“Isn’t there anything you can do?”

The lady at the White Swan Inn regarded Violet from over her glasses with pursed lips. “Not a thing. We’re all filled up. Leaf peepahs, don’t ya know.”             

“And this is …”

“Ay-yuh. The only place in town.” She tapped a finger against her chin. “You want that I call over to the Pineview Inn south of Hancock? See if they’ve got a room?”

“Oh, would you? Thank you!” Then she remembered the long, dark, twenty-minute drive just to find the White Swan Inn. As the woman reached for the phone, Violet touched her wrist to stop her. “Er, how far away is it?”

“’Less’n an hour during daylight. Little more, maybe, in the dark, you bein’ new to these parts.”

An hour! It was almost eight o’clock now. She imagined herself lost in the woods, still driving around at midnight. She’d already driven seven hours today. Her eyes were burning, and her body was exhausted. She wiped her sweaty palms on her lime-green corduroy pants. “Nothing closer?”

“Bar Harbor’s across the way.” She gestured vaguely at the window, her long vowels and dropped r’s making it sound like Bah Hahbah. “You got a boat?”

Violet shook her head no, turning away from the reception desk in a daze. As she got to the front door, she turned around, remembering her manners. “Thanks for trying.”

“You come back on Tuesday, now. I’ll have a nice room waitin’ for ya.”

Violet nodded, opening the door and letting herself out onto the porch of the old inn. To her left was a crisply painted white rocking chair that afforded a nice view of Frenchman Bay. She plopped down in the chair, hugging her thin pink cardigan to her body, and shivered as an autumn breeze blew in from the water, making her exposed skin rise with goose bumps. Her shoulders slumped in defeat. She had no other choice. Short of sleeping in her car, she was going to have to return to Deep Haven and share the rental house with Zach—at least for tonight.

Zach Aubrey.

For goodness’ sake, what were the chances of him showing up at the same house she’d rented in some obscure town in Maine? One in a million, that’s how many. She shook her head in disbelief. Of all the crappy luck.

She sat back, rocking, trying to ignore the chill and put off the inevitable.

Damn, he looked good. So edgy and hard, foreign and forbidden, with his tattoos and jewelry, ripped jeans and heavy metal T-shirt. He’d taken that quiet, brooding thing he’d had going on in college and amped up the heat level to scorching.

He’d changed a lot over the years, for sure. His arms were covered in tattoos, and he had that small silver stud in his nose and two in his eyebrow, which she didn’t like a bit. (Did she? No! Of course she didn’t!) His face had been shuttered and wary in college, and even though it was more open and less apprehensive now, it was harder and cockier too. And his body. She sighed, and a small moan-like sound surprised her. His body looked solid and toned under his T-shirt, and his ass . . .

She forced herself not to think about what he looked like walking away from her as he went back into the house. But she could probably bounce a quarter off that ass. Her belly fluttered as she remembered the feeling of his hands on her shoulders. She hated how much she liked it when he touched her. It made her feel something she hadn’t felt in a long time. If she was honest, something she hadn’t felt since . . .

She was gripping the rocker arms so unforgivingly that some of the paint chipped off and lodged under her nails. She started rocking again with a vengeance, trying to reason with herself. Badass metal rockers are hardly your type, Violet! Get a hold of yourself!

Preppy, solid, and conservative was her type. (Wasn’t it? Of course it was!) She’d been with Shep since she was nineteen years old, and he was about as preppy and old-school as a man could be. Since Shep had died, Violet hadn’t dated much at all. Twice she’d met Shep’s divorced golf buddy, Garreth, for drinks at the club, but when he leaned in to kiss her, she whipped her head so far back from him, she was lucky she hadn’t gotten whiplash. His cheeks reddened with embarrassment, and he didn’t call her again. It wasn’t necessarily that Violet intended to live like a nun for the rest of her life, but if she didn’t count Zach, which she generally didn’t, she’d only ever been with Shep.

That one weekend with Zach? She’d tried unsuccessfully to relegate it to dream status for almost a decade. But it wasn’t a dream. It was a startling, unavoidable actuality that was suddenly reasserting itself into her life with brutal precision and clarity.

She thought of the long nights she’d spent writing poetry on his dorm room bed as he played the keyboard, wearing headphones, at his desk. When their schoolwork was done, sometimes he’d set one of her poems to music.

“Vile, you got verses for me?”

She’d look up from her scribbling to find him grinning at her. His eyes, generally downcast around others, met hers easily, even teasing her—dipping his glance to her breasts and making her cheeks flush.

“You think I hid the verses in there?”

“They’d fit.”

“You’re fresh.”

