He pulled the phone away from his ear, saved her number, and tapped it off. Stared at the phone as though it were her face.

She hadn’t faded for him, over time. Why would she, when every corner and crevice of Gleann had something to remind him of her?

First sex. First love.

“Who was that?” Chris came over. “Yo, Dougall. Who was that? A ghost?”

You could say that, he thought.

Fuck. Jen Haverhurst. Back in Gleann. Staying at 738 Maple.

Right next door to him.

It was approaching ten o’clock by the time Leith turned the pickup onto Maple Avenue back in Gleann, and he almost put his face through the windshield, he braked so hard. A compact black rental car was parked under the carport of 738 and the kitchen light glowed between the drape of the brown curtains. One month he’d been living in the two-bedroom cottage at 740, and he’d gotten used to not having a neighbor.

He also thought he’d gotten used to not having Jen in his life.

He’d tried to get out of Mount Caleb faster, but the real estate broker had sprung several more properties on him, and there’d been a terrible four-car pileup blocking both lanes of Route 6 coming back. He’d been hoping to get back and surprise Jen, though he hadn’t gotten much further than that in his head. What exactly did he want to do? Just walk up and knock on the door? Pretend to run into her on the street?

Slowly he pulled into the 740 driveway, absently noting the bushes along the front walk needed a prune. Mildred used to pay him to do that. Now that she was dead, she paid him in three headaches in house form and probably thought she’d done him a favor. Old people were like that, thinking you wanted to keep their stuff forever and ever. He wondered if he’d be like that eventually.

He pulled his truck into the garage and got out, careful to shut his door with minimal sound. There was a chance she’d turned off the air-conditioning and opened the windows; it was a perfect night for that. The light from 738’s kitchen window angled across 740’s postage-stamp backyard. The soft, yellow rectangle froze him. He stood right in the center of it, willing Jen to come into view. Wondering what he’d do if she did. Clearly she was awake; a shadow moved inside. Should he just walk over there? No, he decided with a tight shake of his head. She’d been in town a whole day, and she hadn’t made any attempt to see him.

Then, there she was. She sauntered into the kitchen, holding a giant mug of something steaming and blew gently across the top. She wore these dark-rimmed glasses that screamed Bad Librarian. So weird how he remembered that her eyesight was for shit. Her hair looked darker and it was piled in a giant mess on top of her head. A sensory memory struck and nearly leveled him: how thick her hair had felt. Setting the mug down on the kitchen table, she leaned forward on her hands, peering at the glowing screen of a laptop.

Was she . . . ? Jesus.

No bra. A little black top with dental floss for straps. Black underwear that covered her tight ass, but just barely. And a whole mess of skin, the sight of which made his mouth dry up and his palms tingle with the urge to touch.

Ten years apart from whom he’d once thought was the love of his life, almost six months since he’d had anything remotely resembling sex, and this was his re-introduction to the female species. He told himself that seeing anyone of the opposite sex wandering around like that after his length of forced abstinence would inspire such an epic hard-on, but the truth was . . . she looked incredible.

Then he realized that it was more than just the way she looked. Seeing Jen again, here and close, was like being swept through a time warp. His brain flipped back through all the summers they’d been joined at the hip. Back when they used to play kickball in the park, when they’d played all those good-natured pranks together. When they’d spent evenings sitting with Da on his front porch, listening to his childhood stories of Scotland. Back when they’d laughed so easily, and talked about anything and everything.

Then came that summer before she left for college. Right from the start he’d known it was the last summer she’d make it to Gleann. Mix that up with the fact that he’d been almost nineteen, raging with hormones, and she’d showed up right after high school graduation looking like sin. They’d resumed their friendship as easily as any of the previous nine summers, but he’d felt the change inside him so suddenly and so acutely it was like she’d reached inside his mind and thrown a switch.

When they’d waited tables together one night at the Stone, he’d very intentionally brushed up against her. He remembered her response so clearly: the slow way she turned around, the perfect circles of those incredible green eyes, the slack-jawed look of surprise. He’d grinned at her, knowing. As soon as their shift was done, he’d pushed her against the outside wall of the pub and kissed her.

And continued to do so every summer night thereafter.

So by the time they’d wedged themselves into the backseat of his old man’s ’69 Cadillac DeVille convertible and, shaking, they’d stripped each other and gone through three condoms in one night, he was pretty sure he was in love with her.

Then she’d left.

Back in the kitchen of 738 Maple, Jen pushed away from the table, the lean muscles in her arms flexing. She started to pace between the table and refrigerator. Her lips moved soundlessly as she talked to herself. She gestured with her hands, ticking something off on her fingers.

She was curvier now, fuller everywhere, but still fit. Definitely more of a woman. She yawned, stretching with arms overhead.

He reached down, adjusted himself through his jeans.

He realized that a little bit of the old anger still rattled around inside him. Also, even more surprisingly, some pain. Which angered him even more. He was an adult. He was over her. He’d been over her for ten years. Okay, maybe nine. But they’d been eighteen and, when he thought about it, they really hadn’t been ready to be together long-term.

Besides, he hadn’t exactly turned priest after her departure. And he was pretty sure she’d forgotten about him soon after their last phone call, when she’d told him she loved him back, one month and a thousand miles too late.

Of course that was the moment his phone chose to go off, the ring clanging across the yard, the sound so loud it could have reached the moon. He fumbled with taking it out of his pocket, his thumb missing the mute button. The phone kept ringing. Jen froze where she stood in the middle of the kitchen like she might have heard, but then she started talking to herself again and he knew she hadn’t.

Still, he quickly ducked out of the light and dove for the back door, which he never locked. Nothing of his inside to steal anyway. In the mudroom, he flipped on the weak bulb over the basement stairs.

He glanced at the number on the phone before answering and tried not to get his hopes up. “MacDougall.”

“I still think you should answer with a Scottish brogue,” chuckled the woman on the other end.

“I would, if I had one,” he replied.

“Bah, just fake it. No American would ever know.”

Leith smiled, thinking he could probably pull out a brogue if he thought about Da hard enough, but just the idea made his chest ache.

“What can I do for you, Rory?” She’d been one of his favorite clients before her Hemmertex president husband had moved the headquarters to Connecticut and changed the valley forever.

“Sorry to call so late, but I just got back from this boring office party where I heard a wicked rumor that you were leaving Gleann and going to set up your business elsewhere.”

He moved through the darkened house to the little TV room in the front with the window overlooking Jen’s rental. He kept the light off, and collapsed into the pink velour recliner with the lace doily armrest covers.