for himself. “I think I probably know what’s on your mind, son,” he said, sitting behind his desk.

“I’d like to ask Hadley to marry me, sir,” Jack answered. “And I wanted your blessing first.”

“And they say Yankees have no manners,” Mr. Boudreau said with a faint smile. He took a sip of his drink and considered Jack. “Well, now. I appreciate you coming to talk to me, I do. Let me ask you this, though, son. You sure you’ve thought this through?”

“I know it’s fast,” he said. “But yes, sir.”

“And you don’t think a little more time might be a good thing?”

Initially, Jack just thought Bill Boudreau was trying to keep his third daughter closer to home, or was just being protective, doing what fathers did. Later, it would make more sense.

“I think I know what I need to, sir. She’s everything I could ever ask for.”

Bill sighed. “She has her charms, doesn’t she?” He slapped the desk. “Well, all right, then. Best of luck to you, Jack. I think you’ll be good for her.”

Jack took Hadley to dinner that night at 700 Drayton in the Forsyth mansion, her favorite restaurant. Afterward, they walked through the park, and, in front of the fountain, Jack took her hand, knelt down and pulled a little turquoise box from his pocket. “Hadley, make me the happiest—”

“Yes! Yes, Jack, yes, let me see that ring! Oh, my land, it’s beautiful! Oh, Jack!” She let him slide it on her finger and practically danced in a circle around him she was so happy.

He’d definitely scored with the ring.

Originally, Jack was going to give her his mother’s engagement ring, which his dad had given to him years ago for just such a purpose. But something told him Hadley would want something that had been bought just for her, so he’d checked with Faith, then visited Tiffany’s and bought her an elaborate platinum-and-diamond ring that cost about as much as a new tractor.

He wanted to marry her fast and get her up to Manningsport, and she was all for it. Despite the rushed nature of the wedding, it was a huge affair. Hadley had an enormous binder she’d begun at age seven, complete with spreadsheets and thousands of pictures on her computer, organized by file—flower arrangements, bouquets, cakes, bridesmaid dresses, invitations, place settings. The only thing she didn’t need was a gown; she’d bought her wedding dress when she was twenty-one, she told him, which struck Jack as slightly terrifying. Then again, things were different in the South.

Jack learned that at the ripe old age of twenty-seven, Hadley viewed herself as an old maid. Most of her friends had gotten engaged (or lavaliered, whatever that was) in college. The summer after she’d graduated, Hadley had been in eight weddings, and she’d thought her day would never come. When he mentioned he had two unmarried sisters older than she was, she shrugged. “Southern women can’t wait to settle down and start a family. It’s more of a priority for us.”

She became a bit of a monster about the wedding, growing furious when the caterer didn’t have the right shade of ivory for the napkins. Her eyes narrowed at the mention of a cousin who’d “stolen” her idea for a bridal bouquet last summer—everyone knew that Hadley’s heart had always and forever been set on a bouquet of gardenias and bluebonnet, and then That Vanna had gone in and swooped up the idea, and now everyone would compare, and Hadley wanted to be completely unique yet traditional and have the most beautiful wedding ever held.

Jack was so, so glad to be a guy. But as he was one thousand miles away, he thought her bridezilla antics were kind of cute.

“Of course it’s going to be the most beautiful,” he said into the phone. “Because you’re the bride, baby.”

“Oh, Jack! You always know what to say! But dang it all, I’m going to just kill That Vanna when I see her at my bachelorette party!”

Speaking of parties, there were many. The traditional engagement party, for which Jack flew down with his father so the parents could meet, and so Jack could meet Hadley’s extended family. That had been very nice. Southerners really did know how to socialize, and Dad liked Mr. and Mrs. Boudreau very much. There were no fewer than three showers, and Hadley was a little hurt that Jack’s sisters didn’t come to each one. There was the bachelorette party, a party the night before the rehearsal dinner, the rehearsal dinner and a brunch for wedding guests the day after the wedding. Not to mention the wedding itself.

Finally, the big day came, which was a relief, because Jack just wanted to be married so Hadley could go back to being her sweet self and not some Martha Stewart–obsessed monster.

The wedding was held at her parents’ lovely home, in the vast backyard. Hadley had what seemed like thousands of bridesmaids—her three sisters, his three and his niece, her sorority sisters and many cousins, even That Vanna, all clad in pale pink. Jack had a couple of friends from college, Connor O’Rourke, a buddy from the navy, and his father as his best man, as well as Hadley’s brothers-in-law. Biggest wedding party he’d ever seen, frankly, and a little embarrassing that it was his.

But Hadley was radiant and happy, seeming to float on a huge, cloudlike dress. If she occasionally leveled a steely-eyed gaze at a bridesmaid who laughed too loudly or a kid who spilled juice on a table, well, she just wanted her day to be perfect.

Seemed pretty close to Jack. It was Southern hospitality at its finest.

White-covered tables held elaborate flower arrangements in blue mason jars. Half a dozen copper tubs filled with ice and glass bottles of Coke were left at strategic points (Jack had been schooled that Pepsi was viewed as a sin against humanity down here). Mint juleps and neat bourbons were served at the bar, and pitchers of sweet tea instead of water sat on every table. There was a groom’s cake decorated to look like it was covered in grape leaves. The buffet had shrimp and grits, mac and cheese, fried chicken and roasted oysters. The wedding cake had twelve layers.

“Jesus, would you look at this?” Prudence said, fanning herself. “I feel like I’m at friggin’ Tara.”

The word Southern was tossed around endlessly, as if the guests needed to remind themselves where they lived—Hadley was from a good Southern family, it was a real Southern wedding, Hadley was such a Southern beauty, what a wonderful Southern tradition, the Southern food was Southern delicious, Barb was such a Southern mama, didja see Bill cry, of course, he’s a Southern daddy, sure is hot, you can count on this Southern weather, oh, look at that beautiful Southern smile!

Jack lost count of the times he was told that for a Yankee, he was all right. Apparently, the War of Northern Aggression, as it was called down here, was still a sore spot.

The dancing went on into the wee hours before Jack could finally carry his bride over the threshold of their suite.

Their honeymoon was in the Outer Banks, a perfect week of walking on the beach and making love, swimming and sailing, eating and drinking wine, opening gifts and talking (a lot) about the wedding. Hadley thought it had been magical and perfect and wanted to go over every minute, again and again.

They flew back to Manhattan for one more night away to break up the travel, and, yes, stayed in one of the posh hotels they’d looked at when they’d just met (a suite, though not the penthouse suite, which caused the briefest pout).

And then, finally, they drove to Manningsport, and Jack felt himself relax as they got closer to home. The wedding had been great (if exhausting), the honeymoon idyllic, but this was what he’d really been looking forward to. Not getting married...being married. Eating at home instead of restaurants. Sleeping in his own bed without the unfamiliar sounds of away.

And, Jack had to admit, he wanted to get back to work, because he loved his job. Two solid weeks of not working had made him a little itchy. He missed home, the morning fog that so often hung over Crooked Lake, the fields in the mist, the long, quiet afternoons with his father and grandfather, experimenting with techniques, listening to Pops’s traditions, adding his own more scientific methodology, running things by Dad. He loved the smell of the grapes in the fields, the twisting vines and miraculous clumps of gold, green and purple fruit, the cool damp of the barns and cellars where Blue Heron wine was stored and aged.

But almost as soon as they got home, the troubles began.

CHAPTER FIVE

ON THURSDAY, WITH a knifelike winter wind slicing off the lake, Jack went into the Cask Room, the stone basement where they stored the oak barrels filled with the red wines of Blue Heron. The cool walls, the distinctive smell of fieldstone, the dim lighting all spoke to the centuries-old art of wine making.

Time was the most important factor. In most things, he supposed. Too little time, and the wine wouldn’t have the chance to mature and develop all the levels of taste and texture. Too much time, and the color would muddy and the flavor would fade.

Like Josh Deiner. Too much time without air. Too much time underwater.

One of the victims sustained a head injury and possible anoxic brain damage. He was the last one rescued.

That had been the report on the news. Jack had watched every minute of the coverage; he’d programmed his DVR to catch every story, every mention, hoping for a hint of something positive for Josh. The kid wasn’t dead. That was it.

He wasn’t dead yet, that was. Nor had he improved.

Jack realized he was sweating, despite the coolness of the cellar. He really needed to get some sleep.

Two nights ago, he’d come home from work to find his front door wide open and every light on; yet he had a clear memory of locking the door, as he did every morning, a leftover from living in Washington, D.C. When the hell had he gone upstairs and turned lights on up there? He had no clue, and it was unnerving. Jeremy Lyon, who was a family friend and a doctor, had called Jack to check on him; maybe Jack would ask for a prescription for a sleeping pill.

His phone buzzed with a text.

Thinking of u.

Hadley. Frankie had caved and given her sister the number, then called to apologize.

Hadley was the wine that hadn’t aged enough—bright and beautiful in color, vibrant and lively at first taste, and then the lingering tannin, the cottony, unpleasant feeling. Too much, too soon.

Dinner w/ me & Frankie this week?

Playing the Frankie card so soon? Frankie sometimes came out to have dinner with Jack, sharing stories about school and herself and not mentioning her sister. She’d called right after the news of the accident hit and sent him a few texts since then. Jack had always liked her.

He shoved the phone back in his pocket, pulled the plug on the side of the barrel and inserted the sampling tube. He let it fill and then poured the wine into the glass. Swirled and inhaled the scent, getting notes of blackberry, tobacco and leather. Nice. He took a sip. Nope, not ready yet. Too cottony.

The door at the top of the stairs opened, and his youngest sister came waddling down the stairs. Her giant golden retriever, Blue, followed, making a beeline for Jack’s leg.

