There sat the rest of the new guard, a whole host of kids who thought all they needed to win cases was flash and connections. There were a few old guys like him sitting there too, but none of them would meet his eyes. And that's when he'd known. Twenty-five years he'd given to the firm. And it was all gone in an instant.
We all know how bad the economy is. That we've got to make some cuts somewhere. So hard to make this choice.
Thanks for your service. Now say good-bye, Grandpa.
For days he made his plans. He'd sue for ageism. For firing him just so they could turn around and hire someone cheaper. He stayed up all night on the Internet, pored through his books, and was just about ready to serve the papers when Sam and Dianna had asked him to meet up in the city.
They were getting married. They wanted him to give Dianna away.
He'd awkwardly blinked back tears on the couch in their living room. Thanked them so profusely for the honor, he knew he'd made them all uncomfortable.
Leaving their house, he realized he wasn't fighting his dismissal so hard because he really wanted his job back.
It was simply that he wanted to prove that he was worth something. To someone. To anyone.
He tightened his grip on the tree trunk, not realizing that the bark was digging into his flesh until a moment too late. Another curse left his lips as he saw a streak of blood across his palm. Thirty years away from this place had made him a greenhorn with soft hands. First thing tomorrow he'd head up to the general store to get himself a new set of lakeworthy clothes.
Sucking his palm into his mouth, he continued making his way through the trees. The flickers of blue between trunks and branches grew larger and larger until the forest gave way to sand.
The sun was glinting off the water and he was momentarily blinded. And then he saw her.
Isabel.
She was sitting on the edge of her dock, her legs dangling in the water, and his heart stopped in his chest.
From where he was standing, time had stood still, and he could have sworn he was looking at the fifteen-year-old girl he'd fallen head over heels in love with.
Her straight blond hair still brushed the edge of her shoulders and her frame was as slim as it had been as a teenager. Without thinking, his feet took him toward her.
A speedboat flew by in the bay and it's sleekly modern lines abruptly catapulted him into the present.
Jesus, what was he thinking? That he could come back to Blue Mountain Lake and rewind thirty years? That he could have everything the way he wished it had been, rather than the way it had actually turned out?
Just then, Isabel shifted on the dock, pushing her feet beneath her to stand up. Andrew worked like hell to find an escape route.
Just turn the f**k around and run, you idiot!
But his feet wouldn't move. Instead, all he could do was stand still as a statue and watch as Isabel turned around.
And saw him.
Isabel closed her eyes hard, forced herself to take a breath. Between last night and this morning, her head had grown fuzzier and fuzzier. And then when Ginger had arrived to work the lunch shift, said she'd just met Andrew, Isabel had been hit by an intense headache.
She would have never dreamed of leaving the diner in the middle of the lunch rush if she hadn't been about to throw up all over the sautйing onions. Scott had assured her again and again that he had the situation well in hand. Ginger had walked her out to her car, told her she'd check in on her later that afternoon, see if she needed anything.
And now, as if things weren't already bad as Isabel reeled from her confrontation with Josh, Andrew had decided to pay her a visit. She still felt nauseous, but dizzy now too.
She'd tried to convince herself that seeing him again wouldn't hurt, that it wouldn't matter.
But when she opened her eyes again and looked at Andrew MacKenzie, the first boy she'd ever loved, the pain was so intense it took her breath away.
Thirty years she'd spent telling herself she was over him. But now… now she knew the truth. Knew it as well as she knew her own face in the mirror. As well as she knew the shape of Josh's head beneath her hand as she'd stroked his hair as a child so that he could fall back to sleep in the middle of the night after a bad dream.
She'd never gotten over Andrew MacKenzie. And now, here he was, standing on her beach, staring at her as if he'd seen a ghost.
Her hands went to her throat as she tried to remember how to breathe, a thousand insecurities popping up to the surface at once. The ten pounds she'd put on, mostly from her stomach down after having Josh. The lines on her forehead, beside her eyes, around her mouth and on her neck. The gray hairs that had been waging a war with the blond ones and winning without a fight. The wrinkled jeans and old T-shirt she wore in the kitchen, stained from the farmer's market pesto and tomato sauces she'd made early that morning.
She was tempted to jump into the lake and swim away, but she was going to have to deal with Andrew sometime.
Better just to get it over with.
She didn't hurry down the dock, didn't put a smile on her face, didn't have the will for anything so false. But she wouldn't let herself scowl either, opting for no expression whatsoever, a blank face that she hoped told the man on her beach he meant nothing more to her than any stranger.
Just as slowly, he came toward her, his expensive pressed button-down shirt and slacks suiting him to a T, even as they looked ridiculously out of place on the shore.
Thirty years had taken their toll on him too. His light brown hair was mostly gray and he looked like he hadn't slept a full night in a decade, but that was all surface stuff. As much as she wished otherwise, Isabel could see the magnificent young man he'd once been. Clearly, he was still in good shape and she guessed he put in the hours in the gym to keep up his physique. His hands were still big, his shoulders still broad.
“Isabel.”
Hearing her name from his lips again made her feet falter beneath her and she had to dig down deep to keep moving.
She lifted her chin, met his gaze straight on. “Andrew.”
“My God, you're still so beautiful.”
Her breath left her lungs in shock, her mouth opening, closing with the shock of his words.
“You look exactly the same, Isabel.”
“Stop.” She held up both hands, saw they were shaking, shoved them into her pockets. “Don't.”
She needed to cut him off at the pass before he said anything else, needed to make it clear where the boundaries were.