From the First Kiss. Jessica Bird

      As she left the house, she was quite convinced she was never going to see him again.

      Somehow the pain of the loss was stunning.

      Chapter Five

      A month later Alex stared out of the workshop’s picture window and measured the milky sky. Snow was coming over the weekend and it wasn’t going to be the picturesque, flurry variety. This was going to be a shut-in special, the kind of load that would bring out the county plows that were as big as houses and sounded like thunder when they went by.

      God, he loved the north. There was real weather up here.

      He shifted his eyes. The lake down below was the color of a dove, mostly gray with paler blushes on the tips of restless waves. The mountains were likewise subdued, their rock faces revealed now that the leaves were off the trees. December wasn’t so much dour at Saranac Lake as muted, and he liked the rugged isolation of the place. No tourists, no seasonal fruitcakes. Just the hard-core natives and Mother Nature. Bliss.

      He frowned, wondering whether Cassandra would like all the quiet. Probably not. She lived a fast, flashy life in Manhattan, and was always showing up in the New York Times style section and Vanity Fair, or at least that was what Reese had said. A woman like her wouldn’t want to be stuck in a house with a blazing fire and nothing to do but make love and watch the snow fall.

      Alex drove his cane into the floor and limped over to the bathroom. On the way, he picked up a Power Bar, his third of the day. As he got up on his scale, he ripped back the wrapper and took a hunk out of the thing.

      202 pounds. Up from an all-time low in the hospital of 186.

      Good. This was good.

      He grabbed for his cane, not having to reach far for it. The shop’s bathroom was about the size of a closet.

      Stepping off the scale, he gently eased his full weight onto his left leg. The limb responded with a shot of pain and he backed off, looking down at it. The plaster cast had been replaced with a plastic one that had Velcro straps. Talk about improvements in quality of life. Even a half hour without the thing on was heaven.

      He finished the Power Bar and tossed the wrapper.

      A nine-pound gain in four weeks. Maybe his pants would stop hanging off his hips soon.

      At six-four, he liked to weigh in at around 230. His big frame carried that kind of poundage well, all thick muscle, no fat. He figured it was going to take him three months to get back there if he gained two to three pounds a week. Which was doable. Every day, he was sucking back about five thousand calories. It was a lot to ask of the hot plate and dorm-size refrigerator he’d moved into the shop, but he was managing.

      Man, he couldn’t imagine Cassandra putting up with such a rudimentary kitchen. She’d want gourmet food for dinner. At a restaurant with a French chef and waiters in tuxedos—

      Alex cursed. He really needed to put a lid on this compare-and-contrast thing he had going. Problem was, the closer her arrival date came, the more he looked at the way he lived from her perspective.

      But the mental aerobics were useless. First of all, he wasn’t going to be in the shop forever and second, it wasn’t like she was moving in with him. She’d be staying at Gray’s as she worked on White Caps.

      So he needed to reel it in.

      Hobbling out of the head, he crossed the shop with efficiency. The single room was not all that big and the floor wasn’t cluttered. He was a neat guy to begin with, but considering how close he’d cut it with that leg of his, he wasn’t taking a chance that he’d trip on something and take a nosedive.

      He went over to the Nautilus cage he’d bought three weeks ago, its weight sets and benches gleaming silver and black. The piece of exercise equipment was by far the largest thing in the shop, about seven feet tall and four feet square with stations for isolating different muscle groups. One good thing about not having a life except for sailing was that what little money he’d accumulated had grown. Cutting a check for a professional-quality set up was no sacrifice.

      He put on his earphones and clipped his MP3 player to the waistband of his nylon sweatpants. He worked out with no shirt because within minutes he was going to be covered with sweat and glad to have a bare chest. Sitting down on one of the benches, he eased onto his back and gripped a bar. When he pushed up, he felt his pectorals tighten as they accepted the weight.

      With Nirvana blaring in his ears, he pumped through his exercises, tearing up his muscles so that they could rebuild stronger, better. The burn felt good. It felt healthy. It felt normal to him.

      And he was hungry for normal.

      He’d always made demands of his body and he expected it to respond with power. One of the hardest things about being laid up had been the weakness. Pain he could handle. Frailty was unbearable.

      After his first set, he sat up, breathing hard and resting his arms on his knees. Usually Spike worked out with him, but today the guy was busy. Which was kind of a bummer. He liked having a buddy with him. Made the time pass quicker, plus Spike was pretty damn amusing.

      Alex reached down and took a slug of water from a bottle.

      The shop was really working out for him, he thought. Even if Cassandra would no doubt—

      Stop it.

      The twin bed he slept in was right next to the potbellied stove. December was really cold stuff this far north, and with his tendency for kicking off the covers when the nightmares came, he needed to be close to a heat source at night. His clothes were in duffel bags lying open and pushed against the wall, like drawers on the floor. Shoes were in an orderly line in front of them. Fleeces and jackets were hanging on pegs. Laundry went into a wicker basket.

      Everything had its place.

      All of the order made him think about Cassandra. Why? Who the hell knew. What didn’t make him think of her?

      Tilting his head around, he glanced out of the shop’s picture window at White Caps. His family’s home looked as if it had been bombed and abandoned with all the plastic sheets covering burned-out windows and doors. It was hard to believe the place was ever going to be right again, but if anyone could fix it, Cassandra could.

      When Frankie and Joy had campaigned to have her take on the project, they’d shown him photographs of her work. She’d designed and constructed houses, additions and out-buildings all over America and specialized in rehabbing antiques. She had an absolute genius for making the new look old.

      So, professionally speaking, she was perfect for what they needed. There had been no way he could refuse.

      Alex lay back down and gripped the bar again.

      Plus he hadn’t really wanted to refuse.

      It had been so hard to see her leave Gray’s those many weeks ago. Like a pathetic idiot, he’d watched from a window as she’d walked out of the house with O’Banyon. The man had had his hand at the small of her back while he’d guided her to his Mercedes and settled her in it.

      The two of them going off together had made Alex grit his teeth so hard his gums had gone numb. He’d wanted to tear her out of that car and take her upstairs to the bed he slept in and keep her there by lying on her with his naked body.

      But of course he’d let her go. And as those taillights had flared at the end of the driveway, it was clear she belonged in a fancy car with a man like O’Banyon. She was a refined kind of woman who was used to being on Manhattan’s A-list. Living in a penthouse on Park Avenue. Wearing beautiful clothes.