There's nothing like falling

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.

She'd half forgotten that moment of knowing, that

sudden understanding that everything was different now.

Until Devon brought Lucas Quintain home to meet her

father, and Cat was suddenly ten years old again, feeling

her heart pound so hard that she was sure it must be

visible from the outside, feeling that quick rush of fear and

excitement. This was it. This was the moment when her life

changed forever. This was the one. But the joy, that odd

feeling of recognition, had lasted barely a heartbeat. This

was Devon's fiancé. No matter how many times she told

herself that she couldn't mourn something that had never

been hers, she hadn't been able to shake the feeling of loss.

And now, here she was on her way to tell Luke that he

was a free man again, whether he liked it or not.

Sighing, Cat flipped on the turn signal when she saw the

Flintridge exit coming up. Fat lot of good Luke's newly

single condition would do her. Just for fun, why not list all

the reasons he wouldn't be interested in her? First, his

taste clearly ran to petite blondes, not leggy red-heads.

Second, he was hardly going to look favorably on her after

she handed him Devon's letter. Third, even if he could

overlook that, he probably couldn't overlook the fact that

she was related, in a convoluted fashion, to the woman

who'd just unceremoniously dumped him. Fourth, fifth,

sixth and on into infinity, she wasn't the kind of woman

likely to interest a wealthy real-estate tycoon.

The VW coughed asthmatically as the road narrowed and

began to climb into the Flintridge hills. The houses sat back

from the road, sheltered amid towering live oaks. Discreet

mansions, Cat thought and then wondered if that was a

contradiction in terms. could a mansion be discreet?

Maybe, to qualify for the title of mansion, a certain

flamboyance was required, which would make these just

really, really big, really, really expensive houses.

There wasn't much traffic as the road wound up into the

hills. She passed two Mercedes both black, a silvergray

Rolls and a hunter-green Jaguar convertible. The driver of

the Rolls gave her a puzzled look, and Cat giggled as she

drove through the intersection. Apparently, tomato-red,

thirty-year-old volkswagen Squarebacks were not exactly a

common sight in this neighborhood. She gave the sun-faded

dashboard an affectionate pat.