"Well," Sam says, "I don't know if Ellie-"

Angelique grins at me then interrupts. "Ellie's going to be the maid of honor, you know," she tells him slyly. "But she'll need a dance partner once the required reception waltzes are over. Are you still a good dancer, Sam?"

This succeeds in finally rousing me to speech. "Let's go talk, Sam. Outside. Now." I all but push him out the door.

"Bye, Sam!" I hear a chorus of female voices say from the living room as we leave. This is followed by giggling. d.a.m.n those strong women of my family. They know way too much.

"I, uh..." Sam begins.

"W-W-What's going on?" I stutter. "W-Why are you back?"

Yes, Jane agrees, recovering her tongue. By all means, ask him this. And then suggest he depart immediately.

I cross my arms and try to look unaffected, but he puts his hand on my shoulder and steers me down a sidewalk littered with crunchy fall leaves. My personal heat index rises.

Sam clears his throat. "Like I told your mother, I'm hoping to be working in Chicago soon."

"So, you're here for job interviews?"

"Not exactly." He scores his fingers through his hair and I notice there's no wedding band. Where's the gold band? There's supposed to be one. Isn't he married yet?

Not knowing the answer throws me. I can't a.n.a.lyze anything else until I can wrap my mind around his marital status. So I ask, in one long breath, "Did your fiancee fly out here with you? Are you here because you're looking for apartments to live in together? Terrie told me you were engaged...aren't you?"

"No," he says shortly, and my heart skips several beats. "But I was. And I got your note. It was-well, it was really nice. I read it over a bunch of times..." His voice trails off. Then he says, "Look, Ellie, this is gonna sound crazy. I'm not even sure how to ask you this, but I need to know something-"

"Why aren't you engaged anymore?"

He halts mid-step. "Does that matter?"

Yes! Jane shouts.

"Yes," I say to him, but I whisper it.

He shrugs. "We had some problems and called off the wedding."

Insist he disclose the full reason, Jane demands, adding a few barely audible remarks about egotistical doctors. He is up to no good. As usual.

"What kinds of problems?" I ask him.

He looks at me for a long time. A seriously long time. "The kinds of problems that happen when a man is in love with a woman other than the one he's supposed to marry."

"Oh," I say, because what do you say to something like that?

After staring at me even longer, he leans in. "Can you please answer just this one simple question for me?"

His baby blues have lost none of their intensity. I close my eyes then nod.

Sam runs his fingertip down the nape of my neck and murmurs in my ear, "Are you still available?"

16.

My behaviour to you...had merited the

severest reproof. It was unpardonable.

I cannot think of it without abhorrence.

-Pride and Prejudice My heartbeat skips two beats and my eyes spring open. "WHAT?" I say.

Sam takes a step backward. "Are you dating anyone seriously? Thinking of marrying him? I'd heard you were in England last year. Did you meet some British bloke with an accent who was too cute to resist? Make plans to move into his damp cottage in the Cotswolds come spring? Anything like that?"

"No."

"A castle in the Scottish highlands, then?"

"No. Sam, stop it. What kind of game are you playing?"

"No game. I'm just very curious about you. Is there anybody, anywhere you're in love with?"

If I don't include you, I think to myself before adding aloud, "No, I guess I haven't met that special, marriage-ready man yet." I shrug. "I'm keeping the possibilities open, though, and if it happens for me, great. If it doesn't, well..." My mature, well-rehea.r.s.ed speech on potential relationships trails off as I notice Sam's broadening grin.

He exhales. "Okay."

"What's okay? Nothing about this is okay."

I say this because (a) I'm nervous, (b) I can't believe Sam is here, and (c) we're kind of having my reunion-fantasy conversation.

I have told this fantasy Go away! a trillion times since the day I heard about Sam's engagement. I'm not sure I can trust seeing its realization now.

"It's okay to me," Sam explains, "because that means things might still be possible, you know, between us. I thought you were getting married, Ellie. I was worried that, after everything, I might be too late."

NEWS FLASH: No one ever says that NOT getting what you want is easy. People tend to be sympathetic then. They know they need to send "Thinking of You" cards, bring you batches of double-fudge brownies and whisper, "Better luck next time," while engulfing you in a warm bear hug.

But when you're presented with what you've always thought you wanted, especially in a relationship, it's tricky.

You doubt yourself.

You doubt your love interest.

Other people second-guess you and harbor a belief that (a) you don't deserve this, (b) it's too good to be true, or (c) you're being downright delusional.

According to Jane, "c" is my problem.

Ellie, she tells me, I acknowledge your opinion of Mr. Blaine has improved over the years and, perhaps in adulthood, he is less obvious in his untrustworthiness than he had once been. The man is charming, to be sure, but such charm is always just cause for suspicion. Do not let your tendency toward romanticism be the means of distorting your greater awareness, for you would be lacking in sense if you allowed Mr. Blaine to sway your understanding of his nature.

In my haughtiest voice I reply, I'm not easily swayed, Jane, but of course I worry that I am.

To Sam I say, "So, let me get this straight. You heard from someone that a Barnett was getting married, and you naturally a.s.sumed it was me?"

