Contents

      Chapter One

      Chapter Two

      Chapter Three

      Chapter Four

      Chapter Five

      Chapter Six

      Chapter Seven

      Chapter Eight

      Chapter Nine

      Chapter Ten

      Chapter Eleven

      Epilogue

       Chapter One

       W alking the beach at dawn.

      A time for lovers still dressed in tuxedo and gown, carrying their shoes as they walked barefoot in the sand. Held hands, danced to their own music, laughed and dreamed and kissed as the sun came up over the horizon.

      A time for seniors and their metal detectors, cloth bags tied around their waists to hold the treasures of coins and small pieces of jewelry left behind by tourists on this Ocean City, New Jersey, beach. They’d stop, watch the young lovers, smile in reminiscence, then get back to business. The business of occupying their time, settling for smaller dreams, just happy to see another sunrise.

      A time for muscle-shirted men and their large dogs: big, playful dogs with names like Fletcher, or Bruno; fierce-looking but bighearted babies who wore kerchiefs around their necks as they challenged the waves, running at them, barking furiously and then wisely retreating when the waves answered back. All while their owners did a few stretches, struck a few poses, admired the way their “pecs” looked: oiled, shining slightly in the light of the rising sun.

      A time for a solitary woman to sit on the sand, her knees drawn up to her chin, and watch the mist rise and the sun come up, just as it came up every morning, even when her own personal world had very definitely gone on hold.

      Jessica Chandler was twenty-eight years old, nearly twenty-nine. She was tall, with light brown, almost blond hair, for once not secured in a French twist or otherwise tamed by brush and comb and pins—and propriety. Her hair blew against her face in the breeze, hiding her even, patrician features, her tear-wet blue eyes.

      She was a competent businesswoman, the middle child of three grown children, wealthy through both inheritance and in her own right. She was unattached, currently on a leave of absence from the company business she and her older brother, Ryan, ran in Allentown, Pennsylvania, and she had come to the Jersey shore to think and to walk the beach.

      She was just one more person on the beach at dawn, watching the gulls without really seeing them, digging bare toes in the still-cool sand, sighing sighs the slight breeze snatched away but could not halt.

      One of the muscle types spotted Jessica and deliberately tossed a Frisbee in her direction, so that he could shout out, “No, Buster, don’t chase it. Be careful of the lady,” and then came jogging across the sand to smile down at Jessica, to apologize if his charging dog had frightened her.

      The guy was cute, in an overgrown-puppy way. All he needed was a friendly, waving tail and a Frisbee between his too-white teeth. He was tall, with muscles he obviously worked on daily, and had a broad, confident smile. The kind of guy who considered a beautiful woman a required accessory, just like the dog.

      Boy, had he ever picked the wrong beach and the wrong girl.

      “That’s all right,” Jessica said, barely looking at him, his handsomeness