Carly sat next to Eli in his Formula 350 speed boat, grateful that the sound of the motor and wind and water blocked any opportunity for conversation. She liked Eli, she really did, but she just didn’t have any romantic feelings toward him. And the time had come to tell him that. She just had to figure out how and when.

In the meantime, the rush of the speedboat through the Atlantic provided a great excuse for her to put it off.

They didn’t have an easy rapport—the way she’d had with Jeff. Her best conversations with Eli were when he was teasing her and making her laugh or…well, that was about it. She’d asked him about his work and he didn’t really answer. She found out from a friend that he did something with merchandising in his family’s company that sold construction machinery. Or something like that.

They’d been going out for almost two months and she still had to struggle to think of what to say to him. They didn’t have a lot in common.

Eli liked to play and had plenty of money to do it and he didn’t understand when she wasn’t up for fun and just wanted to sit and talk. Or when she was tired from working long hours. Or wanted to be quiet and not on the go.

Jeff came from a family with money too, and probably earned a lot in his orthopedic practice, but for some reason he understood.

Why was she doing this all the time? Comparing every man to Jeff.

She knew Eli wasn’t dating her exclusively, so she had tried going out with a couple other guys this summer, thinking the problem was just that she and Eli had no chemistry. One date was a fix-up from Taylor. Total wash-out. He was so boring she actually fell asleep while he was talking to her and had to blame it on working two jobs. Another was a gamer who’d fixed her computer, and he didn’t want to do anything with her except play video games.

At least Eli was fun in bed. Yeah, fun.

After that special time in Paris with Jeff, Carly wasn’t sure she could ever find that kind of totally satisfying sex with anyone else. It was like nothing she had ever experienced. They had connected on such a deep level—she had thought that, anyway.

But apparently she was wrong.

Still, she hadn’t been able to bring herself to deck Jeff with that phone video she’d taken of Peyton and the other man at Sarvinger’s. Taylor had gotten so angry with her over it.

Her roommate had rushed to Carly all giggles one night after coming in from working at The Sandcastle. “Carly, I couldn’t resist asking Cindy who works in the medical building about the big wedding of Dr. Rocklyn and the Madam of Sarvinger’s. And guess what? It was cancelled! Bet your little phone message to him had something to do with it.”

Carly just shook her head. “Couldn’t have. I never sent it.”

“What? Why not?”

“I don’t feel right doing that kind of thing.”

Now furious, Taylor swooped through the living room. “Where’s your phone? I’m sending it right now.”

“Too late. I deleted it.”

Taylor’s voice rose two octaves. “What do you mean ‘you deleted it’?”

“I don’t want it on my phone,” she said, almost unable to meet Taylor’s incredulous gaze.

“I can see not wanting to keep it, but why didn’t you send it to him first?”

Carly shrugged.

Taylor’s eyes went wide and then she moved in, her face close to Carly’s, and she whispered, “You’re in love with him, aren’t you?”

“No, I, uh—” Then she burst into tears and Taylor rubbed her back as she cried.

“Here we are,” Eli said, pulling her out of her thoughts. He docked the boat at Claudio’s Marina in Greenport, not far from where Carly lived. The good part about this was that if her conversation about them breaking up did not go well, she could walk home. She hated those awkward rides home after a breakup in a silent, tension-filled car.

El Capitano had allowed the boat to gently drift up against the marina’s dock. Then with the grace of a gymnast or, to be more accurate, some dude who spent most of his time at the gym, or swim club, or tennis, or golf club because he had piles of family money and didn’t need to work—he secured the boat lines.

It would have been nice if he’d have at least extended his hand to her and helped her up onto the dock. Whatever happened to chivalry? But instead he just gave Carly this crazed look and said, “ Let’s do this!”

No way could she match her briny host in the enthusiasm department and hop on board the Fun Train. Carly’s heart just wasn’t into it.

She’d been to this restaurant many times, since it was a favorite with locals as well as tourists. It reminded her of a big two-story farmhouse as it sprawled across the marina parking lot. Inside, the place buzzed with wall-to-wall people.