“Hello, you horny bastard,” he said. The dog smiled up at him, happy dope that he was.

“Hey, Jack,” Faith said.

“Hey. Should you be down here in your delicate condition?”

“I have at least seven weeks to go. Also, Goggy brought in half a ton of grapes the day she went into labor with Dad, and Pru drove the grape harvester the day Ned was born, so I think I can handle the stairs.” She handed him a foil-wrapped package. “Lemon cake from Mrs. Johnson. I was told not to eat any. It’s so unfair, you being her favorite.”

“I can’t help being perfect,” he said in a pale imitation of his usual back-and-forth with his sisters. The cake was still warm. He’d eat some later, maybe. Then again, his appetite hadn’t been so good.

Faith sat at the old wooden table. “Can I smell the wine, at least?”

He handed her the glass, and she took a deep sniff of the wine. “Oh, nice. Leather and plum. This’ll be great in a few months, don’t you think?”

“I do.”

She settled back in her chair and rested her hands on her bulging stomach. “So how are you doing these days, buddy?”

“Good. Fine.”

“Yeah?”

“Yep. Thanks.” He wasn’t about to burden her with tales of limp, lifeless teenagers. “I’m fine, Faithie.”

“Good. You know, we all love you, even if you’re a little prince.”

“Please. I’m head winemaker for our family dynasty. You, on the other hand, plant pretty flowers.” Faith was a landscape architect, and while he completely respected what she did, he wasn’t about to tell her. It would throw off his big-brother coolness.

“I’ll ignore that. So, Jack.”

“Yes, what’s-your-name?”

“You know Emmaline, right?”

“Sure.”

“She needs a date for her ex-fiancé’s wedding.”

“Okay.”

“It’s—wow, that was easy.” Her dog came over and sat next to her, putting his cinder-block-size head on her knee, and Faith scratched his ears. “It’s in California—that’s the thing. It’d be the whole weekend. Colleen’s going, too. She knew the bride in college.”

“No problem.” It was winter, things were slow and, man, it’d be fantastic to get out of town, somewhere warm where people didn’t want to ask what it was like to save those kids. “Who am I going with again?”

“Emmaline, dummy. The cop.”

“Right. Tell her yes.”

“Hooray! And here we thought you had no purpose in life.” Faith grinned. “Would you tell her, so this doesn’t feel so eighth grade?”

“But it is so eighth grade, Faithie. That’s what you love about it.”

“Just obey me, okay? I’m brewing you a nephew.” She stood up and rubbed her lower back. “You like her, right? I mean, you’ll be a good date and all that?”

“Sure. She’s the best right wing on the hockey team.”

“Women love to hear that kind of thing.”

“I’ll mention it, then.” He opened another barrel. “Anything else, whoever you are?”

“Yes. Will you be the baby’s godfather?”

He did a double take. “Sure. Thanks, Faith.” He went over and kissed her head. “I guess I figured it would be Jeremy. Or Tom.”

“Jeremy and Tom aren’t my beloved, much-worshiped older brothers.”

Jack smiled, and this time, it felt genuine. “Don’t think I’ve forgotten how you told Megan Delgado that I had roundworm.”

“Hey, I did you a favor,” she retorted.

“Did you? Because last time I looked, she was still incredibly gorgeous.”

“And speaking of gorgeous women—”

“Smooth.”

“I know. Speaking of gorgeous, I hear Hadley’s back in town.”

“Yep.”

“Is she looking to reconcile?” Faith asked.

“Yep.”

“You interested?”

“Nope.”

“Why now?” Faith asked. “Did she see the rescue coverage or something?”

“Yes.” He removed Blue from his leg. The dog looked a little blurry. That wasn’t a good sign.

“Jack, come on! I get enough one-word answers from Levi when he’s grumpy.”

“Uh, yeah. She saw something on the news and thought I might need her.”

“Do you?”

“Like I need roundworm.” His inner ear ached.

Faith smiled. “So you want Pru and Honor and me to go beat her up? We could bring Mrs. Johnson. She never liked her.”

“I’ll let you know.”

The water had been cold like he’d never felt before. Cold enough that his bones hurt.

“So this wedding comes at a great time, then,” Faith said.

Jack gave his head a little shake. “What wedding?”

“Jack! Jeesh! The wedding you just said you’d go to. Emmaline’s fiancé.”

“Right, right. I’ll stop by the station. Now get out of here and go plan your next garden. I have wine to check.” He paused. “Thanks for godfather. That means a lot, Faith. Tell Levi, okay?”

“I love you,” she said, giving him a hug.

“Love you, too.” She always smelled like vanilla cookies or something, his youngest sister, and Jack hugged her back, the blurry, floating feeling fading a little.

Faith pulled back. “Oh! The baby just kicked. He knows his uncle Jack is here.” She put his hand on her stomach, and Jack felt a strange, firm, wavelike motion.

His nephew. A little boy who’d dig in the dirt and play with trucks and learn to drive the harvester years before he could drive a car, and when he did drive a car, his uncle Jack would put the fear of God in him, and that kid would never, ever, ever drink and drive and crash—

He removed his hand and cleared his throat. “Got any names picked out yet?”

“No,” she sighed. “Levi says whatever I want is fine, which makes me insane.”

“Heartless bastard.”

“I know. It won’t be John...I’m saving that for you, so you can have John the Fifth. If you ever get married and produce the Holland grandchild. Not that Mrs. J. has been complaining about that or anything. Or Goggy. I was over at Rushing Creek today, and she said, ‘Oh, sure, it’s wonderful that you’re having a baby, Faith, but I want a Holland baby to carry on the family name.’”

“Let’s not forget my superior gene pool,” Jack said. He paused. “But if you want to name the little guy John, go ahead, Faith. Dad would love it.”

“Nope,” she said. “You’re John Noble Holland the Fourth. You get to have Number Five if you want. If you can trick some woman into marrying you, that is.” Then, realizing that perhaps his marital state was a sore subject with his ex-wife in town, she added, “Sorry.”

His heart was beating way, way too fast. “Don’t worry about it. Actually, do worry about it. Make me a cake or something, and I’ll forgive you. Now get out of here. I mean it.”

Because a flashback was coming, and Jack wanted to be alone when it hit.

* * *

ON THE DAY the car went into the lake, Jack had been waiting twenty years to save a life.

For twenty years, he’d never been in quite the right spot at quite the right moment. For twenty years, it seemed like he’d always been five minutes too late or five minutes too early, just missing the chance to help.

For twenty years, he’d had to live with the image of his youngest sister trapped in the crumpled wreck with their mother’s body, and for twenty years, he’d been waiting for the chance to make up for that. Not that the thought made sense—he’d been away in college when his mother had died, but the thought that his little sis had been alone, in shock, with no one to help for more than an hour...that his mother had had no one to hold her hand in her last moment...that no one had come to help for far too long... Of course it left a mark.

From that day on, Jack had been on alert. He joined the navy thinking he might try to become a SEAL, but Uncle Sam had other plans after seeing his test scores, so to the lab he went. It was fine; he still had to train, improved his swimming skills, get advanced scuba licenses—open water diving and specialized rescue, black water search, whatever he could.

But that feeling never went away, even after his service was done.

Every time a car raced past him on the highway at ninety miles an hour, every time he saw a motorcyclist tearing around town without a helmet, the pictures would unfold. The accident. The victims. What he would do, how he would help, how he’d make sure his own pickup truck was pulled safely off the road, how he’d call 911 as he ran, how he’d pull the driver from the car or out of the road and put pressure on the wounds until help came. He had a fire extinguisher in his car (didn’t everyone?) and a window-breaking tool on his key chain, as well as a hammer in the glove box. Flares. A first aid kit, a really good flashlight (batteries changed twice a year), a seat-belt cutter and a blanket.

In the summer if he was down at the lake, he’d count the kids in the water and check to make sure parents were alert and not too engrossed in their books or conversations or phone games. When the flight attendants went over safety procedures, Jack listened, then looked at his fellow passengers and noted who would need help should their plane land on the Hudson or in an Iowa cornfield.

As Honor said, a hobby was a hobby.

Jack put his training to work and became a volunteer rescue diver for the Manningsport Fire Department. He was certified for ice rescue and as a lifeguard. He was an EMT.

And still, he’d never saved a soul. Last spring, when his grandparents’ house had burned down, it was Honor who’d done the heroics; Jack’s house was way up on the ridge, about as far away from the Old House as you could get on Blue Heron land. By the time he’d gotten down there, Honor had already saved their grandmother’s life, with a little help from her fiancé.

But on January 12, Jack had gone down to the dock to take photos. He loved winter, loved the brilliant red sunsets at dusk and the cold wash of the Milky Way at midnight. From here, he could see the Crooked Lake to the east and all the way up to Blue Heron to the west. So around 4:30 p.m., he was taking photos of the fields where the snow and dormant vines stood in stark contrast to each other. The sky over Rose Ridge deepened, promising one of western New York’s famous sunsets. There might even be the aurora borealis later on.

At times like this, the power of the land spoke to him. It wasn’t just the fact that the Holland family had helped found this town, that his ancestors and grandparents and parents had worked this land. It was the area itself: the cold, deep lakes, the gorges and waterfalls, the fertile, rocky soil.

This kind of thing reminded him of how much he had. A family—three married sisters, a niece and a nephew and another on the way. His father and stepmother. A job he loved. His, uh...his cat. His health. All that good stuff.

It was just that lately, Jack had been feeling a little...unfinished.

After twenty years of being a widower, Dad had gotten married last spring. Which was great, because Mrs. Johnson was the world’s finest woman and had been like a surrogate mother since Jack’s mom had died. Pru and Carl had been together for nearly twenty-five years. Honor and Faith both married recently. Goggy and Pops had recently fallen in love after sixty-five cantankerous years of marriage, thanks to the fire.

