âI have a twenty-year-old son named Drew,â Michael said
âAnd according to his mother, he wants to meet me.â
A son. The words didnât make any sense at first. We had a daughter, Emma. Where had a son come from?
And then I did the math, feebly, my mind tripping back over the years, and figured it out.
âTess?â Michael said.
I took Michaelâs hand, holding it hard even though I couldnât face him. My gaze was drawn to the line of framed photographs on my dresserâMichael and me, Michael and Emma, Emma alone. Each picture offered its own truth, a testament to love and laughter and family. Even if there were dozens of moments that hadnât been captured, it didnât make those happy faces a lie.
âTomorrow, okay?â I whispered. âWe can talk tomorrow.â
Because no matter what had happened twenty years ago, history had taught me that there would always be a tomorrow for us.
Dear Reader,
The idea of love at first sight, especially young love at first sight, has always fascinated me. Who we are at eighteen is not necessarily who we will be at thirty or forty, and real love is a big commitment to make when youâre still discovering who you are. We all know childhood sweethearts who have found happy endings, but I canât believe the road is always perfectly smooth.
Tess and Michael Butterfield are one of those couples. Not even eighteen when they meet, they fall hard and fast for each other. Theyâre now married with a teenage daughter, and their life together is exactly what theyâve always dreamed aboutâ¦until an unexpected phone call changes everything.
Or does it? As Michael and Tess learn together, love isnât simply a giftâitâs a choice, one that has to be made over and over to keep it strong.
I hope you enjoy this story as much as I did writing it. These are characters who first spoke to me long ago, and Iâm thrilled at the chance to share them with you.
Best,
Amy Garvey
Amy Garvey has worked as a nanny, a video store clerk, a day camp counselor, a journalist, a Bloomingdaleâs salesgirl and a romance editor, among other things, but her real love has always been writing. In her opinion, fictional people are usually more fun to spend time with than real people, even though she adores her husband and three kids. When sheâs not writing, sheâs reading, and when sheâs not reading, sheâs watching far too much TV, including Supernatural, her latest obsession, and reruns of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel. Visit Amyâs Web site at www.amygarvey.com, or write to her at [email protected].
For April and Jess, whose story ended much too soon
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
MY WORLD CHANGED WITH ONE phone call on a Tuesday evening in May as my family and I were finishing a casual dinner of leftovers and bits and pieces from the fridge. My daughter, Emma, had dumped reheated sauce over a bowl of pasta, and my husband, Michael, had picked at the remains of a roast chicken, then washed it down with a beer. I was scraping the soggy end of a salad out of my bowl and into the garbage disposal when the phone rang and Emma bolted out of her chair to answer it. A fifteen-year-old girlâs response to a ringing telephone is alarming until you get used to it, and I remembered enough about being fifteen to smile at her crestfallen face when she handed the phone to her father. Her swing of dark blond hair fell across her cheek, and she looked bored.
âDad, itâs for you.â
âWho is it?â Michael asked, squinting at the newspaper heâd spread on the table and frowning.
Emma rolled her eyes. If it wasnât Jesse, the boy she was crushing on, she clearly didnât care. âSome woman. She didnât say.â
He glanced up then, wrinkling his brow, and took the phone into the living room. I heard his curious âHello?â before he was out of earshot, and a minute later I heard the heavy thunk of something falling to the floor.
It wasnât him, at leastâI rushed in to find that heâd stumbled into the ottoman stationed in front of the huge old club chair that I intended to reupholster, knocking a stack of books onto the carpet. But his face was white, blank, his eyes as wide as Iâd ever seen them, and as I watched, he sank onto the sofa wordlessly, the slim black portable phone still held to his ear.
To get the news out of him after heâd hung up took a little while. He insisted that Emma head upstairs to start her homework, a pronouncement that was met with a dramatic pout and more rolling of eyes. She usually studied at the dining-room table, with her books spread out and the wires of her brand-new iPod snaking out of her ears, while Michael and I puttered in the kitchen or sprawled in front of the TV. I never went down to the basement darkroom until after Emma was upstairs for the evening.