This review contains SPOILERS****

Widowed schoolteacher Holly Halloran meets her late husband Matt's best friend (hero Lukas Antonides) unexpectedly when he shows up looking for her. She had written to him about making a donation of a boat Lukas and her husband Matt shared to her school, which is what Matt would have wanted since he liked working with children. Holly has never really got on with Lukas and hasn't seen him since her wedding ten years ago to Matt. Holly and Lukas have known each other since they were children. A young Holly was best friends with Matt but then Lukas showed up and started spending time with Matt and became his best friend. So there was some childhood friction between Holly and Lukas, they argued a lot, Lukas told her to grow up, find someone else to play with, etc... But as they were growing up, under the animosity, there was also an attraction to each other neither really recognized at the time. At eighteen Holly became engaged to Matt, but on the night of her prom Matt asked Lukas to take Holly since he had broken his leg and couldn't go. On this night, on his Dad's sailboat, they found out they were very attracted to each other. Both are guilt-ridden over kissing and some heavy petting on the boat. Holly feels she betrayed Matt. Lukas does too but the reader already can tell he's confused and is falling in love with Holly. They are also very young, Holly is still in her teens, Lukas around twenty, and they have a lot of growing and maturing to do. Holly runs off, not wanting to talk to Lukas, and feeling guilty for lusting after his best friend's girl Lukas ends up moving away and neither Holly or Lukas had contact until now, over a decade later.

Holly lost her husband Matt over two years ago. Her friends are trying to get her to date again. She teaches fifth graders and is thinking of joining the Peace Corps---a two year teaching position on a small Pacific Island.

After Lukas moved away he made a fortune in opal mining---he befriended a man called Skeet who became his opal mining mentor. Now back in New York he is opening a new gallery in SoHo and heading up a charitable foundation. He didn't want to meet Holly again, but when he got her note about the boat all the old memories came back and he had to see her again. But after Holly sells her condo and temporarily moves into Lukas's building working for six weeks as his gallery manager things really heat up.

I really enjoyed this book. Lukas was a sexy and jealous hero and Holly was a strong-minded heroine. This was a sometimes sweet and sometimes sad story of love and loss set in New York with lots of sexual tension as Holly and Lukas find they can't deny their attraction to each other. ( )