Minor yawned, which Kennet took personally. He knew he was being a boring romantic, or a romantic bore. He didn’t need his smart-aleck brother’s clairvoyant confirmation right now, thank you very much. He’d gone far out of his way to keep his little infatuation with Astrid a strictly guarded secret. It was the kind of thing Minor loved to pounce on and tease to shreds. He was always exposing Kennet’s musings for the maudlin crap they were, but never more so than when Kennet was musing about a girl. In that regard, the devilishly handsome Minor was a curse. He only had to glance in a girl’s direction to win her besotted attention. If Minor detected a mere whiff of feminine intrigue coming off Kennet right now, with Astrid mere yards away, he’d open the throttle on his irresistible charm and ruin everything, the bastard.

The whistle of the train, closer this time, made Kennet’s stomach coil. He had no idea why he felt this absurd way, any more then he knew how he could look at Astrid’s photograph and feel like he knew her. But he did. And when she arrived, he might discover it was all a bunch of hooey and Astrid didn’t know him from a pebble on the sidewalk, nor would she even want to.

And might is being mighty generous about it, fat-head.

It wouldn’t be the end of the world, he thought. But when a fellow carried a little story in his fat head for ten years, crafting and embellishing and, on occasion, comforting himself with it, you couldn’t blame him for being reluctant to see it end. Kennet knew he’d probably built Astrid into something akin to a movie star: both knowable and untouchable at the same time. She played a role he himself had scripted, always saying and doing the right thing, acting according to his direction. On the silver screen, today would end like Sleeping Beauty, with Kennet kissing the dream into reality.

It won’t be anything of the kind, he told himself. You’re going to shake hands and help with the baggage. And if the past is any indication, she’ll fall in love with Minor and pine for him the whole visit.

Bastard.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” Minor said, raising his voice above the approach of the train.

Kennet blinked. “Like what?”

“Like I owe you money.”

“I’m just mad at you for something you haven’t done yet.”

“You and everyone else.”

The train was pulling in. Time seemed to slow down for Kennet Fiskare, whose feet inched a little closer to the edge, the book of his life opened below, a licked fingertip poised to turn a page.

The story either begins today or ends today, he thought.