"Yeah, well, actually-"

"So, you broke off your engagement to some poor woman in Boston, whose affections you were merely toying with, and flew out here to try to...what? Stop my wedding to someone who, for all you knew, could've been the love of my life?"

His disloyalty infuriates me. After all, I hadn't tried to break up his engagement, no matter how painful it was for me. No man should do such a thing to a woman. Men who do are rotten, stinking scoundrels who ought to be strung up by their- "Not quite," Sam says. "Yes, I needed to see you again, and I haven't been able to stop thinking of you since I got your note, but my engagement just wasn't meant to be. I called it off months ago, way back in February, because my fiancee had a little problem with fidelity."

His face pales a bit as he talks about this and, in spite of myself, I feel the stirrings of empathy. Having been wounded by an unfaithful lover before, I understand the betrayal.

"I'm sorry to hear that," I say.

He shrugs. "Trust me. It was for the best. I was angry about it and everything for a while, but I worked through most of that pretty fast. When my ex moved in with the other guy in June, I wasn't even fazed. I'd done some dating and met a couple of nice women. I was doing okay, but I decided it'd be great to get back to the Midwest. My roots are here, and Chicago will always be home. So I applied for a transfer this fall and, if all goes as planned, I'll officially start in January."

"Congratulations," I say.

"Thanks. Only, my excitement was kind of short-lived, Ellie. The following week I got this e-mail from Jason Bertignoli."

"From Jason?"

"Yep."

"The Jason you hated in high school? The Jason you never talked to unless you were being rude or insulting or vindictive? The Jason I made the mistake of going to senior prom with? That Jason?"

His eyes light up. "Ah-ha. So you finally admit you made a mistake going to prom with him."

I slug him in the arm. "That's not the point!"

He smiles at me. "Remember when I saw you at the bookstore a few years back? I ran into Jason on that visit, too. He and his wife were getting ready to move to Milwaukee."

"Really?" I hadn't heard any Jason news in ages.

"Yeah. He's got a good manager job up there in a sports shop." Then he adds, shaking his head, "And three kids. He sends me digital photos."

I can't help but laugh at this. The mental image of Sam getting baby-picture e-mails from Jason is just too funny.

"You don't like kids?" I ask.

"I like kids a lot, but he had three before his thirtieth birthday. I'd be happy with one or two before forty."

A vision of one of Sam's kids streaks through my mind: dark hair, blue eyes, impish grin-a cute little troublemaker. With Sam's genes, one kid would probably be plenty.

"You and Jason. E-mailing. I can't get over it."

"Jason's a good guy," Sam admits. "A couple of weeks ago, though, he sends out the latest batch of kiddie photos along with news he's heard from his parents." He slants me a look. "Seems a Barnett daughter is getting married and, Jason says, since Diana's already hitched, this wedding must be yours." Sam turns toward me and takes both my hands in his. "And, Ellie, I totally panicked."

"Why?" I ask, although he's all but told me outright. I simply don't believe the answer my intuition is receiving.

Sam pulls my body up against his until I can feel the ridges of his belt against my stomach, the pulse of his heart beneath his corded sweater, the deep breaths he's blowing on my hair. "Because I love you, Ellie Barnett," he whispers before he brings those sinful lips of his down on mine.

It's as though decades melt away and time travel is a reality. Am I jumbled up and confused about this?

Yes.

Do I know how to handle this latest curve the Universe is throwing at me?

No.

Could Sam have been my Mr. Darcy all along and I was just too blind to recognize it?

I have no freaking idea.

Jane, by contrast, is not nearly so bewildered.

It is difficult, I grant you, to judge character in a world of deceptive appearances, she tells me, her voice frosty. But Mr. Blaine's interest in you is likely as fleeting as it has always been. Please take care, Ellie, she pleads. For while YOU may have greatly matured, I fear he wants only temporary gratification, just as before. And just as before, he will not hesitate to hurt you. Some people may improve or change with time, but not a man with a Wickham nature. This Mr. Blaine is no Darcy.

I break away from Sam's embrace. "I need to catch my breath," I say, not entirely lying.

He nods.

And he lets me stand there, breathing deeply, in the middle of a cracked, leaf-covered sidewalk in neighborhood Glen Forest.

"Here's the thing, Sam," I begin, not sure when I start speaking what "the thing" is, but I've given up planning and strategizing and am now just talking from my gut. "I'm not indifferent to you. But I'm also not the same person I was back in high school or at that Chicago bar or even when we had those coffees at the bookstore. What makes you think we know each other anymore?"

He strokes my arm, from my shoulder to my wrist, in one long sensual motion with his fingers. "Who you are in essentials has never changed, Ellie. Neither has who I am."

Jane doesn't waste a second jumping on this comment.

Precisely the problem, she states. You might inquire as to why it has taken him so long to value you. You might also press him to explain why, with so little effort to win your heart, he expects you to declare your affections and faint dead away at his paltry display of pa.s.sion.

Jane, as always, has a point. It just happens to be a point my heart and my ego don't want to hear.