The First Law of Love (4 page)

Shit, no more after these last few.

It had been October of 2006. I had been a freshman at the U of M, as arrogant as my father at his worst, I understood clearly now. Big city girl, I'd felt, gracing Landon with my worldly presence.

Oh God.

Only the weekend before the wedding I'd had sex for the very first time in my life, with another freshman, a guy from my English class. I thought at the time that we were headed for serious couple-hood; now, almost seven years later, I could hardly remember his face. I had wanted to tell Camille all about it, wanted the focus of the attention to be upon me, especially from my older sister, who I worshiped, even though I would never openly admit that to anyone.

It was her wedding and you were a selfish brat
, I acknowledged.

Of course Camille had been a little preoccupied. The intention had been to keep the wedding small and sweet, but with all of the Carters, Davises, and then the addition of the out-of-state guests, it had swelled beyond original proportions. Shore Leave had been bursting at the seams. The Rawleys, a family that consisted of one father and seven boys (two sort-of adopted, I didn't fully understand the actual connection), arrived from Montana the Thursday before. Although Camille and Mathias were delighted at their presence, I had only been irritated; here was yet another distraction.

Now, years later, alone in the dark, I blew smoke rings (I was pretty expert) and winced as I recalled my behavior on that long-ago weekend. Were these things in my mind only because it was likely that I would run into those people…
that person
, truly…fairly frequently this summer? Surely that was why I was torturing myself with these memories.

I thought of his name then, studying the tops of the pine trees; my eyes had adjusted to the darkness by now. The air was energized as though with a coming storm and I shivered a little in the damp chill.

Case Spicer.

I really hadn't known he existed until that Thursday, back in October of 2006. Even when Camille and Mathias related the pretty damn amazing story of what had happened on their trip out to Montana the preceding summer, I hadn't paid strict attention to names and details (my mind had been overloaded with college plans), and besides, my sister had left out one critical piece of information, assuming that I would only be annoyed. And I had been.

This guy, this Case, came to Minnesota carrying a picture of me in his wallet. Apparently he thought I was pretty, or something, and had decided without so much as meeting me that I was the one for him. Even now, years later, I felt that this notion was more than a little absurd, romantic nonsense for which I had zero tolerance. To my eighteen-year-old self, it had bordered on insane and stalker-ish.

But did you have to be so fucking rude to him?

I lit my second-to-last smoke with the tail end of the first, thinking of that long-ago Saturday. Autumn in Landon was sensory overload, the trees flaming into their fall colors, nothing half-assed in the north woods. Scarlet, maroon, orange and brilliant yellow, fire burning in every direction. Flickertail solemn and deep-blue beneath a crisp sky. Mathias's oldest sister Tina had begged for scarlet to be our bridesmaid gown color, and we had looked like a crew of vampire princesses, as I had joked (God, what a little mouthy bitch I'd been), though nothing could deflate Camille's buoyancy that day.

The wedding took place at White Oaks Lodge, Mathias's family's gorgeous hotel, on the opposite side of Flickertail Lake. I had been vaguely aware of the red-haired guy from Montana, but only peripherally; at the groom's dinner on Friday I had caught him looking my way a time or two, but he had not so much as come within ten feet of me. Saturday, however, he had loaded up on some liquid courage and it was a different story.

Mathias had taken the stage at their reception in order to sing to Camille. It was his thing, and so totally, utterly romantic (I could appreciate that now, but at the time I had actually been
texting
, for God's sake, sitting at the head table texting the guy I thought I was in love with back in Minneapolis). Everyone was completely focused on what a wonderful, sweet man Mathias Carter was, singing “Amazed” to his blushing bride, when someone sat next to me and leaned on his forearms over the table linen.

“Can I tell you something?” he'd asked, with no other introduction or invitation.

