Just get me through this, she silently prayed and flicked her wrist. The engine caught on the first try. If only the rest of the evening would go so well. But what were the chances, now that she was trapped with J.D. for the next hour or so? Slim and none leaped readily to mind, along with several wanton, and unwanted, illicit memories.

J.D. slipped a pair of sunglasses onto the bridge of his nose and Tiffany slid a glance in his direction. Wearing the aviator glasses he reminded her of the first time she’d seen him, and she willed that memory to fade.

She didn’t have time to dwell on the past. Not now, not ever. They drove to the clinic in silence.

Only much later, after Stephen had been stitched up and they had returned home to a late dinner, had she, after spending hours with J.D. and her children, finally unwound.

Alone in the bathtub, with cool water surrounding her and the lights dimmed, she remembered, in vibrant Technicolor, the first time she’d come face-to-face with J.D. Santini.

She closed her eyes, sighed, and finally let all her old emotions come to the surface. It had been nearly fifteen years ago, she’d been eighteen at the time and more naive than any girl should have been.

She could almost hear the sound of champagne bottles popping over the strains of “The Anniversary Waltz” played by a pianist seated at a baby grand so many years ago. She’d been much too young, had thought what she’d felt was love for an older man and had never expected to run into the likes of James Dean Santini.

But she had, and she remembered the first time she’d seen him as clearly as if it had been only this afternoon....

Chapter Five

Chapter Five

Tiffany rested in the bathtub and remembered that evening so long ago....

“Look at that rock!” Mary Beth Owens, a friend who had graduated with Tiffany this past spring, reached for Tiffany’s hand and eyed the diamond sparkling on her ring finger. “Wow,” she breathed, her eyes as bright as the stone.

Blushing, Tiffany pulled her hand away and concentrated on lighting the candles that would warm the serving trays for the wedding reception she and Mary Beth were catering at the Santini winery in McMinnville.