A tall, friendly waiter led them to a table overlooking the wharf.

Carly ordered a lobster roll sandwich and sweet potato fries. Captain Good Times ordered the same and a pitcher of beer. When it arrived he filled both their glasses and Carly watched as Eli chugged down two mugs back to back.

“Don’t mind me,” he said with a cheery wink. “This huge urge to party just kinda swept over me.”

“Really? How strange.”

“Exactly! Must be this fall air. Or maybe it’s you.”

“How’s that?”

He cocked his head to the side with a cheeky grin. “You and me are a team. Got our own private club. Specializing in guess what?”

“I have no idea.”

“Fun! Living life in the now and here.”

“I think you mean here and now.”

“Whatever. Shooting for the moment. Goin’ all out.”

After witnessing Eli in full throttle, something in particular about his behavior came to mind. One word summed it up. Immaturity. “Maybe we should slow things down a bit.”

“Slow down?” He seemed blown away at the suggestion. “Why?”

“Well, I mean…”

“Come on, Carly. It’s not like I’m asking you to marry me. Some good laughs, good sex—what more does anybody want?”

“Yeah.” She forced a smile and told herself not to judge. If that was what he wanted in life, then who was she to tell him he should want more?

“I mean, look at you.” He chugged down some more beer and leaned forward, his light blue eyes sincere. “I don’t see you breaking your nuts getting some kind of degree like Taylor. Or settling down with a guy to have kids. Or starting up a business like my amigo James. You just want to work at your job, have some fun, and live your life day to day like me, right? No fuss, no muss.”

Wow. Talk about a bucket of ice in your face. Or a mirror. A heavy dose of reality testing. Who would have thought it would come from Mr. Joker, Mr. Fun and Games? The guy she’d always dismissed as a man-child with no grasp of the real world had just presented her with a wake-up call.

And the shoe fit. Mr. Live For The Moment was right. She had no goals, no ambitions beyond the small world she’d resigned herself to in her present day-to-day life.

Could that be the reason she kept hanging on to the memory of her time with Jeff? Because he made her begin to believe. In fact he’d told her on the plane ride home that he was going to try and bring that part of her back to life.

Big talker.

Her hopes of Jeff coming back to her went up in smoke like every other dream she’d had.

So why are you hanging on? Why are you vegetating in a downward spiral like some helpless damsel waiting for a man to come to the rescue?

Because that stubborn part of her that would not let go of him had her trapped. How could she not have seen that?

He was never really yours and he never will be.

And that was fine. She didn’t need Jeff Rocklyn or his empty promises.

She needed a dream.

After her dinner with Eli, Carly told him she had to hurry home and walked back alone to her apartment. She knew Eli would want to come in and have sex, but that wasn’t going to happen. In fact, she probably wouldn’t go out with him again. Unless she was in the mood for some fun.

She went to her bedroom and opened the top drawer of her dresser. There was the stack of post cards and other small memorabilia from her trip to Paris. She stopped herself from looking through them, especially those that had little notes from Jeff scribbled on them. She was tempted to throw every single one in the trash, but she decided it was stupid to let her disappointment in him ruin her memories of Paris.

Her fingers slid underneath them, feeling for the small business card Dex Landon had given her. Immediately her heart began to race, but she picked up her phone and tapped out the number before she could change her mind.

As she was composing what she hoped was a professional-sounding voice message, he answered the phone.

“Dex here.”

Carly gasped. Oh no, did he hear that? She took a breath. “This is Carly Kuper. We met in Paris at the—”

“I remember you.”

“You do?” Oops.

“How could I forget a voice like yours?”

“Wow. I, uh…thank you.” OMG, I can’t believe he said that!

“You sure you want to do this?”

“If you think I might have a future in this.”

“Well, I’ll be honest. There are very few places for those thirties and forties songs, and not a lot of money unless you’re the chosen voice of a high-end hotel bar in a major city. But if you read music…”

“I do.”

