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; the hair 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?”