The exercising helped, she was sure of it. Her sister had e-mailed and suggested a low-carb diet, but Courtney preferred to make up one of her own. It was a very simple concept: she didn’t eat anything that started with the letter P. That included pasta, peanut butter, pizza, popcorn and just about everything else she’d craved in the last four years.

She routinely heard from Julianna, who e-mailed her from Alaska every day. Julianna’s stories about life at the summer lodge—her coworkers, the guests, the wildlife—were endlessly entertaining. Jason sent her encouraging messages once or twice a week, and Courtney was grateful for them. She wrote both Jason and Julianna long e-mails in exchange. She hadn’t mentioned her P diet but she boasted proudly, at least to her sister, about each pound lost.

Her father was in regular contact, too. This job in Brazil demanded a lot of his time, but she could tell he was trying hard to be there for her. She loved him for it. Now that she’d finished feeling sorry for herself, she realized how difficult this situation was for him. He desperately missed his children and talked constantly about when he’d return home. This year was destined to be the longest of all their lives.

The only problem with living in Seattle was that Courtney still hadn’t met anyone her age. After that one disaster, when she’d run into all those sleek-bodied girls from the swim team, she’d avoided the pool on Mondays and Wednesdays—which was when the team practiced.

She swam laps three mornings a week and biked on the other days. She’d even biked to her last knitting class, although her grandmother was convinced it wasn’t safe to ride a bicycle in Seattle traffic. It hadn’t been easy to go the full three miles, and she’d felt justified in congratulating herself. Riding a bike up the steep Seattle hills was a challenge. She figured Lance Armstrong would’ve been out of breath, too. At one point she’d had to stop, climb off her bike and walk when it became too much for her. Her new goal was to make it all the way up Capitol Hill without stopping. That would take practice, but she knew she’d eventually manage it.

“Are you going out again?” her grandmother asked when Courtney bounced down the stairs. She had on her shorts and T-shirt and held her helmet by the straps.

“I won’t be long, Grams.” Last week Grandma had gotten shortened to Grams. She’d decided that Grandma seemed kind of juvenile; besides, it was just too much of a mouthful.

“You be careful,” Vera cried, glancing away from the television screen long enough to warn her.

“I will, I promise.”

“When will you be back?”

Courtney glanced at her watch. “Give me an hour, okay?”

Grams didn’t answer and Courtney suspected she hadn’t heard her, which was often the case. Placing the helmet on her head and donning her gloves, Courtney went out to the garage, where she kept her bicycle.

She was on the ten-speed and wheeling along at a fast clip, the wind in her face, when she noticed a familiar figure in the parking lot of the Safeway grocery store. Bethanne saw her at the same time and raised her hand in greeting. Courtney would’ve biked past with only a wave but Bethanne called her over.

Courtney rode into the lot and approached Bethanne, who had obviously been shopping. A good-looking young man with broad shoulders and short dark hair had pushed her cart next to her car, ready to load the groceries.

“Hi,” Courtney said, a bit winded. She reached for her water bottle and took a swig.

“Courtney, I want to introduce you to my son, Andrew. He works here part-time—as you can see.” She gestured at his employee vest with its store logo.

At the last class she’d mentioned her children but Courtney hadn’t paid that much attention. Bethanne had two, she remembered—a boy and a girl.

“Hi,” Andrew said without any real enthusiasm.

“Hi.” Great, she would meet him when she was all sweaty and hot and wearing shorts. She preferred to keep her legs covered and did most of the time.

“Courtney’s in my knitting class,” Bethanne explained to her son. “She’s the girl I told you about the other day. She’ll be starting her senior year at Washington High this September.” She turned to Courtney and added, “Andrew will be a senior, too.”

“At Washington?”

He nodded.

“Didn’t you say you had an extra ticket to the Mariners’ game this evening?” Bethanne asked her son, and then before he even had a chance to answer, she said, “You should invite Courtney. She hasn’t met many kids here, and it would be a great way for her to get to know your friends.”

“You don’t need to do that,” Courtney rushed to tell him, embarrassed that Bethanne had put her son in such an awkward position.

“You want to come?” Andrew asked her.

“I guess.” Although she sounded like it was no big deal, it was. Inside she was doing cartwheels but she dared not let it show.

“You’ll pick her up, won’t you?” Bethanne said.

“If I can have the car.” From his tone, taking the car had been a contentious issue.

Bethanne grinned. “All right, all right, you can have the car.”

Andrew got Courtney’s address and phone number, and promised to call later in the afternoon once he was off work.

Courtney was so excited she couldn’t bike home fast enough. Andrew was totally cool and cute and just the kind of guy she’d hoped to meet. The game was hours away but she had a thousand things to do first.

By the time Courtney got back to the house, her grandmother had lunch on the table. She grabbed an apple, bit off a huge chunk and raced up the stairs.

“Hey,” Grams shouted after her, “where are you headed?”

