My One and Only

Dennis sat up, rubbing his eyes. Coco licked him on the chin, then poked her little nose out the window, snuffling. She whined and wagged. “You like it here, honey?” I asked my pet.

“It’s pretty,” Dennis said.

The red Mustang had not moved an inch. We were on a sharp curve, too, so passing would definitely be inadvisable, not that I’d seen many other cars. Should I try it? I tapped the horn again. Nothing. No grizzly bear, no elk, no goat, no response. “Come on,” I groaned. The sooner this weekend started, the sooner I could get back to normal. The driver didn’t move. Stroke? Heart attack? Flashback to the Civil War? I leaned on the horn again—alas, it was a rather friendly-sounding horn, as the rental was a Honda. Give me a good old-fashioned Detroit-made blare any day.

“Come on, Florence!” I yelled out the window. “Can you please move it?”

The driver of the car extended an arm out the window. And a finger.

It was a male arm…and finger.

And then the car door opened, and the driver got out, and was neither female nor a Civil War veteran. My hands slid off the steering wheel.

It was Nick.

He took off his sunglasses and looked at me and though I was fairly sure my expression hadn’t changed—I was rather paralyzed at the moment—my heart lurched, my mouth went dry, my legs turned to water.

Nick. He folded his arms and tilted his head, his eyes narrowed, and my heart flinched as if it had been punched. A roaring sound filled my ears.

Coco yipped.

“Problem?” Dennis asked.

“Um…no.” Without further explanation, I put the car in Park and got out.

“Harper?” Dennis asked. “Dude, don’t make a scene.”

Funny, to be so outwardly calm as I approached my ex-husband. You’re not a dumb kid anymore, I reminded myself distantly, but the words didn’t mean much, not when my entire being burned with electricity.

“Oh, Nick, it’s you,” I said mildly, pleased to find my voice sounded mostly normal. “I assumed you were an old woman riddled with cataracts.”

“And I assumed you were a Massachusetts driver with anger-management issues.” His tone was as pleasant as mine. “I see one of us was right.”

He was older. Abruptly, there was a lump in my throat. Of course he’s older, I told myself. So are you. It’s been a long time. His dark hair was shot with silver, and crow’s feet radiated from his eyes, those tragic dark brown gypsy eyes a little cool, a little suspicious. He was thinner now, his face bordering on careworn. His clothes immediately identified him as a cool New Yorker…dark jeans, white button-down with a quality and cut that made him look sophisticated and polished…all the things he’d wanted to be way back when.

Twelve years. What a horribly long time, and yet not even close to being long enough.

Then he smiled the way I remembered—that instant smile that flashed like lightning and had about the same results. Heat, electricity, light and possible injury and/or death, and I was glad I still had my sunglasses on. The last thing I wanted was for Nick to know he could still…affect me. One crack in the armor, and Nick would be in there with a hammer and a chisel, and he wouldn’t stop till there was nothing left but a pile of rust. That’s how it had been back then, and judging by my staggering heart, that’s how it was still.

“You look good,” he said, sounding almost surprised.

“You, too.” Then, hoping to get him to look away from me, I nodded at the Mustang. “I see you’re having a midlife crisis,” I said.

“Same to you,” he returned, jerking his chin. Ah. Dennis was approaching. Thank God. My boyfriend’s overall manly appearance was somewhat diminished by the fact that he was holding my rather tiny dog and stroking her head, and she wore her pink patent-leather collar, but still.

“Is that a rattail?” Nick murmured.

“He’s a firefighter,” I said, appropos of nothing.

“Of course he is. It was that or pool boy.” Nick smiled as Dennis drew near.

I looped my arm through my boyfriend’s. “Dennis, meet Nick Lowery. Nick, Dennis Costello.”

“Nice to meet you, Dennis.”

“Same here.” They shook hands. “Are you going to the wedding, too?” Dennis asked.

“Yes, I am.” Nick raised an eyebrow at me.

“Cool,” Dennis said. “So how do you guys know each other?”

“Biblically,” Nick answered.

