Cat slid the envelope

Cat slid the envelope into the back pocket of her jeans

and resisted the urge to smooth her hair. It wouldn't do any

good, anyway. In her better moments, she fancied the mass

of tumbled copper curls had a sort of Botticelli by way of

Titian look about it. On a bad hair day―and she'd had more

than her share―she thought it was more red mesh

scrubber after a trip through the garbage disposal. Either

way, she'd learned that there wasn't a whole lot she could

do to influence things.

***

Twenty minutes later, Cat stood on the sagging front

porch and watched Devon and her soon-to-be husband

drive off down the long gravel driveway, on their way to

Minnesota or Michigan by way of Las Vegas. She wished

them luck. She was fairly sure Rick was going to need it.

She pulled the letter out of her back pocket and tapped it

absently against her thigh. Staring out at the haphazardly

landscaped yard, she considered her options. She could

wash her hands of the whole thing, pop the letter into a

mailbox and never give it another thought. But she wasn't

going to do that. Even if it hadn't been a love match, no one

should find out they'd been jilted in such an impersonal

fashion. She would go to see Luke, give him the letter, tell

him how sorry she was that things had worked out this way.

It was the right thing to do.

And wasn't it handy that doing the right thing gave her

an excuse to see Devon's ex-fiancé again?

There's nothing like falling in love at first sight. That

throat-tightening, heart-pounding rush of fear and

adrenaline, the sudden knowledge that

everything―everything is different now, that your life will

never be the same, that you will never be the same.

The first time Cat Lang fell in love, she was ten. She and

her mother, Naomi, were living in Nevada in a shabby old

house that had once been a brothel. Naomi was deep in her

oil-painting phase, and the attic apartment had what she

claimed was the perfect northern exposure. Cat liked the

banisters, which were good for sliding down, and the

tangled thicket of shrubs and weeds that masqueraded as a

backyard, but best of all was Albert Federman, who lived

with his aunt and uncle on the bottom floor. He was fifteen,

a tall, thin boy with white-blond hair and pale blue eyes.

She saw him for the first time the day she and Naomi

moved in.

They moved too often to have accumulated much by way

of household goods, but there were half a dozen boxes, as

well as an eclectic assortment of tote bags and two plastic

laundry baskets, all wedged into the back of a rust-pocked

yellow station wagon with fake wood sides. Naomi had

carried up one box and a tote before getting distracted by

the amazing play of light through the leaves of the big

sycamore that dominated the overgrown backyard. Cat left

her to her rapt contemplation and went back downstairs to

bring up another load. A veteran of more moves than she

could count, she knew that the sooner everything was

unloaded and put away, the sooner it would start to feel like

home. She was on her way up the cracked walkway, arms

straining with the weight of one of the laundry baskets,

when Albert came out the front door and offered to give her

a. hand.

She looked up at him, standing there with the sun behind

him, creating a halo behind his pale hair, his smile

revealing one crooked front tooth, and she felt her heart

just fall right at his feet. She knew, in that one instant, that

this was what true love felt like.

Maybe it had been. It had lasted all that summer, and

maybe―if Naomi hadn't decided that oil painting really

wasn't what she was meant to do after all, and Nevada was

just too crassly commercial to truly nurture her

spirit―maybe if they'd stayed, she and Albert Federman

would have lived happily ever after. But they'd moved to

Sedona, and she'd started school at a commune Naomi had

joined. Her broken heart had eventually recovered, and

Albert had become a sweet memory