Nope. He did not ride in vans with the great unwashed. And he’d be damned if he’d leave his girl in the hands of some sixteen-year-old yahoo who was liable to strip her gears as the little bastard parked her in a marsh at the side of the road.

As he crested the rise, he floated another wave at the solitary attendant up top and didn’t spare a glance at the people stepping out of the van that had pulled up in front of the house. Heading for the garages, he parked parallel to the mansion’s eastern flank and killed the engine—and immediately, he heard the party on the other side of the garden wall, the patter of talk forming a multi-layered sound rather like a symphony’s preamble to some great, dramatic rise of a solo.

It was a long while before he got out of the car.

I love you, Samuel T. This is who we are, who we’ve been since we were teenagers.

Or something to that effect. He couldn’t remember the exact words Gin had used on him because when she’d been talking at him, he’d been too busy trying not to lose his mind.

God, the things he’d been through with that woman. All those years of one-upping each other. And she was right, of course. He did date waitresses and hairdressers because they weren’t like her, and he did compare every female he was around against her—and yes, they all came up wanting.

He hadn’t slept for more than an hour, maybe two, that conversation running frontward and backward in his mind over and over again.

In the end, the one thing that stuck out most was tied to the passage of time: Over the years, he’d seen Gin in a hundred thousand different moods, but she’d only teared up once before. It had been … about fifteen years ago, when he’d been a junior at U.Va. and she’d been a freshman at Sweet Briar. He’d come home for Easter break, mostly because of his parents, only a little because of Gin. Naturally, they had seen each other.

It was a small world. Especially when you wanted to put yourself in the path of someone else in Charlemont, Kentucky.

And strangely, that was what he’d had to do. Gin hadn’t been out at any of the parties their group went to. He’d had to use a pickup game of basketball with her brothers as an excuse—not that he’d spent any time at all on the court that had been behind the garages. Ditching Max and Lane as soon as he’d set foot on the property, he’d found her out by the pool, in a sweatshirt and shorts. She’d looked like hell—and she’d told him she was taking a break from Sweet Briar and moving home for a while. That she didn’t like college. That she just wanted to rest for a while.

Not a surprise. Wild child that she was, it had been hard to imagine her faithfully adhering to any schedule independently, whether it was as part of an English major, or as a job. She was far better suited to the pursuit for which she had been bred: lady of a grand house.

They’d ended up in argument. They always ended up in an argument.

And he had stormed off.

He’d intended to just leave her, but as usual, he hadn’t been able to pull a clean break: Before he’d gone through the gate to get out of the garden, he’d glanced back.

Gin had had her head in her hands and she was weeping.

He’d returned to her, but she had run into the house and gone so far as to lock the French doors behind her.

He hadn’t seen her for about a year after that. Mostly because even at the ridiculously young age of twenty, he’d recognized they were no good together. He hadn’t been able to make the separation stick, however. He never was able to do that.

Samuel T. thought about what she’d said the day before … about those tears of hers.

What if … she hadn’t been playing him?

For some reason, that terrified him.

And what was just as shocking? He found himself ready to stop the fighting with her. For so long, his pride had demanded responses to what she did, who she did … but it wasn’t a defeat if the other person put down their sword at the same time you relinquished your own.

The truth? He was kidding himself if he thought there was anyone on the planet for him other than that headstrong, spoiled, pain in the ass.

She’d had his heart in the palm of her hand since the first day he’d laid eyes on her.

Getting out of his car, he brushed his hair back and buttoned the front of his pink, pale blue, and yellow plaid sport coat. Then he bent down, took his straw derby hat from the jump seat and arranged the thing in perfect position on his head.

Using the nearest gate into the garden, he walked into the party.

“Here’s the man!”

“Samuel T.!”

“Mint julep for you!”

Buddies of his, gentlemen he’d known since kindergarten, came up to him, clapping hands, talking about handicapping the race, asking about the parties to come later in the day, the night, Sunday morning. He responded with throwaways, his eyes searching the crowd.

“Will you excuse me?” he said.

He didn’t wait for any permissions, but strode across the tented space, bypassing waiters with trays and more people who reached out to him and several women anxious to connect with him.

Finally, he found her, standing alone, staring out over the river.

As he approached, he traced the elegant lines of Gin’s body, lingering on the way her shoulders were left exposed by the silk dress she had on. For some reason, she had a long scarf tied around her throat, the ends waving in the wind created by the tent fans, the ends trailing down to her unbelievable legs.

He hated the way his heart beat so hard in his chest. Despised the fact that he had to subtly wipe his palms next to his jacket’s double vents. Prayed that his read on her was correct … that she had, for once, been speaking from the heart—and that they were ready, finally, to get real about each other.