Welcome to “At First Sight Saturday.” Today’s guest is author, Marianne Petit who gives us a ‘first sight’ scene from her book Timeless River and introduces us to hero, Wyatt and heroine, Abby. Be sure to leave a comment to let Andrea know your thoughts about the scene.

Excerpt:  When I looked out the window, I about suffered heart failure. The last person on earth I expected to see, didn’t want to see, ever, was Wyatt Beaufort, especially with his old high school cronies, all dressed to go for a swim.

“Damn, that man is a hunk.” Cindi sighed. “Can I get an amen?”

“For who? Golden boy?” I frowned, but he did look good, and so did his red Ferrari he’d parked on the dirt road. “If you like dumb jocks.” He looked better than I remembered. The buzzed blond haircut gave his square-jawed face a tough-guy appearance. His lean and muscled body would fit well on a firefighters’ calendar. Football pads, not needed, not with those shoulders. He wore colorful swim trunks, and the sun glinted off his gold Rolex. Okay. He was rich and good looking.

Cindi grinned. “You had a thing for him once upon a time.”

I gathered my hair into a ponytail. “So did every girl back then.” I tied the red strands with a rubber band and glanced at the big house sitting on top of the cliff. The Beaufort mansion, Wyatt’s ancestral home. The opulent brick house with its two white columns towered over the river valley like a queen looking down on her subjects. That pretty much summed up the Beaufort family, wealthy socialites who thought they were better than everyone else. High school crush or not, Wyatt was one of them, and I should have known better than to trust him to show up for a date.

“Come on. Let’s join them.” Cindi pushed open the car door.

Sticky summer heat swirled in and slammed into me. A rushing sensation, like a dropping elevator, seized my stomach. “You go. I’ll wait here. You know what he did to me.”

“Of course, I remember,” she said, her voice full of sympathy. “But you need to put that to bed. Really. That was over three years ago.”

“Some wounds never heal.” Foreboding nudged a thump in my chest. Cindi huffed. “You need to get over it.”

Get over being jilted? Did anyone ever get over that?

“And stop acting like a two-year-old. Besides, don’t you want to show off your new bathing suit?”

“No.” I shook my head as a subliminal warning persisted, raising the tiny hairs on the back of my neck.

“Isn’t that Pam with them? I haven’t seen her in ages.”

The excitement in Cindi’s voice soured my stomach. I didn’t want to go swimming with them, but I wouldn’t disappoint her.

The pretty brunette walking next to Wyatt had linked her arm with his in a possessive manner. Pam’s bright pink bikini showcased long shapely legs, and her round, perky boobs, obviously fake, looked like bocce balls on steroids nestled in frilly pink cupcake holders.

My own breasts felt heavy and sweaty. Feeling self-conscious, I flipped my white lace cover-up over my thigh that, next to Cindi’s, looked like a side of rare beef. No matter how much suntan lotion I used, I still burned.

She pointed to my face. “You may want to wipe your nose. You overdid the lotion again. Anyway…” She glanced in the mirror, primped her hair, and wet her lips. “I don’t want to go by myself.”

“Now who’s acting like a two-year-old?” I swiped lotion from my nose. The foreboding sensation in my chest chilled me, raising goose-bumps on my skin. Just a mixture of heat and air conditioning, I reasoned and pushed the creepy feeling away. “I’ll go. But only for a minute. Probably be the longest minute of my life,” I added under my breath.

Cindi’s long legs were already out the door.

Not having any lip balm, I slathered some lotion on my dry lips. For better or worse, I wasn’t sure, but fear made me want to slam the door shut and hide under the dash.

“You coming?” She popped a stick of gum in her mouth.

I took a deep breath, pushed open my door, and reluctantly stepped out to face the guy who had broken my heart.

Wyatt meets Abby

Walking toward the river, my friend, John, elbowed me in the ribs. “Hey, Wyatt. Check out the chicks. Some contrast, huh?”
I glanced at the tall, gorgeously tanned blonde walking toward us. Cindi Weaver. She was still as beautiful as I remembered. I’d dreaded coming home for the summer, thanks to my dad, but perhaps being here wouldn’t be so bad after all.

Pam pinched my arm. “Put your eyeballs back in your head.”

A shorter pale redhead hustled up beside Cindi. By the way she’d slathered on the lotion, I’d say she’d taken her dermatologist’s UV warning a little too seriously. “Who’s that?”

“O-M-G.” Pam’s mouth twisted into an unpleasant bow. “Don’t you remember her? Abigail Stewart. She’s the librarian over on Fair Lane.”

