Amanda sat on the floor of her empty living room, in her new home, a cozy "fixer-upper", two-bedroom little granny house, complete with country porch and large picture windows.
Thankfully her parents had been stockpiling furniture in their basement for the past decade in hopes she would come to her senses and return home to Elm Creek. She had shipped her boxes, which would be arriving today via UPS, and her brother's friend was picking up a U-haul, and would help move the furniture from her parents' house, here.
Upstairs, she heard her brother curse, and she smiled. Jeff, her little brother, had been tinkering with the toilet for the past hour. "Mandy, why couldn't you have bought a newer house? Maybe one that was built in our lifetime."
"Because they're too expensive, and plus, they lack character," she called up the stairs, elated to be home, and hanging with her little brother who had grown into a handsome young man while she'd been away.
"Hey, Dylan just pulled up with the U-haul," Jeff called out.
"Dylan Ryder?" Amanda asked more to herself than to Jeff as she headed for the front door. The name Dylan instantly conjured up images of a cute dark-haired boy with beautiful green eyes and an endearing smile. A boy she thought was awful cute for being so much younger than her, and who also happened to be her brother's best friend since they were in elementary school.
The last time she'd seen Dylan he'd been about thirteen, and she'd been eighteen when she left the small town of Elm Creek for New York, home of Happy Trails Airline. As a loud knock sounded at the front door, Amanda ran her fingers through her still damp hair, trying to envision the man Dylan had become. Visions of a cute, boy-next-door type made her grin.
The moment Amanda opened the door the smile vanished from her lips.
Wearing a sleeveless black T-shirt, faded-to-white Levi's that hugged athletic thighs, and scuffed work boots, the tall man standing on her porch looked nothing like the boy she remembered.
Amanda swallowed past the lump in her throat as her gaze slowly crept up his impressive frame to find herself staring into familiar green eyes that contrasted fiercely with his dark hair. She had been right on one count-Dylan's eyes were just as beautiful as she recalled.
