Stripped

She got out of the car. Just like that, she was gone, slamming the door behind her, hurrying down the sidewalk with her arms tightly folded across her chest. He got out, too, and chased after her.

“Serena, wait!”

She didn’t want him to catch up with her, but he did, and he spun her around and saw the river of tears on her face. Her black hair stuck to her skin. She was angry at herself. Blaming herself.

“I’m sorry,” she told him. “I cheated on you. What the hell did I expect?”

“You didn’t let me finish,” Stride said.

“I always knew you would leave. That you would wake up one day and say you were going away. Don’t you think I know you’re not happy here?”

“You’re right. I’m not.”

“I knew you’d wind up going home.”

He shook his head. “Mi

He reached out and took her hands.

“Until I found you. Home is you now.”

“But you still want to go back to Duluth,” she said softly.

“That’s true. I’m a snowman here. I melt.”

She summoned up her courage, ready to set him free. “I don’t want to keep you where you don’t want to be. Not even forme.”

He said the words he had been longing to say for days. “Come with me.”

“To Mi

“I don’t think so. Claire said it, too. You’re deeper than Vegas.”

“But this is my-” Serena began, but then she stopped. He knew she had been about to say home. Maybe she was thinking about what he had said. Or maybe she had begun to realize the depth of what he was asking her to do: to uproot herself, to commit.

People were passing by them on the sidewalk, but they were alone.

“What do you want us to be, Jo

He was afraid of saying the wrong thing. Every word felt like a land mine. “I’ve been married twice,” he reflected. “One was a perfect match. The other was a terrible mistake. I’m not scared of trying again, but I want us to be ready.”

“I have a long way to go,” Serena said. “Not because of you, but because of me.”

“I know that.”

“And you still want me to come with you?”

“That’s what I want.”

He watched the emotions battling behind her eyes and knew he had thrown her into a deep pool and asked her to swim. He knew what he was asking her to give up, the chance he was asking her to take.

It had been easy for him. At the moment he had chosen to leave Duluth a few months ago, his life had been in transition. His identity had been spirited away. In his short time in this electrified city, he had been forced to reexamine everything that had made him who he was-and who he was not.

Suddenly, he had a chance to rebuild what had been stolen from him. To go home again and make it something new.

Serena wandered away from him, back toward his truck. She stood there, with her hands jammed in her pockets, staring southward at the chaos on the Strip. He wished he could be inside her mind. He wondered if, as she absorbed the madness of the city through her green eyes, she was staring at her past or her future.

She shook her head, as if laughing at an old joke. Then she opened the truck door, got in, and leaned back out the window. “Hey, Jo

Stride smiled and went to join her. He took a glance at the warm blue sky and thought that on the shores of the great lake in Mi

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

My thanks as always go to the five amazing women who have been so instrumental in my career: my agents, Ali Gu

There are many others, too, who have made this journey possible: Carol Jackson, Diana Mackay, Kate Cooper, Stephanie Thwaites, and the entire team at Curtis Brown; Beth Goehring, Gary Jansen, Victoria Skurnick, Carole Baron, and their colleagues at Bookspan; Brigitte Weeks; Sally Richardson; Peter Newsom; the tremendous sales and publicity staff at both Headline and St. Martin’s; and the creative Web team at Designstein (Nathan, Rob, Cat, Ed, and Mark).

I have also worked with many wonderful overseas editors and salespeople at publishers around the world. Thank you all for being early and enthusiastic supporters.

This life would be impossible without great friends, such as Barb and Jerry, Keith and Judy (and the entire Bath mafia), Janean, Janice, Kris, Cindi, our friends at HSCA and Faegre & Benson, and many more.

I’m blessed to have parents who have always supported and believed in my dream, along with a great family of supporters. We may not always be near each other, but you’re all close to me in spirit.

Finally, I must thank the many booksellers who have embraced my work and the thousands of readers who have joined me, Jonathan Stride, and Serena Dial on their adventures. (Special thanks to Gail F., Bo

So far, I have always been able to reply personally to everyone who has written to me at [email protected] /* */, and I hope you will, as they say, keep those cards and letters coming. You can also visit my Web site at www.bfreemanbooks.com for more information about me, my prior and upcoming books, and my blog.

Brian Freeman