“Vaguely.” Actually, I didn’t remember her but wished I did. I rubbed my temple to ease a headache starting to brew. Confronting my dad, as I had earlier about football, always ended with a migraine.

John laughed. “Casper spends most of her time with her nose in a book.”

His comment about the redhead being Casper-pale made me want to slug him. If not for all the reading I did, I’d probably not be where I was today. As the women approached, I stopped under a shade tree and eyed the redhead. She had all the right curves in all the right places, cute as a bunny, and her hair trapped the sunlight in a crimson glow.

“Hi, Wyatt.” Cindi took my free hand.

I felt Pam cling to my other arm a little tighter. “Cindi, you look awesome as ever.”

“It’s been a while,” she cooed. “Do you remember Abby…er…Abigail Stewart?”

She didn’t look familiar, but I nodded anyway. “Yeah, sure.” I noticed Abby wore a frown and didn’t make eye contact, a major turn-off, then I turned back to Cindi. “What have you been up to?”

“Enjoying the summer. I hear you got into Penn State on a football scholarship.”

John looped his arm around my shoulders. “My man here was All American two years in a row.”

“It’s not a big deal.” I shoved my hand into my swim-trunks pocket and jiggled the bottle of aspirin I’d grabbed from my car, a red Ferrari I’d parked up the road under a tree. The sports car was more proof of my father’s gratitude for my football success. A full-blown migraine wasn’t far off. Despite what others saw of the popular me, I wasn’t comfortable in the limelight, even though I put up a good front for my dad and my coach and these clowns.

“We’re all proud of you, right, guys?”

Everyone nodded except Abby. She remained silent, but the look in those beautiful green eyes spoke volumes. The disgust aimed at me caused my stomach to clench like I’d been hit in the gut with a football. What is her problem? “Abby? Ah, Abigail…where do I know you from?”

She tugged at her cover-up then pulled the shoulder straps up to her neck. “I thought you said you remembered me.”

“Well, you caught me there.” I got the feeling her annoyance stemmed from more than a lapse in my memory. “Stewart. The name sounds familiar, is all.”

Abby remained mute. Her intriguing green eyes squinted at me with a revulsion I didn’t understand.

Gum cracked between Cindi’s teeth. “Abigail’s father is Dr. Stewart. He just became the head of the Neurosurgery department.” She glanced at Abby, her brows at a quirky angle like they shared some secret girl language I wasn’t privy to.

I really needed to meet her dad, maybe shadow him at the hospital because I wanted to be a doctor someday. Yeah. Like my dad would ever allow that.

Getting into med-school wouldn’t be easy. I’d been taking pre-med classes on biology, anatomy, and emergency medical procedures, CPR and trauma care, in hopes of getting a head start. Herbal remedies interested me as well, but my dad wasn’t behind me on any of this. “Go Pro, my boy. Football is your future.” I saw a white gob on Abigail’s mouth and reached out. “You’ve got some lotion…” I brushed my finger on the softness of her lower lip.

Her head jerked back.

I dropped my hand. Apparently, my touch revolted her. I wasn’t sure if that pissed me off or intrigued me more. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.”

She scowled then rubbed the lotion from her mouth.

“High school, right? We went to the same school. I should have remembered your eyes.” The emerald rings surrounding her pupils made her eyes as vibrant as the eyes of a Spanish maiden. “They’re so…green.” I wanted to say beautiful, but I doubted anything I said would deflect the darted gaze she flung my way.

“Yes.” She pursed her lips, then: “El Dorado High.”

I must’ve sounded like a jerk, talking about her eyes because she sounded annoyed.

She glanced down, adjusted her cover-up more securely around her middle, then crossed her arms over her stomach.

I couldn’t help but notice, with all the tugging and pulling of her clothing, she appeared extremely self-conscious. Yeah. I could relate. I knew what it felt like to feel uncomfortable around the opposite sex. The quiet, shy boy no girl wanted to be with still haunted me. I’d worked hard to build the macho image everyone saw: weight training, karate, and of course football. I might have overdone it.

“Wyatt, darling.” Pam tightened her arm around mine, and for the first time, I felt like pulling away from her. “I’m just dying to hear about your trip to Hong Kong. All that wonderful shopping. I’m so jealous.”

Cindi cracked her gum. “When did you go to China?”

Pam flung her hair to the back of her shoulder. “The summer after high school. He went on a tour.”

“That’s epic.”

Abby’s gaze bounced restlessly around as if she was desperate to escape the conversation.

