A breeze kicked through the living room, one of those warm summer gusts that sweeps in from nowhere. It lifted the hair off her neck and blew a puff of dust across the doorstep. For an instant, the room seemed to widen, to swell with warmth, and sun flooded the space.

Wow. Maybe Jen is right. Maybe he is perfect. Eddie wasn’t tall, but the faded green t-shirt he’d put on outlined every muscle she could see. Sweat lined the creases in his forehead, and brilliant blue eyes met hers. Their color startled her, so bright they made the summer sky seem shady and dull. The more she examined them and tried in vain to match them to a Crayola color that had never existed, the more she felt a strange tumbling in her stomach that she didn’t like at all.

God, what’s wrong with me? He’s just a guy. Pull it together, Ash. rnTaking a deep breath, she shifted her gaze to the doorjamb above him "Hi, Eddie. Come on in."

He didn’t move for a moment, just stood and studied her. Cocking his head, he wiped his forehead against the sleeve of his shirt, then stepped across the threshold and into Ash’s life. Maybe it was the sun, maybe the odd wind that had picked up at just that moment, but suddenly she had the strangest urge to reach over and touch him, to run one finger along his brow and down his cheek. She studied a wrinkle in the fold of his shirt and wanted to smooth it. Something hovered in the space between them, and a strange sense of closeness pierced her throat and stopped her words.

Eddie reached for Ash’s hand. "Nice to meet you."

She placed her palm in his, for a moment only, but she liked the way it felt. Warm. Safe. “I’m-uh--Ashley. Ash.” She altered her first name, and didn’t offer her last, in case he’d been watching the news lately. And who hadn’t?