Jack...Jack had gotten divorced after eight months of marriage.

And then he heard the car. Judging from the sound of the engine, it seemed as if the car was going at least sixty miles an hour in a thirty-five-mile-an-hour zone.

He turned away from the water and waited, oddly calm. The car would crash. How could it not, going that fast?

Then again, he’d had that same thought hundreds of times. Maybe thousands.

None of that ever happened, but the instinct—to watch over, pay attention, be alert, be ready—was a reflex. His rational brain knew how unlikely it was that what he feared and watched for would come to pass.

But he looked up the hill anyway. In another few seconds, he’d be able to see the car as it came down the curve on Lake Shore Road, thirty feet up the hill from Keuka.

Later, when people heard about the accident, how Jack of all people happened to be there at that exact moment, they said the usual things—everything happens for a reason, it was a miracle, God works in mysterious ways.

To Jack, however, it was more of a statistics thing. All these years not being there had to end eventually.

Almost automatically, he processed what might happen: the car swerving off the road as the driver tried to handle the curving road, the vehicle rolling over and over into Blue Heron’s chardonnay vines, which were closest to the road. Or the car would smash into the same telephone pole he himself had scraped when he was sixteen.

Worse, the car would hit the big maple at the base of the entrance to Blue Heron. The driver was a teenage boy, Jack guessed, because there was no one on earth who believed in his driving skill and immortality more than a teenage boy.

Hopefully, everyone in the car was wearing a seat belt. The windows would be closed, since it was January, so no one would be thrown from the car. Going that fast, though, even with air bags...

The engine screamed with a downshift as the hotdogging kid played with his life.

And here it was. The screech of brakes applied too late. Jack tensed for the crunch of metal as the car rolled or hit a tree, the subsequent, constant blare of a horn.

The sound came, but it wasn’t what Jack expected.

Instead, there was a sharp, oddly clean noise, and Jack felt his mouth drop open as the car burst through the guardrail, snapping off the topmost branches of the hillside trees. It sailed over his head, its engine still revving, tires spinning. Jack had a detailed view of the chassis.

And then there was a tremendous whoosh as the car hit the water nose-first—the lake wasn’t frozen; it was too deep for that. There was a massive slosh, and a crow screeched from a tree and Jack saw the white, terrified faces of two boys. Yep, teenagers.

The car was a silver coupe. An Audi. The nose started to sink almost immediately, the headlights shining down into the lake. The sky was red and purple, helluva sunset, his boots were off and he was diving. He much would’ve preferred to do this in August, and holy mother of God, the water was cold.

For a second, the frigid shock slammed all other thoughts from his head as every muscle in his body contracted in shock even as he was cutting through the water (thank you, United States Navy; they’d trained him to act first and think later).

His bones already hurt from the cold.

The boys were screaming, their voices muffled by the closed windows. Damn. The best thing would’ve been if the windows were already open, giving them an exit. One boy was pounding it with his fist. Pointless, since that wouldn’t break anything except a bone in his hand. The electrical must’ve already gone out, if they couldn’t get the windows down by pushing the button. Or they were just panicking and not thinking of it.

Now the boy was hitting the door with his shoulder. Also pointless with several tons of water pressing against the doors. No, they’d have to break the windows and get out that way, or let enough water in to equalize the pressure and then open the door.

But they don’t teach that in high school, and, yes, Jack thought he recognized one of the boys as a classmate of his niece, Abby. Seniors or thereabouts.

The thoughts shot through his head rapid-fire.

The water would be flooding in through the front of the car.

They maybe had five minutes before the car was submerged. Maybe eight, but that’d be pushing it. That is, eight for hypothermia. Obviously less time if they couldn’t breathe.

Jack’s arms already felt heavy and dead. Not good. No, strike that, no negative thoughts permitted. Just move. He made it to the car, which was now halfway into the lake at a forty-five degree angle, the water up to the middle of the windows. Four boys, two in front, two in back, one with blood on his face. The driver was slumped over the wheel.

“Help us! Help!” the bleeding boy pleaded, and it wasn’t like Jack wasn’t trying.

He fumbled in his jeans pocket for the window breaker he had on his key chain. Ten bucks on Amazon, and not only did he have one, but every member of his family did, too. His dexterity was off, thanks to the cold, his fingers clumsy and slow.

One of the kids had his iPhone out. Good. Help would be on the way. Then again, by the time the fire department got here, the boys would be drowned. They’d all drown, Jack included, or die of hypothermia. How many minutes had he been in the water? One? Two?

The car was slipping deeper.

There. His numb fingers closed around the little device. Pressed it against the window, his hands shaking hard, and it slipped right off.

“Hurry! Hurry!” the bleeding boy screamed.

“You can do this,” said another, oddly calm, voice muffled behind the glass.

Jack positioned the tool again, pushed hard and the window shattered, water rushing in.

The car immediately began sinking faster, but already, one boy was wriggling through the window. Jack grabbed the collar of his coat and hauled him out. Did the same with the second, the calm one, Sam Miller, that was his name. “Get to the dock,” he said. They were already swimming. They’d make it.

The driver, on the other hand, wasn’t moving, which was not good, and the bleeding boy was screaming. Should’ve been out by now.

The tail of the car slipped underwater with a gurgling sound.

And then it was quiet.

Jack grabbed on to the roof and went with the car, the water gripping his face and head with a fist of ice. Through the window, the boy grabbed on to his arms. Jack pulled him free, but it was hard, the car was tipping in the water, nose down, the headlights shining into the eerie dark water.

The boy was free, and Jack kicked his numb legs, hoping they were moving upward. His lungs burned; the rest of him was dead. Then they surfaced, and the air was so cold it hurt, but damn. The kid choked and gasped, still clutching Jack.

“Relax and kick,” Jack said, his lips hard with the cold, his breath clouding the air. The boy just grabbed Jack harder, so Jack looped his arm around the boy’s neck and swam.

The dock was sixteen, twenty feet away, maybe. He could make it.

How many minutes had it been? Three? Five? More?

Sam was on the ladder of the dock, reaching out for them. He and the other boy grabbed their friend by the arm, silent with shock and shivering with cold.

Jack was already swimming away.

“I can help!” Sam called.

“Stay there,” Jack ordered.

He was also shivering. No, shuddering. This wasn’t good. This was Hypothermia: Stop Fucking Around edition.

Still...what was the word? Still...survivable.

The last boy, the driver—probably dead. Drowned, if not killed on impact. Jack himself would probably...what did they call it? Oh, yeah. Die trying.

It was getting hard to think. Advanced hypothermia.

So quiet now, the red sky above, the frigid water all around.

The cold didn’t hurt so much.

The car’s headlights were still on. Jack wasn’t sure why.

A deep breath, a hard exhale, a deeper breath, and he was under again, swimming as hard as he could and still too slowly.

The car rested on the driver’s side on the bottom of the lake. Ten feet deep, give or take. A fish swam in front of the headlights, then was gone into the darkness.

Jack tried to open the passenger door, but it was locked or jammed. But the window was smashed. The dashboard was still lit up. The clock said 4:41.

He reached in for the driver, who looked oddly peaceful, arms drifting, hair waving in the current. Eyes closed. Almost certainly dead. Not wearing a seat belt, a huge gash visible on his forehead, black against the white of his skin, blood trickling up in a dark, lazy swirl.

No bubbles, meaning he wasn’t breathing.

Jack reached for the boy’s arm and pulled.

The kid didn’t budge.

Soon Jack would have to surface again or die down here. Which maybe wouldn’t be so bad. Nice that he could see. Deep blue all around.

He pulled again. A little movement now, but Jack’s chest was working, wanting to breathe, and if he didn’t go up now, now, he’d drown, navy or no navy.

His niece was eighteen, too.

He’d want someone to try one more time for Abby.

He pulled as hard as he could, bracing his legs against the car, all the air in his lungs leaving in a bubbling rush.

And then they were moving, heading up, and how they were doing it, Jack didn’t know because he couldn’t think anymore, but they were making it, a centimeter at a time, and then there was the sky, red and purple and violently beautiful, and full of air, like icy needles in his lungs, but so, so good, the sound of his gasps tearing through the cold.

His gasps. Not the kid’s.

He held on to the boy and tried to keep going. It wasn’t pretty. It was hard and sloppy and weak.

A siren screamed, then another. Police and firefighters, on their way.

The dock was still so far away. Jack closed his eyes, his head slipping again under the water. Shit. Kicked harder, his legs really just flailing now.

The boy was still and quiet. No breath, no coughing. No resistance.

Jack’s labored panting rasped in and out of his aching lungs.

The water splashed, over and over, a hopeless, wet sound as his arm smacked lifelessly in a sorry imitation of swimming. He held on to the boy with his other arm, and God, it was hard.

Still not there. Still not there. In between each stroke, Jack’s face dipped a little lower in the water. He choked on some water.

Still not there.

Then someone grabbed his arm. Sam Miller, clinging to the dock ladder, reaching out for him. God bless Sam Miller.

The other boys reached down and grabbed on to their unconscious (dead) friend, hauling him up the ladder, ice in their hair now. One of the boys was sobbing.

Sam reached down for Jack, pulling him up, which was good because Jack was not going to be able to make it out himself. Water streamed off him, and he fell onto his knees. “On his side,” he managed, and they obeyed, turning the limp boy onto his left.

“Oh, shit, Josh,” the sobbing boy said. “Josh, please.”

Josh. Right. Josh Deiner. A troublemaker.

It was now too dark to see if any water had come out of Josh’s mouth, up from his lungs. Jack pushed him on his back and started chest compressions. He couldn’t feel his hands, but this was a brutish job, just push, push, push, elbows locked, fast and hard.