But she grinned back at him from across the room. His music was so far under her skin, she didn’t hear her own thoughts in quiet moments anymore. She heard Zach’s music, all around her, all the time. It was all she could do to keep up with him, chewing her favorite pen to a nub as she tried to write something beautiful enough to match his music. She ripped the page away from the journal, handing him the scribbled lyrics based loosely on the star-crossed love story of Abelard and Heloise. That was just a guise, of course. She couldn’t have written with that kind of passion unless she was writing about herself.

He scanned the page, lifting his eyes to her, and her breath caught in her throat at his expression. Wonder. Admiration. No, not admiration. More than that. Maybe even . . .

“Damn, Violet. This is good.”

Then he’d adjusted his headphones back over his ears and turned back to the keyboard to set her words to music.

Violet’s heart pounded at the intensity of the memory. The rocking chair had stilled, and she was staring out at the harbor blankly. She took a deep, bracing breath of salt air and pushed off again, anxious for a few more minutes’ reprieve before returning to Deep Haven. Maybe he’d be asleep by the time she returned and she could just sneak in quietly and find an empty bedroom.

No matter what else had happened between them, they had been very good friends at one point in time. He wasn’t an axe murderer. His only crime had been that he didn’t return her feelings. And awkward or not, she certainly knew him well enough to share a house with him for a few days. She couldn’t very well turn around and drive home seven hours to Connecticut, and the thought of driving three hours to her mother’s one-bedroom apartment in Portland made her groan. She wouldn’t be able to write a word at her mother’s dumpy Formica kitchen table while she hovered over Violet’s shoulder for two weeks.

The White Swan had an open room on Tuesday. Three days. She only needed to share the house with Zach for three days, then she could get a room at the White Swan and write a strongly worded message to Lena Lewis asking for her money back.

She wasn’t a child. She wasn’t a lovesick nineteen-year-old. She could certainly share a house with an old friend for a few days, couldn’t she? Of course she could. In fact, it was like the universe was giving her a chance to change the past, to spend a weekend with Zach Aubrey and not end up at the beginning of a month-long crying jag.

She headed back to the car, programmed Deep Haven back into the GPS, and adjusted her glasses. The past was in the past. A long, long time ago. She would set up her laptop on the far corner of the deck this weekend and immerse herself in work. She would knock out Us After We until her fingers and wrists ached and get the goddamned thing e-mailed to her publisher by the October deadline. Zach would do his thing, and she would do hers, and when they happened to cross paths, she would be polite to an old friend and nothing more. Not that he had any interest in her anyway, but she would show him her boundaries, and he would respect them. Yes. She would make her boundaries clear. Boundaries. Good.

She pulled out of the parking lot, ignoring the trembling of her hands every time she loosened her grip on the steering wheel.

And no matter what, there was no way that history would be repeating itself. She’d stay out of his way. She’d protect herself far better this time. If Violet Smith knew anything about Zach Aubrey and her heart, it was that having it broken once by him was enough.

***

Zach made a fire and opened the heavy drapes so he could see her headlights in the driveway if she came back. He sat down with a crystal tumbler and the open bottle of Scotch, waiting, hoping, unable to keep painful memories from flooding his head.

That goddamned October break weekend.

Zach had always planned to spend the four-day break at school, but Violet was supposed to go home to Maine. Except at the last minute, her mother had called to say she was needed at the hospital for the weekend and Violet would be better off staying in New Haven. So Violet had trudged back to the dorm from the bus station, finally arriving at his room, her big brown eyes glistening with sorrow, grieving a lost opportunity to spend time with her busy mother. She’d fallen into Zach’s surprised arms the moment she saw him, and without thinking, he comforted her by cupping her face between his palms and kissing her tears away.

Violet-like-the-flower.

That’s what he had called her that weekend. That crazy, confusing, awesome, best-weekend-of-his-life as they held hands, as he kissed her lips whenever he wanted to, as she curled her voluptuous, naked body up against him for three amazing nights. Three nights that, despite a veritable parade of women since, he’d never been able to forget.

He stalked around the couch to look out the window again just as the house phone rang. Zach briefly considered answering it, then decided against it. If whoever it was was looking for John, he wasn’t a secretary, and if they were looking for him, he didn’t want to be found. After the beep, he heard his twin sister’s voice on the answering machine.

“Zach? Zach, are you there?”

He sauntered into the kitchen to pick up the closest cordless phone. “Cora?”

“Yeah. Hey. Why aren’t you answering your cell phone?”

“Threw it out the window.”

“Again?” He could hear the dry amusement in his sister’s voice. She was pretty much his rock, the most unfussy girl he’d ever known, and one of his favorite people in the whole world. “Care to explain?”