“I met someone. Bethanne’s son.” When Vera looked a little puzzled, she added, “Bethanne? From the knitting class?” Courtney took a deep breath. “I’m going to the Mariners’ game this evening.”

“That isn’t for hours yet.”

“I know,” she yelled from the top of the stairs, “but I need to shower and everything. Oh Grams, what should I wear?” Silly question. Grams was sweet, but she knew next to nothing about fashion. “Never mind,” Courtney said, “I’ll figure it out.”

After her shower, Courtney changed clothes about fifteen times, weighing herself with each outfit and then doing a complete and thorough evaluation in front of the mirror. In the end she decided on jeans and a white tank-top with a yellow flowered overshirt. She weighed more in this outfit than one of the others, but the yellow shirt made her eyes darker and set off her dark-brown hair. It was her best choice.

Andrew phoned at five and said he’d be by in thirty minutes to pick her up for the six o’clock game. Courtney didn’t want to appear too eager by waiting outside, but she didn’t want him to have to come inside and get her, either. This wasn’t like a date or anything. She compromised by watching for him out the living room window. As soon as he pulled up in front, she kissed her grandmother on the cheek and dashed out the door.

“Have a good time,” Grams called after her.

“I will.” This was so much better than sitting in her room or surfing the Internet for hours. And television in the summer was just plain bad.

Andrew leaned over and opened the passenger door for her. “Hi,” he said, again without a lot of enthusiasm.

“Hi! Thanks for including me.”

Courtney was already in the front seat before she realized someone else was in the car. “Hi,” she said, twisting around as she grabbed the seat belt.

“That’s Annie, my sister. She’ll be a junior this year. Annie, Courtney.”

Courtney’s automatic smile faded as she recognized Andrew’s sister. Annie was the girl from the swim team who’d been staring at Courtney and whispering with her friend. All she could do was hope that Annie didn’t recognize her with her clothes on. Apparently she didn’t, because she made no reference to that day at the pool.

“Andrew and Mom forced me into going to this game with him,” the girl muttered.

That was in case Courtney assumed Annie had joined them for the fun of it, she suspected.

“How long have you been in Seattle?” Andrew asked after casting his sister a hard look.

“A couple of weeks. I’m living with my grandmother.” Courtney talked about her dad’s work situation for a few minutes, and the importance of this Brazilian bridge. She said her brother was in graduate school and her sister in college and working in Alaska for the summer. She told them that she’d hated to leave Chicago and her friends. She was sure she’d given them more information than they wanted, but it was just so good to be with her own kind.

“Are your parents divorced?” Annie asked from the backseat.

Courtney went still. “My mom died in a car accident four years ago.”

“Bummer,” Andrew said sympathetically.

“Yeah.” All of a sudden, she didn’t have anything more to say and Andrew and Annie didn’t, either. The silence in the car seemed to vibrate.

“I wish Dad had died.” Annie spoke in a low voice.

“Don’t say that,” Andrew barked.

“I mean it!” Her anger was explosive.

“Our parents were recently divorced, but I suppose Mom mentioned that,” Andrew said by way of explanation.

“Just in the first class.” The other thing Courtney knew was that Bethanne needed to find a job.

“Our father’s a jerk!” Annie said in a near-shout.

“My sister didn’t take it well,” Andrew added under his breath.

“I can hear you,” Annie snorted from the backseat.

They parked on a side street and climbed out of the car. Annie stared at her and Courtney held her breath, praying the other girl had forgetten where she’d seen her. No such luck.

“I know you,” Annie said, eyeing her.

Courtney’s heart fell. “Maybe you saw me when your mother came to knitting class,” she suggested hopefully, but a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach refused to go away.

“I know,” Annie said triumphantly. “You were at the swimming pool, weren’t you? The early-morning session with all the old ladies.” Then she leaned close and said in a loud stage whisper, “You don’t need to worry about running into me again. I quit the team last week. Mom doesn’t know yet and Andrew won’t tell her because we have a deal.”

Andrew’s gaze narrowed on his sister.

“He wanted to be sure I came along when he took you to the game,” Annie gleefully reported. “He was afraid his girlfriend would find out.”

“Shut up, would you,” Andrew snapped at Annie. He threw Courtney an apologetic glance.

“It’s not a problem,” she assured him, and it wasn’t.

CHAPTER 14

“There’s magic in pulling loops through loops, whether between the limbs of a knitted tree house, or shaped to fit the geography of a foot.”

LYDIA HOFFMAN

I could hardly wait for Brad to make his neighborhood deliveries and come to the store. I’ve read my share of romance novels, so I can say with authority that if ever there was a romantic hero, it’s Brad. Because I’ve lived with cancer from the time I was sixteen, I’ve been absorbed by threats and fears. But despite my terrible scare last year, my life had never been better and for someone like me that’s a little frightening—as though feeling confident and happy is testing fate, somehow.