No Matter What

Chapter One

J.D.

With the first strands of daylight breaking through the mini blinds that covered his bedroom window, J.D. cracked open his eyelids and sneaked a look at the alarm clock sitting on his night stand. It was early, just after six in the morning. He didn’t have to be at work until four that afternoon, but he was up just the same. He’d never been one to sleep away his day. The moment Toby spotted him stirring he came to push his cold, wet nose eagerly into J.D.’s face.

“Okay, I’m getting up,” J.D. told his chocolate lab.

Stretching the last bit of sleep from his body, he rose from his bed and dressed in a pair of jogging shorts and a T-shirt. Once he’d pulled on his socks and tennis shoes, he brushed his teeth. Finally, he grabbed Toby’s leash from the kitchen counter.

“You ready to go?” J.D. asked, and Toby wagged his tail in excited response.

J.D. laughed as he hooked the leash through Toby’s collar and they headed out the front door for their morning jog. It was the same way they started every morning, and it wasn’t long before they fell in to an easy cadence. The streets were quiet, allowing him to settle in to his thoughts. In the distance, he spotted a woman out walking her dog. She was coming from the direction he and Toby were moving in. 

“Hey there,” she called as he and Toby drew toward her. Her voice was husky, and her lips formed a seductive smile at the completion of her greeting.

“Hey,” J.D. called back, trying to keep Toby tight against him without breaking stride.

“Nice,” she murmured under her breath as he jogged past her.

J.D. gave in to a small grin of pride. That spark of pride put an extra bounce in his step, and he picked up the pace just a little. It wasn’t the first time he’d been privy to such a reaction from the opposite sex. As soon as he’d hit college, he’d undergone a transformation from ugly duckling to swan that had boosted his confidence. He always had a good starting block; tall and blond with blue eyes, but overnight, he seemed to blossom in to some universal type that appealed to all women.

Initially, he welcomed the attention and liked the way it felt to have women fawning over him. Eventually it lost its luster, and he began to long for something more; he began to long for her. He’d been dreaming of her since he was twenty years old, and he searched the faces of every woman in the world to find her. Although he had no hard evidence that she was real, J.D. believed in his heart that one day, he’d be with her.

It was that belief that kept him going and kept him single. It was also the same belief that drove his mother crazy, not that she knew the real reason her handsome and successful son was still single at age thirty-five. As far as his family was concerned, he preferred being a playboy and basking in bachelorhood, but it couldn’t have been further from the truth. The truth was that he was waiting for her. The only thing of substance he knew was her name, first whispered to him in a dream fifteen years ago.