“Not really,” he said.

“I’m glad you gave me the number up there. You would have been totally off the grid for two weeks.”

“Sorta the point, Cor.”

“So, you’re really going to do it, huh? The rock opera-musical thing?”

“That’s the plan.”

She paused for a second, then spoke with uncharacteristic feeling. “I’m glad, Zach. I’m really glad. You haven’t been happy writing that crap for Cornerstone.”

He could say his music was crap, but he didn’t necessarily appreciate it when someone else did. Even if the someone else was his straight-shooting, sometimes foulmouthed sister.

“You just calling to bust my balls?”

“Nope. I’m canceling our dinner in two weeks. I’m headed home.”

Zach stiffened, as he always did when his parents came up in conversation. He forced himself to relax. They were just a couple of old people, old and in poor health. He shifted uncomfortably. He hadn’t visited them in over a year, not that they deserved a visit.

“Folks okay?”

“Oh, yeah. Ma’s got the diabetes—” she said this in their mother’s North Country accent, “—and Pop’s arthritis acts up, but they’re okay.” She paused, and when she continued, her voice wasn’t funny anymore. “I think they’re sorry, Zach. When they ask about you, they sound a little bit . . . sorry.”

“They fucking should be. They shouldn’t have been allowed to have kids.”

“They just didn’t know how to be the parents of a prodigy.”

“Screw that, Cor. I should have had a permanent concussion from the number of times Pop’s shoe made contact with the side of my head.”

“Yeah, I know. I’m not making excuses for them or anything. PCP. That was your life.”

PCP. Practice, compose, perform. Anything else, like being a normal kid, got him a whack in the head from his father and zero sympathy from his mother. And if he cried out? It earned him another smack because then he was an ungrateful whiner who wasn’t a good steward of his God-given gifts. So he learned how to keep his feelings hidden deep inside, locked away in the depths of his cold heart . . . until a free-spirited poet unlocked the door, shining sunlight and warmth into the dark, lonely space.

“I don’t want to discuss it,” he said. “So if they’re not dying or something, why’re you going home? You don’t like it there any more than I do.”

Cora may not have been pressured or hit as much as Zach, but she hadn’t been treated with a whole lot of love either. She was an afterthought, mostly ignored, unless she convinced Zach to blow off PCP and be a normal kid for a while. Those times, she was called a “conniver” and felt the shoe on her cheek with the same force that Zach did.

“Oh! Didn’t I tell you? I got the job up by them. The Bolton Castle restoration project.”

She sounded casual, but Zach knew exactly how much this job meant to his sister. She’d been lobbying for a job restoring a turn-of-the-century castle up near their folks for the better part of a year. The island where the castle ruins were located had been their favorite place to play hooky as kids. The place was special to her—to both of them.

“Hey, Cor, that’s great. Really great. Bolton Castle. Wow. I’m proud of you.”

“What’s up with you?” she asked with the blunt directness of a twin.

“What?”

“Your voice is all distracted and flat. It’s weird.”

“It’s not weird.”

“We shared a womb, dipshit. If I say I hear weird, I hear weird. What’s going on? You regret blowing off that Savage Sons gig? Principles, Zachariah. You’re doing the right thing.”

He took a deep breath. Did he want Cora in his business? Not really, but he didn’t have a long list of people he could talk to.

“Cor, you remember that girl in college? Violet?”

“Violet, who was the catalyst for you transferring to Juilliard halfway through your sophomore year? Violet, who you cried and bitched about every time you got fall-down drunk for about five years after that? Violet who married the preppy frat guy? Yeah, Zach. Violet rings a bell.”

“I never cried about her.” He was already regretting his decision to talk to Cora about this.

“Fine. You didn’t actually cry. But you did bitch, if memory serves.” She sounded so much like their father for a second his hands curled into fists. He only relaxed when she continued in a softer tone. “So, what about Princess Violet?”

“She didn’t marry the preppy frat guy. She’s here.”

“She’s where?”

“Here. In Maine. We showed up at the same house.”

“What are you talking about, you ‘showed up at the same house’? On purpose? I mean, when did you hook up with her again? Why don’t you tell me these things?”

“Cora, shut up and listen to me. John’s going through a divorce, and his ex, Lena is in some ladies club in Greenwich with Violet. She scammed Violet out of a thousand bucks and told her she could use the house at the same time John told me I could use it. I couldn’t fucking believe it when I got here. And then I saw her eyes, and I . . . I mean . . .”

“Holy shit!” Cora said.

“Yeah.”

“Whoa.”

