Chapter 1

Jacque Pierce sat in the window seat in her bedroom, watching her neighbors' house across the street. I'm not really being nosy, she thought to herself. Just curious.

“Yeah,” she snorted. Only if you call curious having your eyes glued to your neighbors' house like a hound on the hunt. Oh, well. I can call a spade 'a spade' tomorrow morning, she told her conscience.

The Henrys were having a foreign exchange student stay with them this year. They didn’t have any children of their own and Jacque didn’t know if that was by choice or because they weren’t able to have children. Either way, Jacque was here to get the nitty-gritty on the situation and report to her best friends afterward.

So here she sat, scoping out the neighbors house with her lights turned off and blinds cracked just enough to see. To top off her James Bond experience, she even had binoculars! Now if she only had the nifty background music to go along her shenanigans.

She'd been sitting in her window for an hour and was just about to give up when a black stretch limo pulled to the curb. Now isn’t this strange? she thought. A foreign exchange student arriving in a limo? She put the binoculars to her face and adjusted them to get a better look, settling them over the passenger door to see who would emerge. She knew this was a little much, but honestly, in a town of 700 there just wasn’t a whole lot of excitement and Jacque would take it where she could get it.

The driver got out of the limo to open the back door, but it was already opening, and the boy who stepped out of that limo had to be the most beautiful guy she'd ever seen. And that was only his profile. Wow, I mean wow, was all Jacque could think. Jacque couldn’t even imagine what his entire face must have looked like. He was tall, probably six foot one or so, and his hair was jet black. It was longer on top and she could tell that he had bangs that fell across his face. They swept to the left, partially covering that eye. He had broad shoulders and, from what she could see of his profile, high cheek bones, a straight nose, and full lips. She realized her mouth had dropped open and she was all but drooling over this guy. She shut it and watched as he and his driver conversed. It all seemed very formal until the driver hugged the boy with obvious deep affection. He must be more than just his driver, Jacque thought.

Suddenly, the boy turned as if he had heard what she was thinking and looked straight at her window, straight at her. Jacque froze, unable to look away from the mesmerizing blue eyes that held her. All her thoughts seemed to fade into the distance and she thought she heard the words: “At last, my Jacquelyn.”

Jacque shook her head, trying to clear the haze that had filled it. After she came to her senses from the intense stare, she recapped in her mind what his face had looked like. She was right about the cheekbones, nose, and lips. What she wasn’t prepared for was that his crystal blue eyes now seemed to glow in the moon light; thehair that fell across his forehead and over his eye only added to his mysteriousness. Overall he had a very masculine, very beautiful face.

The shirt he was wearing was black and, thanks to her handy dandy binoculars, she was able to see that it fit tightly and showed off a muscular chest and flat stomach. He had a black leather biker jacket on, but past that she couldn’t see because the car was in the way. She imagined his legs were every bit as nice as the rest of him.

When she looked back at the street, the mysterious guy was walking into the Henrys' house. As she saw the door close she heard the voice again.

“Soon.”

Jacque sat there for a few minutes, trying to get her brain to work again. Everything seemed so hazy. After blinking what felt like a thousand times, she pulled herself together, picked up the phone, and dialed Jen’s number.

Three rings later Jen answered. “What’s the word?”

Jacque took a slow breath and said “I think you better come over.”

“I’m there, chick. See ya in 5,” Jen answered and hung up.

Jacque grinned to herself. It was great to have a friend you could always depend on to be there when you needed her.

Jacque picked up the phone again and called Sally, who answered after only one ring. She had obviously been diligently manning the phone, waiting for Jacque to call with details on the latest small town drama.

“Jen is on her way over,” Jacque said. “I need you to come too. We need to talk.”

“Okay,” Sally simply said and hung up.

Fifteen minutes later, the three friends were gathered on Jacque’s bedroom floor, hot chocolate in hand, because how can you have a girl powwow without hot chocolate?

“So fill it and spill it,” Jen said.

“Okay,” Jacque said, taking a deep breath. “So I’m sitting in my window seat, shades cracked, lights off, binoculars in hand…”

“Binoculars? Really, you honestly were using binoculars?” Sally interrupted.

“Well, you said you wanted details, so I was giving you details,” Jacque defended.

“Oooh, did you have the Mission Impossible sound track playing in the background? Cuz that would have been spy-tastic,” Jen said enthusiastically.

“Actually,” Jacque said distractedly, “I was thinking more James Bond-ish. You know, with the whole stakeout thing…”

“No, huh-uh. That would be more like Dog the Bounty Hunter type stuff. But you couldn’t be Beth, ‘cause you’re not stacked enough on top. You would have to be baby Lisa…” Jen rattled on.

“You are so, so not comparing me to Dog the Bounty Hunter’s daughter right now. And why are we talking about this anyway, because it is sooooo NOT the point!” Jacque growled in frustration.