The sirens were louder.

Sam breathed into Josh’s mouth.

One...two...three...four...five...

God, he was tired.

And then there were red-and-blue flashes, and footsteps thudded down the dock.

“Jack, we got this,” said a voice. Levi. Emmaline Neal was there, too, another cop, a good hockey player. They knelt down and took over compressions.

There was a clattering, and Jessica Dunn and Gerard Chartier were running with the stretcher.

“Dry him off!” someone ordered. “He has to be dry if we’re gonna shock him.”

There was a whole crowd now. The three boys were being wrapped in blankets and hustled away, their faces white in the gloom.

The sun was still setting. How could that be? It seemed as though hours had passed.

Someone put a blanket around Jack, too, then led him down the dock, arm around his waist, holding him when he staggered. The three boys climbed into the back of one of the town’s two ambulances.

The other would be for Josh.

“Let’s get you out of the cold,” said the person at his side. It was Emmaline. Huh. He thought she was back with Josh. She opened the door of her cruiser and gently pushed him in.

“Is he dead?” Jack asked.

She glanced down the dock. “He’s not dead till he’s warm and dead. You know that. Let’s worry about you right now, okay?”

She was about to close the door when Sam Miller came over. His face was ruddy now—he was warming up. “You saved us,” he said, his voice cracking. “You saved us all.”

But Jack hadn’t, because Josh Deiner’s body was still on the dock, Levi and Gerard on their knees next to him as if in prayer.

* * *

THE MEDIA CALLED IT the Midwinter Miracle, going for alliteration over accuracy. And for a few days, it was big news. Anderson Cooper, among others, came to town and interviewed the three boys—Sam Miller, Garrett Baines and Nick Bankowski, who were tremulous and fine, save for a broken nose on Nick. Their parents wept and called Jack a hero, an angel, the hand of God. A former navy SEAL was interviewed and attested that it was a “helluva rescue.”

As police spokesperson, Levi gave a statement, as well, and when Anderson asked if Jack was indeed his brother-in-law, Levi said, yes, he was. When asked to characterize Jack, Levi said, “He’s a good guy.” That was it, and Jack was grateful.

He himself was asked for interviews by fifty-seven media outlets. He didn’t give any.

That night in the E.R., Jack’s father hugged him for a long, long time. Pops’s voice broke as he told Jack how proud he was. His sisters fussed over him and his niece wept, and his nephew got teary-eyed, as well. Mrs. Johnson made him his favorite dinners every night for the next week, as did his grandmother, not to be outdone. So there was a lot of food. Jack tried to eat it.

Josh Deiner was unavailable for comment, since he was in a coma. There was brain damage. He was on a ventilator.

At night, when Jack couldn’t sleep, it was Josh Deiner’s still, limp body he saw, lying on the wooden dock, ice forming on his eyelids since there was no heartbeat to keep him warm. The face of Josh’s girlfriend as she sobbed on Anderson Cooper’s shoulder. And the words Josh’s mother had spat at him in the E.R. ran through his brain, over and over and over.

You left him for last. The one who needed you the most, and you left him for last.

CHAPTER SIX

EMMALINE SAT IN front of the computer with Carol Robinson, who tapped the screen. “That one’s cute. He has beautiful eyes.”

It was true. “Yeah, but look. Aggravated assault.”

“That rules him out?”

“It does, Carol.”

“You’re so fussy. All right, who’s next?”

They both flinched at the next photo—no teeth.

“This is so much fun,” Carol said. “So much more interesting than real estate. Oh, that one’s a hottie.”

Emmaline clicked for more information. “Currently in federal prison. Damn! All the good-looking ones are behind bars.”

“What are you doing?” Levi asked. Both women glanced at him, then looked back at the screen.

“We’re looking for a man for Em to take to the wedding,” Carol said.

“Did you input that report like I asked you to?”

“Not yet,” Carol said blithely. “And don’t give me that look, Levi. I changed your diapers.”

“No, you didn’t.”

“But I could have. I’m old enough to be your mother.”

“Grandmother, even.”

“How dare you!”

Levi gave them a tolerant look. “Em? Is Manningsport so free of crime that you have time for this?”

“It’s after five, and yes,” Emmaline pointed out. “This hellish wedding is in eight days, and I still don’t—”

“Feel free to keep your personal life private, Em,” he said. “Like I do.”

“Yeah, right. You call Faith twenty times a day—”

“I call Faith three or four times a day, as she’s my wife and expecting a baby and it’s the middle of winter and I want to make sure she—”

“This one! This one,” Carol exclaimed. “If you don’t go out with him, I will.”

Em looked. Yep, the guy was gorgeous, all black hair and green eyes opened a trifle too wide.

“He looks a little psychotic,” Em said.

“Yeah, well, who looks good in a mug shot?” Carol asked. “Don’t be so picky. Even Robert Downey Jr. didn’t look so hot, and please. That man could be eating a can of cat food and I’d still want to sleep with him.”

“Inappropriate talk for the workplace, Carol,” Levi said. “Besides, Officer Neal, I thought my brother-in-law was going with you.”

“Who? Jack? No.”

“Faith said she was asking.”

“Why?” Emmaline yelped. “How did she even know?”

Levi gave her a martyred look. “It was announced at O’Rourke’s the other night. And it’s all you talk about.”

“No, it’s not!”

“Sure it is. Also, I may have mentioned it in the hope that you’d get your mind back on work.”

“Oh, please. Who went on seven calls yesterday, huh? It wasn’t Everett, let me tell you, Chief.” Levi raised an eyebrow and waited. “Besides,” she added, “I don’t want to go with Jack.”

“Why not?” Carol asked. “I’d go with Jack. Jack’s adorable. Those eyes!”

“Thanks, Carol,” came a new voice, and, shit, it was Jack himself. “Hey, Em.”

“Hi,” she grumbled.

Sure, he spoke to her. Of course he did. He was nice. They played hockey together (along with ten or twelve other people). When he came into the station, which he did every once in a while to talk to Levi, he always said hello (and goodbye). If she saw him at O’Rourke’s he’d say hello (and goodbye).

And, of course, the day of the Midwinter Miracle, he’d asked if Josh was dead.

But now, as her potential date, it was different.

Jack folded his arms and looked down at her. “Faith said you were looking for a date for a wedding.”

“Yep.”

“Don’t just sit there like a lump,” Carol hissed. “Smile at him. Who else are you going to take? A convict?”

“You didn’t have a problem with that ten seconds ago.”

“Smile!”

Emmaline tried to obey. Carol waited. Levi waited. Jack waited.

Had she mentioned he was extremely gorgeous?

“Okay,” Em said. “Maybe we could discuss this over a beer.”

“Sure.”

“Meet you at O’Rourke’s around six?” That way she could get home, walk the puppy and give herself a pep talk.

“Sounds good,” he said. “See you, guys.”

“Go!” Carol said. “Change into something feminine. Wear perfume. Men love that. Don’t they, Levi?”

Emmaline left, glad for the brief drive home, which gave her time to think. She rolled down the window and let the frigid air cool her cheeks.

Yeah, fine. She’d take Jack. Of course she would. When a Greek god said he’d go to a wedding with you, a wedding where you desperately needed to appear over the groom, you didn’t say no.

Even if it meant the loss of your dignity. Even if this was one cash transaction short of prostitution. The truth was, she’d rather take a stranger, because, for some reason, that seemed like it’d be easier to tolerate than a person who was so...nice. Who might (perish the thought) pity her.

She wondered why Jack was game. He sure as hell never asked her out. She wasn’t even sure he knew she was female, for all the interest he’d ever shown before.

But the day she’d moved back to Manningsport, her heart raw and scraped by Kevin, a floating, terrified feeling enveloped her as she lugged boxes into her little house. The whole thing was surreal. Could this really be happening? She was moving here? Instead of getting married? It had been a wet day in April, cold rain pelting her, mocking the brave little pink buds on Nana’s magnolia, and Em felt like she’d never be warm again. She’d never have Kevin next to her in bed again.

It was shocking.

No crying, she told herself. Just buck up. Big deal. You were dumped. Happens all the time.

Didn’t stop the hot tears from sliding down her cheeks.

Then a pickup truck stopped, and a man got out.

“Need some help?” he asked, and without waiting for an answer, he grabbed a box and carried it inside the little bungalow. “I’m Jack Holland,” he said. “My family owns Blue Heron Vineyard.”

“Emmaline Neal,” she said, wiping her eyes with her sleeve.

“Welcome to town.” He smiled, kindly ignoring her tears (because if he was a serial killer, he wouldn’t care about that—he’d just kill her and wouldn’t that serve Kevin right), and went back to her Subaru for another box.

She remembered the Hollands; she’d been a year ahead of Faith in school. Jack probably wasn’t a serial killer. She would’ve told him that she’d lived here for four years, that she once played at his house as a kid. But heartbreak was swallowing her whole, and it was all she could do not to sob. She wasn’t supposed to be here. She was supposed to be in Michigan with the love of her life. Her wedding was supposed to be in seven weeks.

Jack and she unloaded the rest of the boxes in silence. “Take care,” he said, then drove off.

Every time she saw him from then on, Jack Holland said hello. She briefly entertained a revenge fantasy in which he fell for her, and Kevin would be wild with jealousy and dump that horrible Naomi. But no. Jack got engaged shortly after Em moved to town, and then married.

He stayed nice. His wife was very friendly, too; Jack introduced them once at O’Rourke’s. Hadley seemed to be the epitome of girlie-girl—she bought foamy coffee drinks, always wore a skirt or dress. When she was in O’Rourke’s she drank pink cocktails and nibbled lettuce leaves.

