Unbroken

arms, and I’m suddenly painfully aware of my thin T-shirt, now wet through and clinging against my chest. I shiver, seeing a new hunger in his eyes as his gaze trails down my body, lingering on my bare legs. I feel my skin prickle, and my breath catch, not with discomfort, but something new, some kind of heightened awareness. I feel a heat pool, low in my stomach.
    The guy drags his gaze back up to meet mine, and then he looks at me with what I swear is a smirk curling at the edges of his perfect mouth. “How are you the mad one right now?” he asks. “I’m the one with my truck totally fucked back there.”
    I look past him. His truck is nose deep in a sandbank, back wheels spinning. “Yeah, well we’ve got a flat tire and no spare.”
    He smirks for real this time. “What kind of idiot doesn’t keep a spare? We’re miles out from anywhere.”
    “Maybe the kind of person who drives in the city, where we have little things like cellphone signal and tow-trucks!”
    The smirk fades. “You’re summer people.” he says, like it’s a crime.
    “Let me guess,” I shoot back. “You’re a townie with a chip on your shoulder. Well, maybe you should save the issues until we both get out of here.”
    He opens his mouth in surprise, then stops. He looks around at the wet empty highway, and finally, it sinks in that I may have a point.
    “Fine,” he says, grudgingly. “I’ll call for Norm to come get us.”
    “I thought there wasn’t signal out here?” I frown, pulling out my phone from my pocket again, just to check.
    “I’ve got a CB radio in the truck.” He heads back towards the red pick-up. “Stay there!”
    “Where else would I go?” I sigh, watching him walk away. I trace the back of his body with my eyes, absorbing the grace in his gait. Then he turns, catching me. I blush, hoping frantically that he can’t see my pink cheeks in the rain.
    “You didn’t tell me your name.” he calls.
    “You didn’t ask!” I yell back.
    He grins, and waits, until finally I surrender.
    “Juliet,” I tell him, and wait for the snarky quip, but instead, he just cocks an eyebrow at me.
    “I’m Emerson.” He calls. Then he smiles, a flash of something true and reckless, so darkly beautiful I feel my heart stop all over again. This is what they write stories about, I realize, as if from far away. All those books and movies and poems I’ve read, this is what they all were preparing me for, the day when a strange man smiles at me, and makes me forget who I am.
    His eyes meet mine, and I swear, my blood sings, hot in my veins despite the cold, damp rain trickling down my back.
    “Welcome to Cedar Cove.”

CHAPTER TWO
    I push my memories of Emerson way down and keep on driving. Soon, the empty beach and scrubland start showing signs of life: small shingled cottages, hidden in the tall grasses and set back from the shore. A laundry line. A car rusting on blocks in somebody’s driveway. I cross the bridge over the wide, salt-marsh riverbanks, and turn off the highway, into town.
    Even after all these years, not much has changed. I drive slowly down Main Street, feeling like I’ve stepped back in time. There’s the convenience store on the corner, where grandpa would buy me bright red popsicles; Mrs. Olsen’s pancake hut, serving the biggest chocolate-chip short stack I’ve ever seen. Jimmy’s Tavern, out by the water, always attracting a rough crowd, and past that, the harbor, filled with the clashing mix of run-down fishing boats and shiny new cruisers.
    Cedar Cove was always a sleepy kind of resort town—too frayed around the edges to attract the big tourist bucks—but it hasn’t been entirely untouched by new development. As I drive on, I see there’s a slick new strip mall with a pizza place, and a coffee shop, and stretch of new beachfront condos lined up where an old bait and tackle shack used to stand.
    At least I won’t go into caffeine withdrawl this weekend.
    At the fork in the road, I turn off down Sandpiper Lane. The dusty road winds along the shore, lined with wild rosemary and myrtle trees, and in places I can glimpse the golden sands lying just beyond the brush. After a mile, I come to a green mailbox, rusty on the side of the road, and turn into the familiar driveway.
    The house sits, baking and quiet in the afternoon sun. Craftsman-style, it has a wide front porch and blue shingles, now faded to a pale grey. The white trim is yellowed, and the roof tiles are crumbling, but the