I turned to regard this intrusion with eyebrows knitted in clear irritation. My hair had been twisted high into a series of complicated knots, my make-up applied meticulously by Mathias's sister Glenna, my satin dress as red as any sin. It had been a spectacular gown, and was currently hanging in a dry-cleaner's bag in my old closet. The guy sitting near me was in a state of dishevelment that spoke of the end of a hard night; his reddish-gold hair was messy, his tie missing, collar undone two past the top button, and his breath sharply scented with something about fifty proof.

“Can I?” he'd asked again, while I gave him about one-third of my snotty attention; my phone flashed on the tabletop, indicating a new message.

“
Well?
” I prompted. Even in the dim, candlelit ballroom, I could tell this guy was sloshy-drunk.

“God, your eyes are so beautiful, I can't take it,” he said, his voice low and with a tone I had never before heard from a man. Reverent, almost.

My eyebrows lifted high at these unexpected words, almost into my hairline probably. Instead of thanking him for the compliment, I responded inarticulately, “Huh?”

“I wrote a song about you,” was the next unbelievable statement from his lips.

“What are you
talking
about?” I snapped. “You don't even know me.”

“I know, I really do, but see…the thing is…” he stumbled over his words, covering his face with both hands for a second before seeming to gather himself back together. He tipped his chin and looked steadily at me, saying, “The thing is, I know you're the one for me. I know this with all my heart.”

I was stunned into speechlessness, stunned into forgetting my flashing cell phone. He swallowed hard then; clearly it had taken a great deal of bravado to say this to me. And then I immediately suspected two things: alcohol was contributing tenfold to these words and/or he was outright fucking with me. Both suspicions did nothing to endear him to me in any way, shape or form.

“You are
drunk
,” I said slowly, as though speaking to a misbehaving child.

He shook his head and then said, words falling on top of each other, “I mean, I am, but that's not why…that has nothing to do with…”

I decided being forthright was the only way to go here. I turned to look him full in the face and said meanly, “Well, you're wrong.”

I might as well have punched him in the gut; even as unperceptive as I was at that age, I could see this. He blinked then, owl-like, and opened his mouth to say something else, but I stood up and shoved the chair back from the table, intending to hide out in the bathroom for a minute. I was embarrassed, and angry at him, however unfairly, for saying such stupid things and putting me in this uncomfortable position.

Immediately he followed after me, and though he was drunk he seemed to have no trouble keeping up.

“Wait, please wait,” he said.

I hurried faster, in spite of the heeled shoes I would never wear otherwise. At the bathroom door, when it was apparent he might actually follow me into the ladies' room, I spun to look up at his face and snapped, “Leave me alone!”

He held up both hands and said, “Just listen…”

“No,
you
listen!” I felt all hot and tight, as though my dress might have shrunk. I continued, “I don't know you and I don't
want
to know you! You think I like being followed by some drunk moron?”

Ouch
. Now, rocking gently on the porch swing drawing on my smoke, separated by years from that moment, I reconsidered the use of this word. At the time I had been pissed off enough that it had seemed appropriate.

He blinked again and then said, almost as though in pain, “I don't understand how I know we belong together, but we do. I
know
this.”

My heart had responded oddly to these words, swift and intense, but before he could say anything else, I shoved into the restroom, almost ready to lean against it so he couldn't follow behind; I needn't have worried, as he had been nowhere in sight when I reemerged minutes later, my heart not yet having resumed a normal, non-frantic pace. I hadn't seen hide or hair of him the rest of the night. And they'd all returned to Montana the very next day.

Case Spicer.

Of course I'd demanded the entire story of Camille, who had somewhat unwittingly related the tale of what had happened regarding Case and my picture, out in Jalesville, back during that July when she and Mathias had first met him and the Rawleys.

“He's actually really sweet,” my sister had insisted. “He's a honey. You just don't know him.”

“And I never will! God, Milla, how could you keep something like from me? He had my
picture?
God, that's so creepy!”

Camille couldn't resist needling me, saying calmly, “I'm sure he still does.”

“You didn't get it back from him?!”