“Did you see the Great Wall?” Pam asked, her voice a little too syrupy.

“It was a real struggle to walk up all those steps to get to the top.”

“Ah, come on.” Pam ran her hand up my arm. “I find that hard to believe. You’ve got such great stamina.” She squeezed my bicep.

Yeah. Pam had set her sights on me in high school, and I lapped up the attention like a puppy on an ice cream cone. She looked good on my arm, but as for anything serious, no way. Not gonna happen. She was too full of herself.

“An old Chinese woman had an easier time climbing the stairs than me. I gained a whole new respect for those people.”

Abby’s eyebrows were crooked, as if she were struggling to keep from telling me to shut up about China. However, an unexplainable need to impress her felt suddenly important to me.

“I wish I’d taken Chinese in high school along with my advanced Spanish classes. Would have come in handy in China.”

Abigail’s eyes widened with surprise, and a sense of satisfaction swept through me. Just because I’d gone to college on a football scholarship, women always assumed I was just a dumb jock. But then, whose fault was that? I never corrected the assumption. Seemed to me the redhead might appreciate a bilingual man.

John stared at me like I was talking Chinese. He had no idea how smart I was. Came from reading lots of books…like Abby. My mom knew how badly I wanted to use my education for something more important than football. My dad didn’t care; he only wanted to live his fantasy football career vicariously through me.

Abigail turned to Cindi. “Well, it’s hot. Are you going for a swim with me?”
“Do you mind if I hang out here?”
“I’m good.”

Before I could invite myself to go with her, Abby walked away without so much as a backward glance at me. What am I, chopped liver? I took a step in her direction only to feel Pam tug my arm.

“She really should cut back on the burgers and fries.” Pam’s voice reeked of disgust.

I glowered at her. Abby wasn’t like the anorexic women who threw themselves at me. “I like women who aren’t afraid to enjoy a meal and eat more than salads.”

Pam frowned. Salads were her food of choice. Out the corner of my eye, I saw Cindi smile then I glanced to the riverbank where Abby dropped her cover-up. Maybe she wasn’t my type, a bit too quiet, a bit too angry, but her black swimsuit fit her body perfectly. Yeah, I preferred leggy blondes, and though Abby wasn’t a blonde, she had a pair of shapely legs. And she’d challenged me with her hard-to-get attitude.

No, definitely not my type, but… I drew my gaze away from the woman who, for some strange reason, had piqued my interest and I glanced at my Rolex. 4:00 p.m. Still time to cool off and get home before dad stormed in demanding to talk to me about football again. Didn’t leave me much time to get Abby’s phone number. “What do you say, guys? Let’s all go for a swim.

Blurb:  Be careful what you wish for . . . Abigail Stewart won’t win any beauty contests, but she can talk to ghosts. One day at the river where the California gold rush started, she encounters the spirits of two children who were murdered under the blue moon of 1852. Legend has it their beautiful mother, Lolita, had drowned them in the river, but now Abby is not so sure the legend is true. Heartthrob Wyatt Beaufort is a spoiled rich-kid in college; he’s all about football and pretty women, and he doesn’t remember the date he had missed with Abby for Senior Prom, a jilt she has not forgotten. She wants nothing to do with him, but in a cruel twist, the two are whisked back in time to a harsh mining camp where Abby finds herself trapped in Lolita’s beautiful body, a woman who has eyes for Wyatt and a wicked temper. Their struggle to save the children tests the power of a mother’s love and the true meaning of inner beauty.

Buy Link:  Amazon

About Marianne:  Marianne Petit is a past President of the Long Island Chapter of the Romance Writers Of America. Her love of writing stems back to high school. She spent hours reading Nancy Drew, Alfred Hitchcock and poetry. At the age of fifteen she wrote a short story for children, as well as numerous works of poetry. Her love of history stems from her father, Roger, a Frenchman, whose love of American history greatly influenced her writing interests . She is a multi published author of Five books.  A Find Through Time, (NA Time Travel), Timeless River, Rebecca’s Ghost, Amulet of Darkness and Behind the Mask, (WWII love story)  – all available on Amazon.  Marianne is a Past District Governor of the Lions Clubs of Suffolk County LI NY, a service organization that raises money for the less fortunate – especially the sight and hearing impaired. Newsday and several local newspapers have written articles on Ms. Petit and she was  interviewed on TV for her first time travel, A Find Through Time. Marianne loves to ski, white water raft, horseback ride, and enjoys the theater. She lives on Long Island is happily married for over 40 years.

Find Marianne On Line:  Website   Facebook   Goodreads   BookBub