The town gossip said she wasn’t good enough for Jack.

Turned out, it was true. When his marriage imploded, the gossip machine ran red-hot. Hadley had cheated on him, people said. Took up with the stockbroker who owned Dandelion Hill, who died (in the saddle, according to the rumors) shortly thereafter.

Even so, Jack stayed Mr. Nice Guy. Didn’t get drunk, didn’t pick up the many women who hit on him, didn’t put his fist through a window.

As for Em, she just thought he was...nice. And, yes, beautiful. She checked him at hockey one night, a full-body slam, and for a second, they were tangled together, and it had been so long since Kevin, a full year and a half, that Emmaline had forgotten how it felt to be pressed up against a man, even if they were both clad in bulky protective gear and fighting for a puck. Then she was free, sailing down the ice again, wondering if Jack had felt anything, too.

He didn’t. Or if he did, he treated her as romantically as he treated Levi or Jeremy or Gerard, which was to say, nada.

Em walked the dog, smooched his cheeks, fed him and then walked to O’Rourke’s.

This was so embarrassing.

Jack was waiting just outside. “Hey,” he said, opening the door for her.

The pub was about half-full: Colleen was kissing her husband; the Iskins were there, Lorena as loud as ever, Victor silent. The Meerings ignored each other, as usual. Cathy Kennedy and Louise Casco were deep in conversation. There were Bryce and Paulie, arm-wrestling at a table. The Knoxes waved—Em had been out to round up their chickens from the road just that morning.

Emmaline went to a booth in the back and took off her coat. Crap. She’d forgotten to change. Most nights, she went from her uniform to her pj’s. Well, it didn’t matter. Besides, she loved her uniform. Especially her weapon. And Taser.

“Hey, guys. What can I get you?” Hannah O’Rourke asked.

“I’ll have a beer. Cooper’s Cave IPA?” Em said.

“Same for me,” Jack said.

“You got it, kids.” Hannah waltzed away.

Jack didn’t say anything. Smiled at her, which made her stomach hurt. “Um, do you want dinner?” she asked. “I’m buying.”

“I’m fine, thanks.”

“Great,” she said.

Hannah returned with their drinks. “Anything to eat tonight?” she asked.

“Nope, we’re good,” Jack said with a friendly smile. “Thanks, Hannah.”

“Great. Let me know if you need a refill.” The waitress went to check on another table. She was pretty. Maybe Jack and she should hook up.

Get to it, Emmaline.

“Okay, so here’s the deal,” she said. She drained half her beer, then wiped her mouth with a napkin. “My ex-fiancé is getting married, and I don’t want to go alone, but I certainly can go alone. My sister and parents will be there, and, actually, Colleen and Lucas, too, and it’s not like I’ll be a pariah or a laughingstock, and I’m not going to set myself on fire or burst out sobbing during the ceremony or anything like that. I just would like to have a date, sort of a human shield. But I can take a friend if you don’t want to go.”

“I thought we were friends,” Jack said mildly.

“Oh. Yeah. Sure.” She paused. “But listen, Jack. You don’t have to go. I imagine it’s been a pretty rough couple of weeks for you—”

“I’d love to go. Thank you for asking.”

“I actually didn’t ask. You offered.” And now she sounded like a shrew. “Or your sister asked, but I didn’t ask her to ask you.” Stop talking, her brain advised. Her mouth didn’t obey. “My point is, you don’t have to come. I mean, yeah, it’d be nice to go with a guy who looks like a Greek god—” here he smiled “—but I’m not one of those women who—”

“Hi, Jack.”

Oh, shit on corned beef. It was Hadley. The beautiful ex-wife with the wicked cool name.

“I saw you sitting here and just thought I’d come over and say hey.”

She was gorgeous. Em had forgotten just how much. Crikey. Emmaline practically had a crush on her, she was so flippin’ beautiful. She smelled fantastic, too. Huge brown eyes, silky blond hair, pink cheeks, heart-shaped face, full, soft lips. She wore a soft green knit dress, tan leggings and cool suede ankle boots on her tiny little feet. Em guessed that her own hips were about twice the width of Hadley’s. In fact, if Hadley turned around, Em wouldn’t have been surprised to see wings sprouting from her shoulders, the better for her to flutter away to sprinkle fairy dust.

“Hadley.” Jack stood up, towering over her. “This is my friend, Emmaline Neal. Emmaline, you might remember my ex-wife.”

The blonde gave her a sunny smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “Hadley Holland. So nice to meet you.”

So she hadn’t dropped the last name. Interesting. “We’ve met, actually.”

“Have we? I’m so sorry. I see you’re a police officer?”

“Yes,” Emmaline said.

“I always admire women who can go into a male-dominated field. Me, I’d never last! I guess I’m just not tough enough. I can’t imagine having to run after a criminal and tackle him. My goodness! You must be so strong.”

“Are you hitting on me?” Em asked.

“Oh, bless your heart, no!” Hadley laughed merrily. “It’s just that I’m an interior decorator. No guns or tackling involved in that! More like painting and fabric choices, making a house into a home.”

Em had to admire the skill with which Hadley had just drawn the line. Hadley—delicate and artistic. Emmaline—manly and brutish.

“What can I do for you, Hadley?” Jack asked.

“I was just...checking in, I guess,” Tinkerbell said now. “How’ve you been, Jack?” She gave his arm a squeeze. Nice manicure.

“I’m great.” His face was completely neutral.

“I’m so glad to hear that.” Hadley smiled (beautifully, tragically). A Yankee would’ve recognized Jack’s response as the cold shoulder, but Hadley was Southern, and Southerners could make conversation with a block of wood, it seemed. “Jack, I talked to Frankie today. You know how she just adores you. Even more now, after your big save. Why, she was bragging to all her friends that you’re her brother-in-law!”

“Ex-brother-in-law,” Jack said.

“Well, now, she doesn’t think of you as an ex anything,” Hadley said smoothly. “But shoot, I didn’t mean to interrupt y’all’s evening. Jack, I’ll call you about having dinner. Bye, Evelyn! So nice to meet you!”

With that, Hadley fluttered her fingers and floated away. Jack sat back down and took a sip of beer. Emmaline noted he hadn’t turned down the dinner invitation.

“So,” he said. “When do we leave?”

“Right. That’s another thing. The wedding’s Saturday. It’s in Malibu, so of course I’ll pay for your plane fare and hotel and stuff.”

“No, you won’t.”

“Yes. I will.”

“Not necessary.”

“I’m paying for your flight, Jack, or you’re not going.”

He shrugged. “Fine. So we’ll go, I’ll pretend to be your boyfriend—”

“No, no,” Emmaline said. “No. Like I said, I just want a pal.” She sighed, then rubbed her eyes. “You really don’t have to come, Jack. Allison Whitaker would love nothing more than to leave her kids and come with me.”

“But you want to go with a guy, or else you wouldn’t have been looking at mug shots with Carol.”

“Well, yes. If I take Allison, my parents will never believe I’m straight.”

“Are you?”

“Yes! I was engaged to the groom, okay? I’m straight!” Must use inside voice. “It’s just...they think I’m not.”

Jack wasn’t looking at her. His gaze was on Hadley, who was perched alone at the bar, trying to get Colleen’s attention. “Excuse me a second,” he said and got up from the table. He went over to Colleen, said something and then came back. Colleen sighed hugely, then pulled out a menu, went to Hadley and handed it to her.

Based on her excellent powers of deduction, Emmaline would guess that Colleen was ignoring the former Mrs. Jack Holland, and Jack had just asked her to knock it off.

So. The Princess of Beautiful Land was back in town and sprinkling her fairy dust on Jack. And while everyone knew Hadley had cheated on him, men were generally stupid about things like this. People who looked like Hadley (and Naomi Norman, for that matter) got away with some very stinky crap.

“So when do we leave?” Jack asked, sliding back into his seat.

“Thursday?”

“Thursday’s great.”

She paused. “Okay. Thank you, Jack.”

“My pleasure. It’ll be nice to go somewhere warm.”

“Malibu is beautiful. Every day of the year, more or less.”

He finished his beer. “Send me the info on the flight and hotel so I can make a reservation, okay?”

“I’ll make it for you. You’re not spending one thin dime on this trip.”

He smiled at her so suddenly that it was like being wrapped in a warm, soft blanket. “And blah blah blah blah,” he said. Well, he probably said actual words, but Em couldn’t quite hear at the moment, as she was rendered close to death by the beauty of that smile, those crinkling, pure blue eyes, the tousled blond hair, the...the...the glory that was Jack Holland.

Then he stood up, squeezed her shoulder and left, waving at the O’Rourke twins and nodding at his ex-wife, who positively beamed and fluttered, butterfly-like, back at him.

Which took away some of the glow.

Even so, it was a good five minutes before Emmaline trusted herself to stand up.

Do not fall for this guy, she warned herself. Very sternly.

But her shoulder still buzzed from the warmth of his hand.

This was a disaster waiting to happen.

CHAPTER SEVEN

“LET ME DO that for you.” Jack gave his date his very best stern big-brother stare. It didn’t work. It never did, now that he thought about it.

“I’m fine. I can put my own stupid suitcase away.” Someone was in a foul mood, but he couldn’t blame her, given their destination. There was a pause. “No, thanks, I mean.”

“I’ll get that,” said a flight attendant, wrestling the bag away from Emmaline. “Have a seat, and I’ll be right back with some champagne.”

“Why did you do this?” Emmaline hissed.

“Because I’m six-three and the seats in coach only fit very skinny dwarves,” he said, sinking into the leather seat.

“Fine. But why did you upgrade me?”

“Because you’re not a skinny dwarf.”

“Is that an insult?”

