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“Guess who?”

Reena lifted her hands to cover the ones over her eyes. “Dan?”

“Who?”

She had to laugh at the outraged expression on his face. “Sorry. I mean, Brian! You’re here!” She patted his cheek. “And you’re cute when you’re gullible and angry.”

“Ha ha.” Brian rolled his eyes but leaned in to lay his lips over hers in a kiss that left her breathless and holding onto him. “Who’s Dan?” he asked as he broke the kiss gently.

“Huh?” She had to press a hand to her head to keep it from floating away. “Dan who?”

He chuckled. “That’s what I thought.”

Reena’s eyes cleared and her head settled back on her shoulders. “You think you’re so funny.” She picked up her camera again. “I’ll bet your ego’s the size of the moon now that you think your kiss blew me away, right?” She sniffed. “Well, forget it.”

“You telling me that it didn’t?”

She turned around again. “For your information,” she began, but he interrupted her with another searing kiss, and she found she had no choice but to wrap her arms around him and let him hold her close. “Brian,” she murmured between kisses.

“I missed you,” he whispered against her lips, cutting off any protest she might have had. Just seeing her standing on the overlook with her camera had backed up the breath in his lungs. He’d felt as though he’d been punched. In the heart, he thought now. Because that was what she held now. His heart.

She wanted to shrug it off, but pressed her face to his throat to breathe him in. “You saw me last night.”

“Doesn’t matter.” He pressed a kiss to her hair. “Not being with you all the time is getting to be unbearable.” He leaned her back to look into her eyes. “Reena, what are we doing to each other?”

Reena framed his face with her hands. “Does it matter? I like the way I feel when you’re around, and I like that I think about you every other second when you’re not around. I like you, Brian. More than I’d expected to.”

He turned his face into her hand to press a kiss to her palm. “I like you, too.” He grinned, wanting to lighten the intensity that was building in his chest. “You know what else I like?”

She smiled. “What?”

Brian lifted a brown paper bag. “Food!”

He’d brought a picnic blanket, and they settled onto a grassy knoll not too far from the falls. Though they couldn’t see them, they could hear the patter of water, and Reena appreciated the ambience of the chirping birds, pretty sunlight, and the green of the surrounding forest. When Brian pulled out a basket of chicken, she cracked up.

“This is your attempt at cooking, huh? The Colonel?”

Brian feigned hurt and pouted. “Hey! I taught the Colonel all he knows about fried chicken, so you take that remark back.” He poked her knee.

“Nope. I don’t believe you,” Reena replied and took a piece. “Mmm. Man, they sure know how to make chicken down South.”

“I told you, it was all me,” Brian insisted. “Therefore, it’s not southern, it’s all New Hampshire.”

Reena rolled her eyes and kept eating. “Whoever did it, it’s good. So thank you.” She kissed his cheek. “Now you have a greasy lip mark on you.”

He narrowed his eyes then caught her mouth with his. “Mmm-hmm!” He smacked his lips together. “And I taste good chicken, too! You’re forgiven.”

“Like there was anything to forgive,” she muttered but smiled nevertheless. “So what have you been up to today? What havoc have you wreaked?”

“Havoc?” Brian turned indignant. “I do not wreak havoc. I am a well-mannered gentleman, therefore I could not possibly wreak any kind of havoc.” He paused. “I had a practice for my team this morning. We’ve got Regionals coming up, and I want to be ready. Other than that, I was helping Callie and Kevin out for a half hour with stuff for the legend.”

“Oh?” Reena’s ears perked up. “What about the legend?”

Brian leaned back against a tree trunk and frowned at the chicken leg he held. “They’re almost desperate to find the answer to breaking the spell. I don’t really think I helped out any, but it’s always interesting to look back at the Seven Falls history. We may be a small town, but we’ve got a rich past.”

She was beginning to see it. “And you’re proud of it.”

He wiped his fingers off and poured both of them the sparkling cider he’d brought along. “I am proud of it. I don’t think I’d want to live anywhere but right here.” He handed her the cup. “After college, I would go on little trips here and there because I felt like there was something I needed to find, that maybe Seven Falls wasn’t the place I was meant to be.”

“But it is.”

Brian laced his fingers with hers. “Yeah, it is. It took a few trips to the other side of the world before I came back and realized that this is where my heart really is. This,” he gestured to the forest, “this is home. And so here is where I’m going to stay for always.”

“I think it’s happy to have you,” Reena murmured.

“I hope so.” His fingers tightened on hers. “I’m glad you’re here, Reena. Whatever brought you here, whatever happened in the past—I’m glad it happened because it’s brought you here. To me.”

His eyes were intense as they held hers. “Brian.” She raised their joined hands to her lips. “I’m glad I’m here, too.”

“Good.” His smile was huge and bright as he cleared up their picnic and tugged her to her feet. “I want to show you the rest of the Falls. Behind the scenes, of course. It occurred to me that last night was your first time back there, and you didn’t get to have fun walking back there.”

She remembered the previous evening. “Actually, I did have fun.”

“No, no. I mean real fun. You know, without all the lovey-dovey stuff,” he explained. “Plain and simple fun.”

