was clearly a soldier, except on second glance his uniform wasn’t quite inspection ready. The first thing Lucy noticed was his arms. The sleeves had been torn from his green shirt at the shoulders and his arms were muscular and strong. He looked as if he could easily bench-press three times his body weight. He wore his shirt open at the collar and unbuttoned halfway down his broad chest. His fatigue pants fit him comfortably, but instead of clunky black army boots, he wore only sandals on his feet.
He had sunglasses on, but his gaze swept quickly around the room and Lucy imagined that he didn’t miss much.
His hair was thick and a dark, sandy blond.
And his face was one she recognized.
Lucy would have known Blue McCoy anywhere. That strong chin, his firm, unsmiling mouth, those rugged cheekbones and straight nose. Twelve years of living had added power and strength to his already strong face. The lines around his eyes and mouth had deepened, adding a sense of compassion or wisdom to his unforgivingly stern features.
He had been good-looking as a teenaged boy. As a man, he was impossibly handsome.
Lucy was staring. She couldn’t help herself. Blue McCoy was back in town, larger than life.
He finished his quick inspection of the room and his eyes returned to her. As Lucy watched, Blue took off his sunglasses. His eyes were still the brightest shade of blue she’d ever seen in her life, and as he met her gaze she felt frozen in place, hypnotized.
He nodded at her, just once, still unsmiling, and then Iris breezed past him.
“Sit anywhere, hon!” she called out to him.
The spell was broken. Blue looked away from Lucy and she turned back to the table and Sarah.
“Do you know him?” Sarah asked, her sharp eyes missing nothing—particularly not the blush that was heating Lucy’s cheeks. “You do, don’t you?”
“Not really, no,” Lucy said, then admitted, “I mean, I know who he is, but…” She shook her head.
“Who is he?”
Lucy glanced up again, but Blue was busy stashing his duffel bag underneath a table on the far side of the room. “Blue McCoy.” Lucy spoke softly, as if he might overhear even from across the noisy restaurant.
“That’s Gerry McCoy’s brother? He looks nothing like him.”
“They’re stepbrothers,” Lucy explained. “Blue’s mother married Gerry’s father, only she died about five months after the wedding. Mr. McCoy adopted Blue shortly after that. The way I hear it, neither Mr. McCoy nor Blue was happy with that arrangement. Apparently they didn’t get along too well, but Blue had nowhere else to go.”
“I guess not, since he didn’t make it back into town when Mr. McCoy died a few years ago,” Sarah commented.
“Gerry told me Blue was part of Desert Storm,” Lucy said. “He couldn’t get leave, not then, and Gerry didn’t want to hold up the funeral, not indefinitely like that.”
“Gerry’s brother is in the army?”
“Navy,” Lucy corrected her. “He’s Special Operations—a Navy SEAL.”
“A what?”
“SEAL,” Lucy said. “It stands for Sea, Air and Land. SEALs are like super commandos. They’re experts in everything from…I don’t know…underwater demolition to parachute assaults to…piloting state-of-the-art jets. They have these insane training sessions where they learn to work as a team under incredible stress. There’s this one week—Hell Week—where they’re allowed only four hours of sleep all week. They have to sleep in fifteen-minute segments, while air-raid sirens are wailing. If they quit, they’re out of the program. It’s pretty scary stuff. Only the toughest and most determined men make the grade and become SEALs. It’s a real status symbol—for obvious reasons.”
Sarah was gazing across the room, a speculative light in her eyes. “You seem to have acquired an awful lot of information about a man you claim you don’t know.”
“I’ve read about SEALs and the training they go through. That’s all.”
“Hmm.” Sarah lifted one delicate eyebrow. “Before or after Gerry’s brother joined the Navy?”
Lucy shrugged, trying hard to look casual. “So I had a crush on the guy in high school. Big deal.”
Sarah rested her chin in her hand. “Out of all the people in this place, he nods at you,” she remarked. “Did you date him?”
Lucy couldn’t help laughing. “Not a chance. I was three years younger, and he was…”
“What?”
Iris approached the table, carrying two enormous sandwiches and a basket of French fries. Lucy smiled her thanks at the waitress, but waited for her to leave before answering Sarah’s question.
“He was going out with Jenny Lee.”
“Beaumont…?” Sarah’s eyes lit up. “You mean the same Jenny Lee who’s marrying his brother on Saturday?” At Lucy’s nod, she chuckled. “This is getting too good.”
“You didn’t know?” Lucy asked. “I thought everyone in town knew. It seems it’s all anyone’s talking about—whether or not Blue McCoy will show up to the wedding of his stepbrother and his high-school sweetheart.”
“Apparently the answer to that question is yes,” Sarah said, glancing across the room at the man in uniform.
Lucy took a bite of her turkey sandwich, carefully not turning around to look at this man she found so fascinating. Sarah was right. The question about whether or not Blue would attend Gerry’s wedding had been answered. Now the town would be abuzz with speculation, wondering if Blue was going to create a disturbance or rise to his feet when the preacher said “speak now or forever hold your peace.”
The temptation proved too intense, and Lucy glanced over her shoulder. Blue was eating his lunch and reading the past week’s edition of the Hatboro Creek Gazette. His blond hair fell across his forehead, almost into his eyes, and he pushed it back with a smooth motion that caused the muscles in his right arm to ripple. As if he could feel her watching him, he looked up and directly into her eyes.
Lucy’s stomach did circus tricks as she quickly, guiltily, looked away. God, you would think she was fifteen again and sneaking around the marina where Blue worked, hoping for a peek at him. But he hadn’t noticed her then and he certainly wouldn’t notice her now. She was still decidedly not the Jenny Lee Beaumont type.
“What was his mother thinking when she named him Blue?” Sarah wondered aloud.
“His real name is Carter,” Lucy said. “Blue is a nickname—it’s short for ‘Blue Streak.”’
“Don’t tell me,” Sarah said. “He talks all the time.”
Lucy had to laugh at that. Blue McCoy was not known for running on at the mouth. “I don’t know when he first got the nickname,” she said, “but he’s a runner. He broke all kinds of speed records for sprinting