“Is it? Would you like to be a skinny dwarf? Because even though you’re acting like Grumpy—”

“Okay, okay. Fine. I’ll sit here. But I don’t like it.”

“Of course you do. It’s first class. Relax, Emmaline.”

She flopped into the seat, and Jack had to smile. She was so far from relaxed it was almost funny.

For himself, he was downright thrilled about this wedding. He loved Kevin and the bride for having a wedding, for inviting Emmaline to bring a date, loved that it was across the entire continent. He hadn’t felt this good since before the accident. He’d be away from people wanting to shake his hand and buy him beers, from the food that Sam Miller’s mom kept bringing over, from the hospital parking lot, from his well-meaning but omnipresent family, from Hadley popping up every other day. If his seatmate was grumpy, that was a small price to pay.

The flight attendant came by with two glasses of champagne. “Thanks,” Jack said.

“You’re very welcome.” She smiled at both of them. “Are you a nervous flyer?” she asked Em.

“I am today,” she answered, chugging her champagne. “Oh, shit! I forgot my hair slime!”

“Surely they have stores in L.A.,” Jack murmured.

“Not this stuff. I order it online. From Sicily. It’s hard-core. Sicily understands hair frizz. You can’t even buy it in America.”

“Made with angel wings and freckles?”

She took his champagne and drained that, too. “And the blood of infant fairies, yes.”

The flight attendant kept up with her unflagging, slightly creepy smile. “Let me know if there’s anything else I can get you.” She moved down the row.

Emmaline fiddled with her phone and rebuckled her seat belt a few times. Pulled out her hair elastic and then put her ponytail back in. Opened the shade. Closed the shade. Tried to put her champagne flute in the seat pocket. Put it on her tray. Took it off her tray.

“Will you stop fidgeting, please?” he said, taking the glass from her. “Just calm down. Your hair will be fine. We’ll have fun.”

“My hair will not be fine, Jack. And this is my ex-fiancé’s wedding. It will be as fun as a hanging.”

“The food will be better, though.”

“Hardly. They’re vegans.”

“Now you tell me. When I’m trapped on a plane.”

Emmaline was pretty enough when she smiled, Jack thought. Granted, she looked a little on the homeless side at the moment—scraggly hair and no makeup, gray sweats that screamed don’t look at me—I’m sexless.

He wondered if she was. She always seemed pretty sparky to him. Granted, his contact with her had been limited to “Hi, Em/Bye, Em” at the police station or O’Rourke’s and the occasional body check during a hockey game (much more fun than checking Gerard Chartier), but she seemed to have a little something going on.

“We don’t know each other that well, do we?” he asked.

“I guess not.” She started fiddling with the tray back again, so he took her hand.

“Relax,” he said. “It’s not like we’re flying off to face the firing squad.”

“That would be a cakewalk compared to this.”

The plane began taxiing down the runway. Emmaline took her hand away so she could clench the armrests. “So do you like having sisters?” she asked.

“No. You want some?”

“I already have one. Angela. You’ll like her. She’s very beautiful.” Her knuckles were white.

“Tell me about the bride and groom,” he said.

She took a deep breath. “Right. Kevin Bates and Naomi Norman.”

“The Norman-Bates wedding?”

Another smile tugged at her lips. She had a pretty mouth, pink and full and sweet.

Ah. She was talking, her words rapid-fire. “Yeah. So, he was my boyfriend from eighth grade on. We went to the same college and lived together and seemed pretty happy, more or less. I was, anyway. Then he fell for someone else and...that was that.” She shrugged and looked out the window.

Jack had grown up around females. He’d been the date for a lot of women in the past few years. Actually, he’d always been good for that sort of thing. He’d asked Eve Mikkes to the prom many years ago because Eve was nice and funny and had been in a fire when she was younger, which had left some pretty severe scars on her face and hands. He’d gone to five high school reunions in the past few years, three weddings and a fiftieth wedding anniversary. He had the aforementioned sisters.

So he recognized a woman who’d had her heart broken.

“The love of your life, huh?” he asked.

She glanced at him, then returned her gaze to the clouds. “Yep.”

He took her hand once more and squeezed it. “Stick with me, kid. I promise you we’ll have fun.”

* * *

EMMALINE MET THE ONE in eighth grade during dodgeball, a game that further proved that gym teachers hated children. A few years before, someone’s parents had sued the school to eliminate dodgeball, but then someone else’s countersued to have it reinstated, and while there was currently a lawsuit to have it banned once more, the dreaded sport was still allowed, apparently, because Ms. Goldberg was smiling her snakelike evil grin and fondling her whistle.

Bad enough that Emmaline was already a target of her classmates. She didn’t need to be pelted with red rubber balls. But worse than that, as everyone knew, was the choosing of the teams.

She tried to look nonchalant and unconcerned, even as her palms sweated and her heart thudded, as the horrible ritual began. Lyric Adams (daughter of a middle-aged rock star and his fourth wife) and Seven Finlay (son of an award-winning British actress and her third husband) were the popular kids, and anointed by Ms. Goldberg to do the honors of bolstering or destroying the egos of their classmates, one by one.

“Ireland,” Lyric called, and Ireland, who was the daughter of big-deal producers, bowed her head graciously as if accepting her own statue and cantered over to her best friend’s side.

“Milan,” Seven countered.

Most of Emmaline’s classmates were named for a place—in addition to Milan, there were two Parises, three Londons, a York, a Dallas and a Boston. It sounded more as if Lyric and Seven were in a geography bee than gym class, but hey. Emmaline wasn’t kidding herself. She would’ve loved a cool name. Would’ve loved to have been one of the popular kids, even though she recognized their cruelty. She would’ve settled for less, even...would’ve loved to have been able to turn to the new boy and make a joke about all the map names and how the two of them were outcasts because of it.

That wasn’t possible, however.

“Jupiter!” Lyric called with a hair toss.

“Diesel,” Seven countered.

Her fellow pariah had moved from a town that most of Em’s classmates had never heard of...Tacoma or something. His parents didn’t work in the entertainment industry, and he was therefore already marked as an undesirable. Also, he had a human name, which didn’t help.

Kevin. Kevin Bates.

Kevin was also—insert dramatic pause—fat.

In Malibu, it was far more socially acceptable to be a heroin addict or murderer than to be overweight. When he walked into Algebra, Emmaline’s classmates stared at him as if he had a nipple growing out of his chin. To be fair, many of them had never seen a fat person in real life. Not in Malibu. Not on the pristine beaches or exclusive mountains where their families cavorted. Being fat? Who would’ve dared?

Why hadn’t his parents sent him in for gastric bypass? A tummy tuck or lipo? At the very least, why not a fat camp? Surely if there had been a surgery to fix Em’s problem, her parents would have jumped on it. Why not fix something that made life so hard? In Malibu, it seemed that imperfect children were tossed into the ocean, or sent to live in a more normal state.

On his first day, the teacher asked Kevin to tell the class about himself and the other kids had peppered him with questions... Granted, he was fat, but that would be tolerated if he was, say, Steven Spielberg’s son.

Kevin’s mother was an accountant; his father was a computer programmer.

The death knell. It wouldn’t have mattered if Kevin’s mom won the Nobel in economics or his father invented time travel; it didn’t matter that his parents happened to make a very comfortable living. Kevin didn’t have dinner with movie stars, he didn’t come to school in a limo and he was fat. He was no one, buh-bye.

Em knew the feeling. She wasn’t fat. She wasn’t tiny, either, by SoCal standards; she was solid, lacking mouselike bone structure or an eating disorder. But her problem wasn’t her size.

It was her stutter.

Words had always fought her. Years and years of speech therapy hadn’t done much. The only way she got past it was if she was relaxed or spontaneous or had a patient audience, and even then it was a struggle.

And patience wasn’t a quality associated with children. Not being able to get out an answer, not being sure if her throat would lock and the horrible sounds would start and stop, start and stop as her classmates watched in gleeful horror... It made her an easy target.

It didn’t matter that Emmaline got her black belt in aikido at the age of eleven. That she was great at sports. That she was tall and smart and, except for class participation, got really good grades. Her classmates were led by the mean popular kids, vampires who only seemed happy if they were feeding off someone else’s misery.

When they were smaller, Em got into a lot of fights, back in the good old days when “acting out” was more acceptable. In fifth grade, however, Asia Redding’s parents had threatened to sue the Neals after Emmaline had pushed Asia at recess. Never mind that Asia had been mercilessly mocking Em’s stutter for years.

Emmaline’s defense had been to pretend (miserably) not to care. She mastered the dead-eyed stare and wore Doc Martens and black clothes. She learned sign language for the rude phrases her stutter wouldn’t let her say.

Her parents told her to laugh it off or ignore it. But her parents were child psychologists, so they had no idea how kids really acted. At least pretending to be tough protected her from having the mean kids know how much it hurt.

Next to her, Kevin heaved a sigh. Emmaline sneaked a look. His expression was amused and tolerant. He glanced at her, and his mouth pulled up in a smile. “Sucks to be us, huh?” he said.

Us. That had a nice sound to it.

“Chord,” Seven called.

“Birch,” Lyric said.

“Guess his parents hated kids,” Kevin murmured. “Birch? Seriously?”

A smile started in Emmaline’s chest. There was something about Kevin. He had...swagger. Here he was, fat in the land where sixteen-year-old girls got breast implants for their birthdays, where boys had personal trainers and professionally done highlights before they started high school. Fat? Fat? It was a rejection of the very fabric of society. Almost James Dean in terms of rebellion.

Kind of thrilling, really.

“Journey.” This was said with a sigh, as Journey was the product of a first marriage whose parents were still together, and therefore not nearly as cool as the other kids. Not on Emmaline’s and Kevin’s level, but still pretty far down. Also, he was named after a band and not a place, so...