“Then we could go for Broadway and off-Broadway. I have some good contacts to move you past the slush. Do you write original songs?”

“I used to.”

“Okay, I’d like to hear them. That’s another route to go and if it works it can go big.”

“I have no idea what—”

“That’s what my job is.”

They talked for a short while and then made arrangements to meet at his office in Manhattan in a week.

When Carly hung up, she immediately started to practice her scales.

Even as a kid Jeff had always loved to fix things. While his dad preferred sports and working outdoors in the vineyard, Jeff would rather be cooped up in the workshop he’d made for himself in the basement of their family home. He fixed kitchen gadgets, furniture, lamps, broken ceramic figurines, you name it. He’d learned a bit about motors and electronics by tagging along with the mechanics who were employed on the family farm, but mostly he liked doing carpentry, working with saws and drills, building, mending and reconstructing things.

This morning as he sawed into the femur of his patient in Southampton Hospital’s OR and worked to get the prosthesis in place, he once again felt like he was in his workshop. The difference was that he now used his chisels and hammers and drills on human bones—and his finished product was more satisfying than anything else he could possibly do. Yes, there were some patients that did not heal well, but unlike working in some other branches of medicine, repairing broken limbs or replacing arthritic joints almost always resulted in happy patients who were grateful to be mobile again.

After he finished and made his rounds, he changed into his jeans and drove home. He was going to pick up Peyton who’d slept in today and then head to East Hampton to hit a few shops. Yeah, his brothers ribbed him about the fact that he liked to shop, but he didn’t care. Jeff was a hands-on sort of guy and preferred to hit the streets rather than going cyber and tapping out his order on a mobile phone. He liked to touch things and get the feel of something before buying it.

He also loved treating Peyton at the upscale shops on Newtown Lane. She had grown up in poverty and still got like an excited little girl over new things. She had been working so many hours lately that he hardly saw her and couldn’t help wondering if that was what their life together would be. Two overworked doctors saying hello and goodbye and not much else.

Jeff had tried to get her to go to couples counseling with him, but she refused. And the few times he broached the subject of their relationship, suggesting they needed to clear grievances and discuss what their mutual goals were for a marriage, she got angry and said there was no need for that. All they needed was for him to forgive her for her one mistake.

Had he forgiven her?

Kind of but not really. Like the wood and bones he worked with so well, Jeff was not all that flexible. And he knew something within the foundation of this relationship was not sound and needed to be fixed.

And, yeah, in the back of his mind he wondered if it was merely his excuse because some part of him still wanted Carly.

He needed to get his head on straight and make a decision. His mother kept asking if they’d set a new wedding date, and Peyton, who had finally come to his family’s house for a dinner after her long boycott, had told his mother it would be this coming June. Jeff didn’t want to make a scene, so he had just nodded like a dumbass.

Now he had a deadline because his mother, who was a closet event planner, wanted to get started on the wedding plans before the end of the year.

That was why he’d been trying to spend time with Peyton when he could. She’d scoffed at his idea of “homey” stuff, but he knew he could get her to agree to shopping.

Set against a clear afternoon sky, the leaves on the trees lining East Hampton’s Newtown Lane revealed their fall splendor with vibrant greenish browns, bright golds and yellows. A perfect day for an outing.

After parking his car in the lot next to the ball field and grabbing a cup of coffee to go from John Papas Cafe, Jeff set his sights on Kitchen It Up, a small storefront two doors down from the corner on Main Street. Quaint and having the feel of an old-fashioned country store, its shelves were filled with shimmering products that covered all the bases in the world of food preparation and cooking.

When they stepped inside, a series of gentle bells above the door signaled their arrival. “What are you looking for?” Peyton asked.

“I’ll show you.” He took her hand in his and led her down the aisle on the left. After surveying the line-up on the shelves, Jeff’s eye came to a stop. “Here it is.”

