Face duly washed, Mary Eileen hurriedly ate her breakfast and dressed carefully. It wouldn’t do to meet the man she was going to marry looking less than her best.
She went and sat out in front of the cottage on her favorite rock, waiting for him.
Waiting was no hardship. Her grandmother’s small cottage overlooked the lake. Not the well-tamed sandy beaches that lined Lake Erie’s peninsula, Presque Isle, farther to the west, but a rocky, wild section of shoreline east of the city.
As she sat, she daydreamed about her soul mate. He’d be tall and he’d smile a lot. He’d want nothing more than to spend all his time with her. He wouldn’t work long hours as her parents did and he’d…
Her imagined list of future-husband dos and don’ts were interrupted by a voice calling her name.
“Mary, Mary Eileen.”
Panic swamped her as she recognized the voice.
What had she done?
This couldn’t be the magic.
Oh, yes she knew that voice. She was waiting for the man she was going to marry, not for Matty Benton. There was no way she was going to marry him someday.
She covered her eyes with her hands. Hoping that if she didn’t actually see him, she’d be safe from the magic.
She heard his feet crunch the ground as he approached.
“Mary Eileen, what are you doing?”
She pressed her hands harder against her eyes so that not even the slightest sliver of light penetrated. “Nothing for you to worry about, Matty Benton.”
“I came to see you,” he said.
“Well, I can’t see you today.” She tried to think of an explanation for her covered eyes and finally said, “I had stuff put in my eyes at the doctor’s and can’t open them until tomorrow. If I look at the sun, I could go blind.”
“Oh.” He paused and said, “I’m sorry.”
“Thank you. You can go now.”
Even at ten, Mary Eileen knew she was being more than a little rude, but the longer Matty stayed, the greater the risk. No way did she want to marry him. Not horrible old Matty Benton. If she had to be mean in order to prevent it, she would be.
“That’s what I came to tell you, I am going. I’m leaving Erie.”
“Leaving?” she echoed.
Matty was a pain. He’d moved in with the Johnsons a year ago and was two years older than she was. He should spend his time willingly ignoring her like the rest of the older neighborhood kids did, but Matty wasn’t the type to do what he should do. So not only did he not ignore her, he seemed to live to tease her.
She hated that, but it didn’t mean Mary Eileen wanted him to leave.
“Yeah. Social Services found my dad’s brother. My uncle Paul. He lives in New York City, so I’m moving there.”
“Oh.” New York City seemed worlds away from the sleepy beach outside Erie. “Are you glad?”
There was a small rush of air and Mary could almost picture Matty’s characteristic shrug.
“Doesn’t much matter,” he said.
But it did matter.
She knew it did, even if Matty wouldn’t say so.
“I’m sorry, Matty,” she said softly.
It was her birthday and she was going to meet the man she’d marry. She should be celebrating, but instead, she felt sad and realized it was because she’d miss Matty Benton. He might be a pain, but there were occasions, like now, when he wasn’t teasing her and she sort of liked him.
“What have I told you about calling me Matty?” he asked, his voice all deep and scary.
Matty had never scared her a bit. Annoyed, yes, but not scared. She laughed at his attempt to do so now. “Matty’s better than Matt. There’s just no way you’re a Matt.”
“Everyone else and their brother calls me Matt.”
“They’re wrong.” She paused a minute and added, “But you’re right. You’re not exactly a Matty either.”
“So who am I?” he asked.
“I don’t know.” And she felt a wave of loneliness that he was leaving and she’d never get to find out just what his name should be.
“Sorry about your eyes,” he said.
She felt guilty for that lie. “Sorry you’re leaving.” She thought about telling him she’d miss him, but she couldn’t quite get the words out.
There was another slight rustling of the air, and she knew Matty had moved. Something soft brushed against her cheek.
Matty Benton had kissed her.
Right after that thought, she heard the sound of rapid footsteps down the small stone path.
The gate creaked. “Bye, Mary Eileen. There’s not much I’ll miss about Erie, but I’ll miss you. I left you something on the fence post.”
“Bye, Matty.”
And though she knew she shouldn’t, though she knew she was tempting fate, she cracked her interlaced fingers the merest smidgen and peeked at the boy who was walking away.
“Goodbye, Matty.”
Chapter One
“No, Mom, I’m fine. Nothing’s wrong…. I like my life just the way it is.” Lee Singer wished she could hang up. But hanging up wasn’t an option, so she worked at tuning out her mother’s you-could-do-somuch-better lecture. After all, she’d heard it so many times she could almost quote it verbatim.
So much potential, blah, blah, blah.
Wasting your life, blah, blah, blah.
If only you had some drive, some ambition, blah, blah, blah.
Mid-lecture, the door opened at Lee’s small Perry Square art shop, Singer’s Treasures, and a man walked in.
Her conversation with her mother faded to mere background static as she studied the customer with an uncharacteristic feminine awareness.
It wasn’t that she didn’t notice good-looking men, it was just that most of the time she didn’t get hit with this sudden zing.
The man in question was tall. At five-six, she wasn’t a tiny woman, but he towered over her. Sixtwo maybe?
Black hair, not a strand out of place, dark eyes that didn’t look as if they missed anything. He was dressed in a neatly pressed polo shirt and Dockers. He wasn’t exactly scowling, but he wasn’t exactly smiling either.
No, he was sort of studying her with an intensity that made her very…
She searched for a word to describe the heart-pounding, blood-roaring feeling his scrutiny gave her. A word to describe how looking at him made her feel.
Desire.
That was it.
Not that she’d act on it. Lee believed herself to be the type of woman who knew that what was on the inside mattered more than how a person was packaged. But this man’s packaging was a sight to behold.
She tried to steady her thoughts and her heart rate, and managed to say, “Pardon me a sec, Mom. A customer just walked in.” She put a hand over the phone’s mouthpiece. “May I help you?”
“I came about a rental property on Lake Erie. I saw the ad in the paper and it said to contact Singer’s Treasures.”