“I know!”

“How does she look?”

“Beautiful.”

Cora laughed. “No, I mean . . . the same?”

“Completely different, at first—”

“Well, that makes two of you.”

“—but then, I don’t know. The longer I stared at her, the more I could see her, you know? Like, recognize her.”

“Fate, Zach, fate. That’s what this is.”

For someone as pragmatic as Cora, she had an inordinate amount of faith in fate. It bugged the shit out of him. Although, in this instance, he couldn’t help wondering if she was right.

“So, did you talk to her?” Cora asked.

“I talked to her, yeah, after I finally realized who she was. I was surprised as hell. Really thrown, you know? Then she left to go find a hotel.”

“Huh.” Long pause. “Kinda don’t blame her for leaving, Zach. You did a number on her.”

“Thanks. I really need to hear that.”

“I mean, she poured out her heart to you, and you walked away. And not for nothing, but it’s not like you’ve evolved a ton since. I’ve never even seen you in a relationship.”

“Oh, are you the poster child for healthy, mature relationships, now, Cor? How many have you had? One? None? Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

“We’re not talking about me, douche bag. Do you want my advice or what?”

He heard Cora take a deep breath and sigh. He knew she was counting backward from ten, so he used the time to look out the front windows again. Still no headlights.

“Fine,” he said. “I want your advice.”

“I’m going to assume—and it’s not much of a stretch, since we both know you never got over her—that you’d like to explore this twist of fate?”

“Yeah. I want to explore it.”

“Okay. Listen. You know I’m no expert on love, for chrissake, but maybe this is the universe’s way of giving you a second chance. You know, to change the past. And not be terrified if you still feel something for her.”

If? If was blown out of the water the minute he’d caught her brown eyes in the dome light of his rental car. She was Violet. He’d never stopped feeling something for her.

“Just see what happens. Take it slow. A lot of time has passed. You need to get to know her again. Let her know that you’re sorry for what you did to her. See if there’s any chance she might . . .” Her voice was low and awkward when she spoke again, like having another chance with Violet was as good as a snowball’s chance in hell. “It’s been a lot of years, Zach. And you broke her heart. Bad.”

He winced, cradling the phone against his shoulder. He didn’t want to think about hurting her at Yale. He wanted to think about how to get her to stay if she came back. Because maybe Cora was right. Maybe this was a second chance. The hope that made his heart thump faster should have scared him to death, but it didn’t. And maybe it was the Scotch talking, but he wanted to see if fate had a second chance in store for Zach Aubrey and Violet Smith.

That is, if she could see past how he’d treated her that Sunday evening nine years ago when he’d looked into her eyes and lied to her. When he’d told her that he saw her as a friend, and while he appreciated that her feelings for him had grown and changed, his hadn’t. He cringed, remembering her crushed, tear-streaked face as he left her in bed, pulling on jeans and leaving the room. It was, hands down, the worst memory of his life, and he hadn’t exactly had a warm, nurturing childhood with lots of great moments.

“I know I hurt her,” he muttered, peeking out the window again. His heart leaped as he saw headlights brighten up the driveway.

She was back.

“Cor, I gotta go.”

“Okay, Za—”

He hung up and ran his hands through his hair, taking one of the omnipresent black rubber bands from his wrist to make a neat little tail at the back of his neck. Remembering the troubled way she’d checked out his piercings, he removed his ear, nose, and eyebrow rings, grimacing with his haste as he shoved them into his back pocket. His hands started sweating, and he rubbed them against his pants. Dammit. He’d played stadiums with thousands of people and kept his cool. No woman in the world could make him feel nineteen again. Only Violet.

Don’t fuck this up, Zach.

Instead of waiting for her to ring the bell or knock, he opened the front door, crossing his arms and leaning against the doorway. She parked her Prius beside his rental and slammed her door shut, car keys jingling in her hand.

“No hotels?” he asked, trying to sound casual.

“Nope. Closest one is an hour away. Or a boat ride. You got a boat, Zach?”

She stood with her arms crossed over her hot pink sweater, looking annoyed. With her green pants and pink polka-dotted flip-flops, she looked like she was headed to a golf club for martinis. It doesn’t matter, he reminded himself. This is Violet. He didn’t give a shit what her clothes looked like. That sort of stuff had never mattered to him. Not with her.

“That mean you’re staying here?”

“I did pay for the privilege,” she observed, her tone salty and her smile fake. “Zach . . .”

“I’ll get your bags.” He didn’t let her finish. He didn’t want her to second-guess her decision. He just wanted her to stay.