Now there were only two of them left.

Emmaline sneaked another look at Kevin.

He looked back. Rolled his eyes. Not at her...at this, the horrible ritual of crushing the human spirit. She smiled.

“Kevin, I guess,” Lyric said. “Whatever.”

“Great,” Seven said. “I’m stuck with Eh-eh-eh-Emmaline.”

Em glanced toward Ms. Goldberg, who was jotting notes on her clipboard, pretending not to have heard. She wouldn’t chastise Seven, Em knew. And Em wouldn’t be able to tell her about it.

“Asshole,” Kevin muttered, then sighed and walked over to join his teammates, Gulliver among the Lilliputians.

That day at recess, Kevin waited for her by the door. “Want a Twinkie?” he asked.

She took the strange, tubular cake in wonder. Her parents were on a macrobiotic kick these days, tragically. “Th-thanks,” she said.

“So you stutter?” he asked.

“S-s-somet-t-t-times.” Most times.

“I’m fat,” Kevin said.

He had beautiful dark eyes—amazing eyelashes—and curly black hair. If you looked closely, he wasn’t really that fat. Husky, that was the word. And, yes, soft. But he was tall, about the same height as she was, and the truth was, he was kind of...handsome.

“Want to be friends?” he asked, so of course she fell for him.

Around Kevin, her stutter wasn’t quite so pronounced, and when it did come up, he waited. Not like her parents, who stared at her, waiting, waiting, waiting. Maybe if they hadn’t been riddled with PhDs and gurgling with words like transference and empowerment and self-actualization, Em would’ve felt a little less freakish.

Mom and Dad knew exactly what the recommended method was for dealing with a stutterer (or a nonfluent speaker, as they liked to call her). “We have all the time in the world,” Mom would say. That was another thing. There was always a we. There was never I. “Don’t feel pressured. We’ll wait as long as it takes.”

Which made the stutter even worse. Their take on her speech impediment was relentless reframing (Em knew all the terms). “We love your stutter, because we love you!” Dad said once, which was just ridiculous.

She hated the stutter. She pictured it as a skeleton dressed in a black suit, rising up, wrapping its sharp, hard fingers around her vocal cords and squeezing, smiling as it did.

Kevin got it. He liked himself; he didn’t like being fat. He liked her; he didn’t like her stutter.

They kissed for the first time in April of eighth grade, when they’d been friends for months. His lips were soft, and he didn’t do anything more than just kiss her...no tongue, no groping. It was lovely. He smiled afterward. “Want to go to the movies this weekend?” he asked.

“Sure,” she said. “What do you want to see?”

Not one stutter.

Unfortunately, the idea that the two freaks of eighth grade were dating was deeply offensive to their beautiful, oddly named classmates. The bullying got worse. Emmaline found a used condom in her locker, such a disgusting sight that her throat locked for the entire day. One day when she went into music class, all the other girls burst out laughing for no apparent reason. Someone put a pregnancy test in her backpack, which caused her mother to deliver a lecture on sex and readiness, ignoring Emmaline’s protest that she and Kevin had kissed and that was it.

But it was when Lyric threw a lit match at her in science class that shit got serious, as the saying went. The match went out before it landed in her hair, thankfully, and Emmaline shoved Lyric, who then screamed as if she were being chased by cannibals. Em was suspended for a week. Worse, she had to apologize to her bully, and, no, a note wouldn’t do.

But she had Kevin.

Then came the news. Kevin got into his dad’s alma mater boarding school. In Connecticut. Kevin was wise beyond his years, it seemed; he knew they were only fourteen. Of course he’d be going.

Her only true friend. The boy she loved.

She sat down at her computer at home and wrote her parents a letter. She wanted to go live with Nana and go to high school there, because she just couldn’t keep fighting the good fight.

Nana, her mother’s mother, lived in Manningsport, New York, a lovely little town on a big lake where Em spent each summer. Nana was the epitome of a grandmother—she cooked, she clucked, she cuddled. Those summer weeks were fantastic, filled with plenty of gluten and red meat and sugary desserts. Bike rides and morning swims in the chilly lake, hikes and waterfalls and visits to the candy store. Nana even invited a couple of other girls over to play, and, unlike the Malibu crowd, these girls seemed nice. When one heard her stutter the first time, she put her hand on Em’s arm and said, “Don’t worry. I have epilepsy, so I’m different, too.”

Em stuttered less there. Still stuttered a lot, but not as much.

Her parents were all too supportive of the idea of her moving.

“Very empowering,” Mom said, pretending she had something in her eye.

Dad cleared his throat. “This is a healthy decision. We support you.”

All three of them knew they couldn’t fix her or her problems.

In a sense, she was running away, but the idea of leaving her mean-spirited peers filled her with such relief and excitement that she didn’t care.

The kids in Manningsport viewed a native Californian as exotic and fascinating, not minding that she didn’t talk a lot and, when she did, viewing her stutter as a little bit glamorous.

Em’s relationship with her parents improved, too; she had more to say, not having to look into their faces; the phone and email made communicating a lot easier. And telling them that she, who had never joined any school club before, was now on the hockey team and in chorus, because singing didn’t awaken the stutter like talking did... Well, she could hear their relief.

Nana’s house was a cozy bungalow with clever little cupboards and wide windowsills, and a stained glass window on the way up the stairs. In the nice weather, Nana sat on the sweet little front porch, chatting with passersby (which just didn’t happen where Em was from), sometimes inviting a neighbor to come up and have a glass of wine or iced tea. Em’s grandfather had died when she was small, and Nana had the occasional date, which Emmaline thought was adorable.

And it was nice being useful to Nana, shoveling the sidewalk and scraping the car, running to the grocery store three blocks away. Em was needed. It was a great feeling. Sometimes schoolmates would come over to hang out and study and eat Nana’s fabulous desserts.

Another benefit of living in New York—she could be closer to Kevin.

They were still hours apart, but they planned it carefully; if her grandmother would drive her down to Connecticut once in October and once in February (and Nana would—she was a big believer in romance), and Kevin and Em both went home for Thanksgiving, Christmas and spring break, then they could see each other almost every month. They wrote, emailed, talked on the phone, and it was always the same, always great. Kevin was funny and nice and...safe. He would never make fun of her. Never reject her.

In February of that first school year, Em got a call from her mom.

“We have a wonderful, wonderful surprise for you,” she said. “You’re a big sister! Here. Want to talk to her?”

“W-w-what?”

“Hello?” came a voice. “It’s Angela.”

And so she had a sister. Angela Amarache Demeku Neal, adopted from Ethiopia. Her name, roughly translated, meant angelic, beautiful, brightly shining champion.

Emmaline meant little rival. Also laborious. Her middle name was Mara, which meant bitter.

Only child psychologists could mess with their kid’s head like this.

Angela was ten years old. Her biological parents had died long ago, and she’d been raised in an orphanage. She was very nice. And smart—she could speak three languages. And beautiful, even at ten, big exotic eyes and long graceful limbs. She was extraordinarily polite and called their parents Mama and Papa, with the emphasis on the second syllable, so much more aesthetically pleasing than plain old Mom and Dad.

It was hard not to feel a little...replaced. Her parents would call to list Angela’s accomplishments and qualities. Sometimes, Em wondered if they were punishing her for living with Nana, but they did seem to genuinely adore Flawless Angela. Who wouldn’t? Angela loved nothing more than the times Em was home on break. She’d leave bouquets of flowers on Em’s pillow, tuck little notes into her suitcase. For that first Christmas with the Neals, she made Emmaline a beautiful scarf she’d woven herself in the Ethiopian tradition.

So sure, Emmaline loved her little sister. She didn’t get to see her much, and it took some getting used to, but Angela was great.

In the meantime, she and Kevin stayed together. With him, Emmaline felt most like herself—her wisecracking jokes didn’t get so strangled by the stutter. With him, she could drop the tough act and relax a little. Even though the kids in Manningsport were nicer, Em was still on guard. She had trust issues, according to her parents.

But with Kevin, she was normal. All through high school, their romance continued. They both went to the University of Michigan. And then, one day during her sophomore year, something miraculous happened.

In Shakespearean Tragedy, the professor told the students they’d be reading aloud, just a few lines each.

Emmaline’s heart sank. Her stutter had quieted down over the years, but it was still there, especially when she was forced to perform. Her heart thudded, and she could barely see the passage from King Lear. Morgan, the boy who sat in front of her, was a drama major, and he read in a beautiful British accent, quite embracing the part of Bad Guy Edmund.

Then came Em’s turn—King Lear with the body of his beloved daughter. The most important part of the play. The stutter rubbed its bone hands together in glee. Her classmates waited.

She closed her eyes, imagined herself as Sir Ian McKellen, then looked at her book and read.

“Howl, howl, howl, howl! O, you are men of stones:

Had I your tongues and eyes, I’d use them so

That heaven’s vault should crack. She’s gone for ever!”

The stutter’s jawbone dropped in shock.

Her words had come out with a British accent, too, and she hadn’t stuttered once.

“Nice, Emmaline,” the professor said. “Meggie, take it up.”

Em noticed that her hands were shaking, and a strange sensation filled her chest.

It was joy.

From then on, if she felt her throat lock up, she’d imagine the words in an accent, and her brain and throat detoured around the stuck sounds like a car veering around a roadblock. After all those years, her problem, which had made her so miserable, such an outcast, was gone. When she told her parents, they were quiet for a minute. Stunned.

“That’s wonderful!” Mom said. “You must feel very empowered.”

“We’re glad for you,” Dad said from the other phone (they always talked jointly).

“We’re getting a divorce, by the way,” Mom said. “But we’ll be living together. Nothing will change for Angela. Or you, for that matter.”

