Maybe it had something to do with how much he’d loved her once. Or how he’d lost her. The latter had shattered him, leaving a greater impact than any one of his father’s blows. It had been the Tuesday after prom, the Tuesday after the night she’d finally given herself to him. They’d made love, going all the way, the first time for both of them.

After a year of dating, they’d done everything else many times, but the act of making love had been even more incredible than he’d imagined. The feel of her body, the way her gaze had been so trusting, her hands so sure, had thrilled him. He’d spent the next two days feeling like he could fly.

Monday afternoon, in the locker room, he’d admitted that to his best friend. Someone must have overheard them because by the next morning, word had spread all over school that Reggie Somerville was the best sex of his life.

Given his reputation for trouble, no one would ever think she’d been the only sex of his life. Instead, she’d been humiliated and had wrongly assumed he’d been the one to betray her by broadcasting something that should have stayed between the two of them, and making it seem cheap instead of beautiful. She’d ended their relationship, and days after that, he’d left town.

He parked in his spot and made his way upstairs.

If only, he thought, entering his office. If only he hadn’t said anything. If only she’d listened when he’d tried to explain. If only his father hadn’t been a mean SOB who wanted nothing more than to take out his anger at his sorry life on his only son.

But it had all happened, and there was no going back. He picked up the paper with Reggie’s number on it and smiled.

Maybe the past couldn’t be undone, but there was always the present and the future. It seemed to him that Reggie had gone out of her way to make both a little more interesting.

Eight

Dena told herself she was just being neighborly. A half hour into Snacks and Wine, she realized Micah wasn’t going to show up, which meant he was missing out on all the yummy bruschetta goodness. As the owner and therefore hostess of the event, it made sense to ensure all her guests were happy. To that end, she went into the kitchen, put several bruschettas on a plate, grabbed a beer from the beverage refrigerator and hurried across to the walled courtyard by the carriage house. She knocked once and took a step back, more for his safety than because she was being polite. She had a bad feeling that there was a fifty-fifty chance she would want to throw herself at him the second he opened the door.