“Nick’s my ex-husband, Dennis,” I said a bit sharply. “I’m sure I mentioned it once. Possibly twice.”

“Oh, right!” He glanced at me, then back at Nick. “So why’d you stop?”

“Taking in the sights.” Nick pointed. About three hundred yards off the road, down the steep meadow, a black bear shuffled slowly along the bank of a clear, broad river. It stopped to sniff the wind, stood up on its hind legs, then dropped back down and continued. Coco whined, certain she could take the beast.

“Dude, is that a dog?” Dennis asked. I closed my eyes. If only Dennis were the strong and silent type…

“Black bear,” Nick said.

“Awesome.” To Den’s credit, the bear did sort of resemble a big, black Newfie. After another minute or two, it disappeared into the long grass.

The two men looked at each other once more. “So you’re the ex,” Dennis said.

“Yet I lived to tell the tale,” Nick confirmed.

Dennis gave a snort of laughter, aborted by my murderous look. He petted Coco, looking a bit like Dr. Evil stroking the hairless cat. Nick just stared at me, his eyes mocking, and my face grew hot. Dragging my eyes off him, I looked at Dennis. “Honey?” I asked brightly. “Want to drive?” I asked.

“I thought you didn’t want me to,” Dennis answered. Nick’s eyebrow rose knowingly.

“Would you like to drive now?” I asked, keeping a smile on my face.

“Uh…sure. Come on, Coco-Buns.” The pet name failed to reinforce Dennis’s heterosexuality, and I stifled a sigh as my boyfriend obediently walked back to the car and got into the driver’s side, letting Coco stand on his lap, her paws on the wheel.

I didn’t move. “I hear you approve,” I said to Nick.

“I hear you don’t.” He looked at me a beat or two, steadily. “Take off those damn sunglasses, Harper.”

With an exaggerated sigh, I obeyed. “Better?”

He didn’t answer, just stared at me with those gypsy eyes, and I looked right back. Twelve years’ distance, a career spent in court, staring down idiot lying spouses… Don’t mess with me, Nick. He seemed to sense it, because he looked away abruptly, back in the direction of the shambling bear. “Drinks later? For the sake of the kids?”

Do not be alone with him.

It was a line I often said to my clients. Seeing him alone would muddy the waters, stir up emotions best left untouched, possibly make you agree to things you shouldn’t.

I replaced my sunglasses. “Sure. Are you staying at the lodge?”

“Yes.” He had a way of saying yes, Nick did. Fast and sure and disproportionately hot, like he knew exactly what you were going to say and couldn’t wait to give you an affirmative. I’d forgotten about that. Crotch.

“Okay, then,” I said, and my voice sounded nice and normal. “I’m sure we can find a bar or something.”

It wasn’t until about a mile or two later, when I was sitting in the car next to Dennis, clutching his hand, that I was able to take a normal breath. That electric hum was downright painful now.

This was a horrible idea. Every aspect of this whole situation was wrong, wrong, wrong.

CHAPTER FOUR

LOOKING BACK AT MY LIFE thus far, I can’t say I exactly regret marrying Nicholas Sebastian Lowery. That being said, I knew he was trouble the very first day I met him. The very first second, even.

I didn’t regret it because I learned a lot. Well, my time with Nick confirmed a lot that I’d already believed. But when a man comes up to you in a bar and tells you you’re the woman he’ll marry, it’s a little…overwhelming. Plus, it’s not the usual come-on line often employed by college students. Even grad students.

I was a junior at Amherst, it was my twentieth birthday, my roomies had gotten me a fake ID, and we were breaking it in. The pub was crowded, hot and noisy. Music thumped, people shouted to be heard…and then I turned and saw a guy staring at me.

Just staring. Steady, unabashed, completely focused. Time seemed to stop for a second, and all those other people, they just faded away, as the dark-haired man…boy…just looked at me.

“You okay?” asked Tina, my closest college chum.

“Sure,” I said, and the spell was broken.

But the guy came over and sat at the table next to us and just kept looking at me, and—forgive the nauseating cliché—it felt as if he really saw me, because his concentration was so singular.