Since then I had heard only marginal information regarding this guy, Case, who kept in contact with Mathias. Camille and Mathias had brought the kids out there to visit a few years ago, and all of the Rawleys (just them, not the Spicer brothers) had come for a two-week stay in the July of 2010. I'd been home for the summer then; it was just before I started law school in Chicago, and I had been in the clouds with elation, so proud of myself for earning acceptance into Northwestern Law School, once attended by my own wealthy, charming and very successful father.

The Rawleys were great, I had to admit. I remembered Clark, their father, and all the brothers well; Camille called them the ‘Peter Pan tribe,' and Grandma and Aunt Ellen spoiled them ridiculously. It was their favorite thing after all, caretaking. The oldest brother, Garth, brought along his wife, a woman named Becky; there were four additional brothers, all looking so much alike that I'd joked they should wear nametags, but after the first few days I'd been able to distinguish between Marshall (who was a drummer, part of a band that included Garth and Case, as he explained), Sean, Quinn, and Wyatt (nicknamed Wy), the youngest.

“Case told us he'd break bones if any of us tried anything with you,” Marshall had told me when a bunch of us were out swimming one night that summer.

I had laughed over this ridiculousness, saying, “You tell him that he's
funny
.” And then, a spurt of anger flared into my belly as I treaded water. I said heatedly to Marshall, “And if I wanted to try anything with any of you, it would be my business. No one else's!”

Marshall, who was very good-looking but not really my type (as in, he wasn't bound for a high-profile corporate law career in Chicago), teased me, asking, “Is that a hint?”

“You wish,” I groused, splashing him.

“I'm jealous as hell over her anyway,” Marshall had said then, indicating Ruthann, who had been riding on her boyfriend Liam's back near the dock, both of them half in the bag and laughing hysterically about Ruthie having apparently lost her bikini top, compensating for this by keeping her bare front side pressed tightly to Liam's back. Her wet, curly hair, long enough that it hung nearly to her slim waist, made her look more than ever like a naughty mermaid. Marshall watched them intently, shaking his head, muttering, “I hope he knows how fucking lucky he is.”

“I hate to say it, but you're asking for it,” I teased him.

“I know, I know, ‘I wish,' right?” Marshall had grumbled, and that had been the end of that.

And so it had been nearly seven years since I'd seen Case Spicer. And I was flattering myself to think that it mattered to him one way or the other, if at all, that I would be working in his hometown for the summer.

Probably he
'
s married.

He must feel more than a little ridiculous for all of the things he said at Camille
'
s wedding.

Shit, maybe he was so drunk he doesn
'
t even remember.

I ground out the last of my smoke and sighed, shaking my fingers through my tangled hair. I was exhausted but I knew myself well enough to realize sleep would continue to remain a stranger at present; I was too used to forcing myself to stay awake for studying. I recalled a poster in my one of my old law professor's classrooms – Sleep is Overrated.

Right
, I thought, heading back inside. In my room I clicked on the bedside lamp, caught my long hair back into a clip and snatched the Capital Overland file from one of my travel bags on the floor. I had spent my last week at the apartment in Chicago poring over all the information I could gather about this company, and its parent affiliate, Yancy Corps.

Capital Overland had been established in 1993, and had nicely capitalized on the dotcom boom in that decade. Yancy Corps had been around much longer, established in Chicago in 1893, one hundred years earlier. These days they specialized in real estate markets around the world, dabbled in stocks, and had apparently earned fortunes for their family over the past twelve decades.

I had collected numerous data, on my own and in contact with Al Howe in Jalesville, relating to the current managers of Capital Overland, two brothers named Franklin and Derrick Yancy; the younger, Derrick, was in Montana as of this moment. Apparently he was the company front man in Jalesville, a dark-haired, smooth-browed looker perhaps thirty years old. I would have bet money his hands were equally as smooth, just like Robbie Benson's; men who considered manual labor what happened when they went to the gym.