He lifted the stainless steel percolator from the shelf and felt its weight. Not that he had any complaints about his methods for making his favorite drink. He loved his Mr. Coffee and Keurig as well as the fancy espresso machine his sister gave him on his last birthday. But after going on YouTube and seeing a vintage coffee commercial from the sixties—long before his time—he was hooked. The classic black-and-white ad showed fresh hot coffee splattering up against the percolator’s glass lid in perfect sync to a bouncy little tune.

Peyton came walking up and flashed her trademark sarcastic smirk. “What’s this?” she asked. “Throwback-Thursday? I wouldn’t waste my money on an old perc like that.”

“Some of the most wonderful coffee I ever had came from ‘an old perc like this.’ It was how I learned to savor the joys of java.”

“Don’t tell me this thing has meaning to you.”

“You have no appreciation for sentiment, my dear.” He picked up the box matching the floor model. “My dad always began his day with fresh brew by way of an old percolator that was, believe it or not, passed on to him from his dad. He used to get up before dawn and head out to the vineyard fields. I got up then too, because, with three older brothers who were great athletes, this was my only time to get his undivided attention.”

Her hand went to her hip. “You’re a good athlete too.”

“Not as good as my brothers. When my dad left for the fields, instead of going for an early morning run as my brothers would do, I used to take my coffee to my room and work on school projects.” He laughed. “Didn’t know I was such a dork, did you?”

“Sure I did,” Peyton said. “If you weren’t, I might not have made it through med school.” She kissed his cheek and Jeff saw the sweet little girl he’d fallen in love with.

“I’ll make us some coffee when we get home and you’ll love it, I promise.”

Peyton mocked a sad face, then converted it to a smile. “I’m sorry, honey. I didn’t mean to rain on your parade.”

They picked up a new cutting board, some bowls, and a fancy food processor for “their” kitchen, and Jeff began to feel a sense that the fantasy he’d originally had for his future with Peyton—of being a husband and wife with kids and a happy home—was possible.

“Want to go try on that dress you saw down the street at Aerin’s?” he said to her as they were leaving the store.

Peyton squealed with excitement and he loved it. He knew the idea of having an Aerin Lauder dress would bring out that reaction in her. Between the profit-sharing fund his parents had set up for each of their children and what he earned as a surgeon, he could afford to spoil her. And she had been working so hard lately, including evening hours.

When it came to Peyton, Jeff had never wavered from his commitment to taking care of her. A commitment that had started when she couldn’t pay all her bills in medical school. And when she had trouble studying in the student housing, he’d rented her an apartment—which also meant they could have privacy.

Upon leaving the store, Jeff insisted he carry all the bags and boxes, and in her eager pursuit of the new dress, she’d forgotten to get the door for him. But he managed by using a nifty combination of elbow and foot.

As he stepped toward her out on the sidewalk, he saw a tall middle-aged man with a shaved head and sunglasses stop to say hello to her.

“Well, well. Look who it is,” the man said, looking Peyton up and down in a way that made Jeff want to slug him.

Peyton glanced at Jeff, then back at the man, then quickly turned away from him, saying, “Excuse me, sir, but I think you’re mistaking me for somebody else.”

The stranger looked over at Jeff and nodded. “Oh, I get it. Sorry. Didn’t mean to interrupt.”

As the man walked off, Jeff said to Peyton, “What was that about? Do you know that guy?”

“Of course not,” she snapped, practically biting off his head. “Now you’re going to make accusations because some idiot on the street mistook me for somebody else?”

“Peyton, I never said—” But she had already stomped off, their sweet moment in the kitchen store forgotten.

Her moods changed so fast sometimes. It was the one thing he’d never liked and had hoped that would change with her career success and a stable home life.

So far it hadn’t.

Jeff followed her into Aerin’s and sat patiently as Peyton tried on not only the dress she’d admired earlier but also several others.

As if nature wanted to taunt him and make him crazy, the sound system in the dress shop was playing Ella Fitzgerald singing Gershwin tunes.

And when “They Can’t Take that Away from Me” came on, the turmoil inside had him on his feet, saying he needed to get some air, and striding out the door.

Because nothing he had tried so far could shut down the place in his heart that still longed for Carly.