“Oh.” Well, in that case. “Sure. Lead on, oh tour guide.” She gestured in the direction of the falls and let Brian drag her down the path.

Walking behind the falls was certainly an experience that Reena had never experienced before moving to the enchanting town that she now considered home. True, she’d been back there once before, but her thoughts had been so troubled with the prospects of her meeting with Brian that she hadn’t really taken notice of the sheer beauty of the site.

The rock walls were unyielding as water tumbled over them, and the path seemed like a miracle that had been carved into the side of the rising stone. It was just wide enough for one person to walk very carefully along, and, at the moment, Reena was glad it was Brian who was walking in front of her to guide. The path wasn’t completely behind the waterfalls at all times for there were small spaces along the way that were dry between the falls and sunlight shone upon them. Though Brian had warned her not to look down, she had and had found that she could see nothing but the foaming liquid at the bottom of the waterfalls’ descent. Instead of scaring her, she was awed.

“Let’s stop here,” Brian suggested, ushering her into a small cove behind one of the falls.

Reena looked around as she settled onto the slightly damp floor. “Which fall are we behind? I think I lost count.”

“I think you were too busy being in awe to remember to count,” he corrected her. She shrugged. “We’re behind Saturday Fall, so we’re a day ahead of ourselves.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Reena murmured. “I never thought I’d actually see what was behind a waterfall. I remember going to Niagara Falls once, and there was a tour that would take you to this small cave behind the one waterfall. I wanted to go, but I was so terrified that I chickened out and didn’t go.”

Brian sat next to her and, looping an arm around her shoulders, pulled her against him. “How old were you?”

She rested her head against his shoulder and decided she’d love to freeze the moment and live in it for the rest of her life. “I was a sophomore in college. My friends and I were nearly broke, but we splurged and rented a car to drive up to Niagara during spring break. I always thought those waterfalls were the most amazing natural wonder that I’d ever see.”

“But?”

She smiled. “I was wrong. The Seven Falls are just as incredible because they have the legend to go along with them. It adds mystique.”

“It does.” He nodded, and then, because he felt the need rippling through him, tilted her chin up and laid his lips over hers in a kiss that tasted of hopes, dreams, and soft, lovely wishes.

But Reena astonished him and turned the kiss from gentle into something so much more suited to the dark. And, Brian realized dimly, to the legend. In an instant, they went from just holding each other to grappling with buttons and zippers.

“I feel like I’m a teenager again,” Reena gasped as Brian’s hands streaked under her shirt to caress her skin. She tugged his denim jacket off and pressed her lips to his throat in a line of kisses.

He’d never felt the punch of lust quite so forcefully as it was hitting him at the moment, and Brian struggled with the buttons of her shirt with fingers that seemed to have suddenly become incredibly clumsy.

“Holy God, I think I’m gonna die if I don’t have you, Reena,” he muttered, his lips finding hers again.

She pushed his hands away. “Here. Here, Brian. I can…Lord, I need you to touch me.”

“Where?” But his hands ran the length of her torso beneath the shirt she was now struggling to unbutton. When his lips brushed along her jaw to return to her lips, he sank into the kiss. He had never thought a kiss could taste so sweet, so perfect…So right. Not until Reena. He needed more.

“Brian?”

As suddenly as the passion had come, it vanished. Both of them froze, their eyes drifting to the entrance of the cove. Juliet stood, one hand pressed to the wall, her eyes glittering with unshed tears.

“I’m sorry.” Her voice was low but trembled. “I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

Brian scrambled himself together. “No, wait. Juliet. You, ah, you’re not…”

“Don’t, Brian. Just don’t.” Juliet could do nothing more but stare between the man she loved and a woman she had begun to consider a friend. They were disheveled, but it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what was happening. Her gaze returned to Brian, sharpened. “I guess I know who you were talking about now.”

He tugged his jacket back on and barely glanced at Reena, who had buttoned and pulled herself back together. “Juliet. What I said yesterday was the truth. I didn’t and don’t want to hurt you.”

“Of course not.” The tears were falling now and blinding her. She turned away from them. “I’m sorry. I have to go.” And she stumbled out.

“Brian, we have to get her.” Reena’s voice reached him, and, not sparing her a glance, he rushed out after Juliet.

His heart was pounding as he followed Juliet’s retreating figure. The path was slippery with the spray and if a person was to slip…No. Brian pushed the thought aside. He just needed to make sure she got out of the falls safely. Then he could talk to her, hopefully more rationally than the short exchange had just been.

His pulse tripled as Juliet seemed to stumble. “Juliet! Stop! Please, don’t run! It’s too dangerous!”

Her sobs reached him over the roar of the water. “Leave me alone. Just leave me alone.”

Reena knew that she’d see the scene in slow motion for the rest of her life and always, always wonder if she could have done anything differently.

Juliet was hurrying along the path in one of the sunlit sections and, just as the path was about to duck behind the water again, she tripped.

Brian’s vision grayed at the edges as he watched her sway, and the prayers fell from his lips rapidly.

They were in vain.

Instead of falling forward, Juliet fell over the edge of the path. Her scream was echoing and ended as quickly as it had begun.