He hopped down the two front steps, and she popped open the trunk. It took three pulls to get her massive suitcase out, then he threw the two smaller duffel bags over his shoulder.

“What the hell do you have in here? An anvil? Several small children?” He dragged the suitcase awkwardly over the gravel driveway as she followed behind.

“Two weeks’ worth of clothes and my second laptop and a bunch of books I’ve been meaning to read. Zach, I—”

“Look, the layout is three bedrooms and a sitting room upstairs and one bedroom down here. I took the one down here because I figured the upstairs could be totally yours. Does that work?”

“You knew I’d be back?”

I hoped.

He barely dared to look at her, shrugging as he kept his eyes down. He yanked twice to get the suitcase up the two front steps, wondering how in the hell she’d thought she was going to maneuver the beast by herself, and glad he could be there to help her.

“Okay fine. I’ll take the upstairs. But, Zach—”

“And we can just use the kitchen and deck and living room sort of as shared space. But I promise I won’t bother you if that’s what you want. I’ll be writing. Downstairs. There’s a recording studio. I’ll stay out of your hair, and—”

“Zach!”

He rested her suitcase against the newel post at the foot of the stairs and put her two duffel bags beside it in a neat pile on the floor. She had closed the front door and was standing against it with her hands on her small hips, frowning at him.

“What?”

“I have a room at the White Swan on Tuesday. This is only temporary. Just for a few nights, so don’t worry, I’m not staying.”

His heart sank like an anchor in the harbor. He wouldn’t have much time with her, after all. The disappointment constricted his chest and he clenched his jaw, grinding once, twice. She stood watching him with wide, challenging eyes, not moving from her position against the door. He took a step toward her, brushing his thumb over his lower lip as his eyes connected with hers.

“Violet.” He took another step, then another, until he stood in her space, directly in front of her. She didn’t try to slide away, but her breathing changed and her chest lifted more rapidly. He leaned forward, and she blinked at him once from behind those big old glasses that made her look so familiar, it hurt his heart. Made it ache like something bruised or sprained or sorely out of use. He reached up and tucked one stray hair back behind her ear, and she broke eye contact with him, holding her breath, looking down.

“Stay,” he whispered, his finger lingering on the hot skin behind her ear. “I just want to get to know you again.”

Her mouth formed an O as she let out a soft, unsteady breath. When she raised her eyes, they were glassy, glistening, and exhausted, and he longed to open his arms to her, but he didn’t.

Take it slow. He could hear Cora’s voice in his head, though his whole body rebelled against it after waiting almost a decade to see Violet’s face again.

“Why? What’s the point, Zach?” Her expression tried to be nonchalant, but she couldn’t conceal the hurt and anger that flared up behind her eyes.

And just like that, his strategy turned on a dime. To hell with scaring her away. If her face told him nothing else, it told him that she still felt something for him, too. And if he had only three days with her, taking it slow wasn’t an option, was it?

“This is the point,” he murmured, bending his head to kiss her.

He placed his palms on her cheeks as he had that night so long ago when she returned from the bus station. He pressed his lips against hers and was shocked by the familiarity of her after so many years, as if the part of his brain wired for Violet was suddenly tripped like a circuit breaker, turned on, alive.

To his everlasting gratitude, she stepped toward him, not away, and whether it was deliberate or unintentional, he didn’t care. She flattened her hands on his chest as he parted the seam of her lips with his tongue, tasting the lip gloss he had noticed before. Cherries or strawberries or some other -erries, it was light and sweet, but the inside of her mouth tasted better. Tasted familiar, like College Violet, like the girl he’d loved. His tongue found hers, lightly touching, then swirling around it, as his hands slid from her face, over the contours of her neck to her shoulders, down her shoulder blades to the small of her back, where he locked his fingers, pulling her away from the door, closer to him.

This was exactly how it had felt that weekend, only they were both older now, more experienced, more mature. He’d been a boy kissing a girl that weekend, and tonight he was a man kissing a woman. His whole body responded to having her back in his arms, tightening, hardening, wanting more from her, more from this woman who had haunted his dreams for way too long.

She moaned or sighed or whatever it was, it sounded like fucking heaven in his ears—an unexpected A-flat—and he tilted his head, repositioning his mouth over hers so their lips were flush and he had full access to her, full contact, full—

“No!”

He wasn’t expecting her to push him away, and he was surprised by the amount of force she used.

Her chest heaved up and down, and she covered her mouth with her hand, working her jaw. Her eyes were fierce and furious, churning with emotion.

“Don’t. Ever. Do that again.”

She held his eyes until he nodded once, then she walked by him, up the stairs like a queen, leaving him hot and bewildered on the cold marble landing below.