One day about a month later, she and Kevin were at his off-campus apartment, lying in his queen-size bed. He was quiet.

“Everything okay?” she asked.

After a long minute, he said, “You don’t stutter anymore.”

She didn’t answer, not wanting to jinx it.

“It’s a little weird,” he said. “I don’t know. We both had a...thing...when we first met. And now yours is gone.”

“Well. You never know.” She paused, feeling almost guilty. “I feel it there. Like it’s lurking, waiting to come back.”

He sighed. “Well. It’s good, I guess.”

It would’ve been nice, she thought later as she walked through the bitter wind to her dorm, if he’d been thrilled. After all, few knew better than Kevin how the stutter had paralyzed her, marked her, locked her in an invisible prison.

But she understood. He was afraid.

Kevin, you see, hadn’t lost the thing that had made him an outcast. He was still fat. He was, in fact, obese. When she’d met him, he was perhaps thirty pounds overweight. He’d gained possibly fifty more pounds at Choate.

The weight kept on coming in college.

Though he never told her what he weighed, she guessed he was at least a hundred pounds above where he should be.

Maybe more.

They never talked about him losing it. With other people, Kevin cheerfully acknowledged that he was fat, or “a big guy.” He loved food, loved to eat, and he didn’t just eat junk food and pizza (though he didn’t abstain from those, either). He’d cook for her, and, yes, his portion would be huge. But Em loved to eat, too, and the last thing she wanted to do was pass judgment or make him feel unattractive. Kevin knew he was heavy. It wasn’t a secret.

Besides, she loved him. Truly was attracted to him. His dark eyes were so beautiful, his smile and laugh were totally infectious and he was a great kisser.

But as college passed and he started law school and continued to gain weight, she worried.

They both went home to Malibu for the holidays that year, and Kevin had to buy an extra seat on the plane. His face was fiery with embarrassment, but the thing was, he really did take up two seats.

He didn’t speak the entire flight.

“I’m gonna join a gym when we get back,” he said in the car.

“Great,” she answered calmly. “I’ll join, too, if you want. It’d be good for both of us.”

He grunted.

And join they did. Kevin went once. Em went five times, then stopped, worried that it wasn’t helping. Besides, she ran five miles a few times a week, even in the winter. As ever, she was a strapping woman; she’d topped out at five-ten and had muscles and an ass and some padding. Here in a normal state, her size ten (and sometimes twelve) was deemed quite average. In Malibu, the size “Large” didn’t fit her.

Kevin graduated from law school and accepted a very decent offer from a big firm. They both stayed in Ann Arbor, that lovely little city. Em had a pleasant job at a newspaper, trying to put her English major to work by writing obituaries, checking movie schedules and, later, doing some features.

It was oddly thrilling to be able to order a drink and pay bills, talk about coworkers and go shopping for a couch. Both of them liked their jobs and got promoted, moved to a nicer apartment and seemed well on their way to becoming full-fledged adults.

Kevin proposed at an Italian restaurant over eggplant parm and garlic bread, getting down on one knee and presenting her the ring. She said yes instantly and kissed him. Had to give him a hand getting up, but she covered well, pulling him into a hug. The other restaurant patrons clapped politely, but Em saw a few puzzled looks.

He’s wonderful, you jerks, she thought even as she smiled. He’s the sweetest man I’ve ever known.

And he was.

He was also lazy, unhealthy and could easily leave her a widow.

So Emmaline made the mistake that changed her life.

She joined SweatWorld, the gym nearest their apartment. She’d never liked gyms, preferring to run. But Kevin hated running (not that he’d tried it in the past decade).

So SweatWorld it was, one of those horrible places with too-loud music and mirrors and complicated machines.

Her plan was to learn what she could and then gently suggest that he give it a try, using the wedding as motivation. They’d set their wedding date for June, and it was August now. Almost a year to get healthy, and then to stay healthy, because Emmaline had loved this guy since she was in eighth grade, and she wasn’t about to lose him.

But boy, she hated going to the gym. All that sweat, the smell of bleach-soaked wipes that people used to swab down their machines, the clack of weights and the grunts of humans, the whirring of spin class, the shouts of the staff.

There was one woman in particular Emmaline avoided. A hard-muscled trainer named Naomi Norman who stared as Em ran on the treadmill. Naomi’s modus operandi was to scream at her clients, using words of encouragement such as, “Don’t be such a fucking pussy! Get your fat ass in gear!”

Rumor had it that Naomi had been a marine, a convict, a gym teacher and raised by wolves. All seemed true. Em did her best to pretend to be in the zone, earbuds firmly in place. When she did ask a SweatWorld employee for help with a machine, she made sure it was one of the nice people.

After a month, Em broached the idea of Kevin coming with her, and she used Naomi. “Babe, you have to come with me. You know that woman on The Biggest Loser?”

“Not really, no,” Kevin said, not looking up from the paper.

“Well, Naomi is like her, except with very large hemorrhoids. She’s evil. I’m scared of her.”

“So find another gym.” He got up to pour more coffee (adding half-and-half, not the nonfat creamer she’d bought).

“Well, this one’s two blocks from here. You should come one day, honey. To protect me from Naomi.”

He smiled at that.

It was a start.

She knew Kevin didn’t like being overweight. She knew his blood pressure and cholesterol were high. She also knew he was aware of how to lose weight and why he should.

And she knew that her telling him to do it wasn’t going to do the trick.

A week or two later, on a quiet Sunday morning, she bit the bullet. They were finishing breakfast (pancakes and bacon...a lot of bacon). “Hon, why don’t you come to the gym with me today?”

“I’m really busy,” he answered instantly. And it was true; his job as a corporate tax attorney kept him at the firm till late in the evening, and he did work at least for a few hours each weekend.

She covered his hand with hers. “Kev, I love you. You know that. And I’m so excited to be married and have kids and all that good stuff. But I want us to have a long and happy life, and...well...I’m worried that we won’t if you don’t get healthier.”

She knew not to use words like diet or portion control or exercise more and the like. Focus on health and love, the literature had said. She’d read dozens of articles on the subject. Obesity interventions, they called them, and she cringed a little at the phrase.

Kevin looked at her for a long minute. There was hurt in his eyes, and her own welled with tears.

“I just don’t want anything bad to happen to you, babe,” she whispered.

“I could get hit by a bus crossing the street,” he said, a defensive edge creeping into his voice.

“I know. So could I. But—”

“Fine. I’ll go.”

“Really? That’s great!”

“I’m not making any promises. I’ll go once.”

“Thank you.” She kissed him, and he smiled. Her sweet Kevin, the nicest guy in the world. She took him to bed first, to show him how she felt. Yes, he was a big man, but she felt so safe with him, her head on his chest afterward, his heavy arm around her.

They had to stop to buy gym shorts that fit, and Emmaline was horrified at how big they were. The weight had crept on, ten pounds here, another ten there, and somehow or another, Kevin had become immense.

He was quiet on the way to the gym. “You okay?” she asked.

“I’m disgusting.”

“Oh, Kevin! You’re not!” She squeezed his arm. “Honey, you have a big frame, and, yeah, you’re heavy. But we’re doing something about it. Okay?”

He gave a dejected nod.

Em held the door for him, chattering away, hoping to God Naomi wasn’t there. Her goal was just to get him to walk a little on one of the treadmills, make it fun, chat about the wedding, try to keep him distracted, because Kevin hated exercise (obviously). The more painless this could be, the better it could work.

Kevin registered as Em’s guest, signing the waiver they made people sign if they topped the scales at more than 30 percent of their ideal weight.

Kevin weighed almost twice what he should, the skinny, muscular man with bleached teeth told them. His ideal body weight was 188; he weighed 354.

“It’s fantastic that you’re here,” the man said. “Congratulations.”

Kevin mumbled in response. He didn’t make eye contact with Em as they walked to the treadmills, past the weight machines and the muscle-heads screaming with exertion. Kevin was out of breath by the time they got there.

He was dying inside, Em knew. She smiled at him and set the treadmill at the lowest speed. Set hers at the same.

“This was probably the hardest part,” she said in a low voice. “Just walking in the doors.”

Kevin didn’t answer. He bumped up the speed a little higher and started jogging.

Em knew he wouldn’t be able to keep that up. Too much, too soon.

Sure enough, he had to lower the speed a minute later. She pretended not to notice and kept walking, though if she were alone, she’d be running at her usual seven miles an hour.

Then she saw Naomi.

The trainer was wearing microshorts and a sports bra. Her arms curved with perfectly defined, elegant muscle, and her stomach was flat and lean but not ripped. Long, tanned, beautiful legs. Her body was perfect. Not unappealingly muscular...just perfect. There was no other word for it.

And evil personified, because her face changed as her gaze stopped on Kevin. Her hands went to her hips, and she sauntered over, slowly, her eyes narrowing.

“What are you doing in my gym?” she asked Kevin, her voice just shy of yelling. “Really. What the fuck are you doing in my gym?”

All around them, people grew quiet.

“How dare you,” Emmaline said. “Back off, Naomi.”

“Is this your man? Are you here to be supportive? Huh?”

Kevin’s face flushed even redder.

“As a matter of fact, yes,” Emmaline bit out. “He’s here. He’s taken the first step, so shut up.”

“Oh, how sweet.” Naomi sneered. “Guess she has the balls in the family, huh, fatty?”

It was nearly dead silent now.

“I’m reporting you,” Em said. “You can’t talk to us this way.”

“Is that right? We’ll see, won’t we?”

“Be quiet,” Kevin muttered.

“Yeah,” Em echoed. “Shut up, Naomi.”

“I was talking to you,” he said.

Emmaline stopped walking, then jerked to a run to avoid being thrown off the treadmill.

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