“What are you looking at, idiot?” I asked, giving him the sneer that had served me so well.

“My future wife. The mother of my children.” One corner of his mouth pulled up, and every female part I had squeezed warm and hard.

“Bite me,” I said, just about to turn away.

“Anything you want,” he answered, and then he grinned, that lightning-flash smile that said, Sure, I’m a jerk, but we both know I can get away with murder…and it was hard not to smile back. So I didn’t turn away. And I did smile.

“So when should we get married?” he asked, pulling his chair closer.

I checked him out discreetly. Nice hands. Beautiful eyes. Shiny dark hair—I was a sucker for dark-haired men. “I wouldn’t marry you if you were the last man on earth, bub.”

“Yet you’re ogling me,” he answered. “What are you drinking, wife?”

I laughed and said, “Crikey, the nerve. Sam Adams Octoberfest.”

I didn’t love my birthday, given my history with the date, but Tina had dragged me out with two other friends. All of us were in our junior year at Amherst, all of us receiving a stellar education at an extremely feminist-slanted college, all of us absolutely confident that the world held no boundaries, all of us planning to Do Important Things. And yet, those three friends took a respectful and almost envious step back. Look at Harper! Some guy is hitting on her! And he even used the M-word! Give her some space! Don’t blow it!

And though I now cringe to admit, I was swept off my feet, which came as quite a surprise to me. I guess that’s sort of the point of being swept.

Nick Lowery was unlike any of the pale, vague boyfriends I’d had up to this point (and I’d had many and loved none). He was, despite being only twenty-three, a grown-up. In school at UMass, getting his master’s in architecture. He already had a job lined up in June—a real job, not an internship, but as a practicing architect in New York City at a place that made huge buildings all over the world. He knew what he wanted, he had a plan to get it, and the plan was working. In a world of vaguely ambitious, overeducated, not-very-employable college students, he was rather thrilling.

We talked for hours that night. He drank without getting drunk and didn’t try to get me drunk, either. He listened when I spoke, his eyes intent. And such eyes! Too beautiful and tragic somehow, with a secret pain (cough), a gentle torment only an old soul could feel…well, it was clear I had a little too much to drink. Nick had grown up in Brooklyn, couldn’t wait to move back to the city, loved the New York Yankees, which resulted in some very fun trash talk (I won, somehow making the Sox sound noble and superior, despite the sorry season they were having). He asked me questions about what I wanted to do, what I loved learning, where I was from. He didn’t seem to grow bored, even when I waxed rhapsodic about environmental law, and he didn’t stare at my boobs. He just seemed to really…like me.

We were both a little shocked when the busboy asked us to leave, as it was now 2:30 a.m. Nick offered to walk me home, and as we crossed the lovely, still campus, he held my hand. That was a first for me—a boy who took my hand. That was a public statement of romantic intentions, and the boys I’d dated (and they were definitely all boys) tended more toward the shoulder bump. Hand-holding, I discovered, was quite the turn-on, though I pretended not to notice.

“Can I take you out sometime?” he asked in front of my dorm.

“Is that code for ‘Can I come in and have sex with you?’” I returned.

The answer came almost before I’d finished the question. “No.”

Another first.

I blinked. “Seriously? Because I probably would sleep with you.” Actually, at that moment, I wouldn’t have. At least I didn’t think so. But those eyes…that rather beautiful hand holding mine so firmly…“Are you asking me out on a date?”

“Yes.” That fast, certain yes. “Yes, I want to take you on a date. No, I don’t want to have sex with you. Not tonight, anyway.”

“Why? Are you a Mormon? Suffer from ED? Are you gay?”

He grinned, his gypsy eyes transformed. “No, no and no. Because, Harper Elizabeth James”—crap, I’d told him my entire name (and he remembered, oh sigh!)—“that would be…disrespectful.”

I blinked. “Well, now you have indeed rendered me speechless. I can state with absolute certainty that I have never before heard that particular line.” Prelaw. What can I say? We all sounded like pompous idiots. Plus, I’d had three whole beers, which made me sound even more idiotic and pompous.