Jared followed his father’s gaze down the chain-link fence securing the demolition area, where the wind had kicked up dust and debris. A woman in a bright red sweatshirt and Red Sox cap on backward was perched rooster-like atop a fence post. She had a camera strapped around her neck and was snapping pictures.

“I’ll go see,” Jared volunteered.

Coming closer, he saw the messy chestnut braid trailing halfway down her back and her holey jeans and sneakers. Had to be one of Boston ’s countless students. The woman jumped down from the fence post, landing lightly just inside the demolition area. She had a nice shape under her ratty clothes.

“I wouldn’t stand in there without a hard hat on if I were you,” he said.

She looked around at him, her eyes a lively shade of blue, her face angular and attractive and oddly familiar. “Of all people,” she said under her breath, then climbed as fast as a monkey back up the fence, paused on the post and hopped down beside him. Her Red Sox cap came off, and loose hairs blew in her face. “What’re you doing here?”

“I’m with the press conference,” he said formally, bothered by her face. Did he recognize her? “My name’s Jared Sloan. Look, this area’s posted and-”

“I know who you are.”

“Your face is familiar-”

She swept her cap up off the ground and grinned at him. “I would hope so.”

And suddenly Jared recognized her. He’d probably known, on a gut level, when he’d first spotted her. The face, the eyes, the brazenness-he had never forgotten them. But if there was anyone he didn’t expect to find in Boston, it was Rebecca Blackburn.

“R.J.,” he said.

She was already heading back out across Atlantic Avenue and failed to hear him.

The Winstons had arrived, and the press conference was about to begin. Jared was supposed to line up for the obligatory family photo; he could see his father looking around for him. Quentin, suntanned and wearing a conservative suit that made him look forty, caught his cousin’s eye and waved. Jared pretended not to see him. His Aunt Annette glanced at her watch. She was forty-five and, Jared suspected, relished being chairman of a thriving corporation, but she’d be the last to say so. Jared remembered her as more of a free spirit, not the unapproachable, gray-suited grande dame she was playing these days. He wondered if power did that to people. Or just widowhood and its responsibilities. For certain, she wouldn’t appreciate his cutting out on her.

He didn’t care. They could go on without him.

He ran after Rebecca.

She’d cut down a side street and was at a corner when he caught up with her, impatiently waiting to cross a narrow street clogged with traffic. “I remember,” Jared said, sidling up next to her, “when you couldn’t wait to be old enough to cross a street by yourself.”

She fastened her bright eyes on him. “Hello, Jared.”

He grinned. “Hello, R.J.”

“What jogged your memory?” she asked. “You haven’t seen me since I was eight.”

She was all of nineteen now. “You haven’t changed. Can I buy you a cup of coffee?”

She didn’t even hesitate. “Sure. And I’ll buy an order of French fries. We’ll share.”

They found a Brigham’s and sat opposite each other in a booth with their coffee and fries, and the decade since Jared had held back his tears and watched the Blackburn moving truck trundle down West Cedar Street melted away. They talked about San Francisco and Florida and her five brothers and his two half-sisters. Jared said something that amused Rebecca, and in her laugh he heard the echo of the little kid he’d played with, bugged, tolerated and rescued so long ago, not in terms of years, but in how much their lives had changed since. Especially hers.

“How’s your Blackburn grandfather these days?” he asked.

She didn’t avert her eyes, but he could see she was tempted. “Fine.”

“It took courage for him to stay on Beacon Hill. What your mother did took a different kind of courage. Everyone thought Thomas would sell the house and retire to Maine or someplace. It can’t have been easy for him living around the corner from my aunt.”

Rebecca was squinting her so-blue eyes at him. “Thomas?”

Jared grinned. “He insisted on my calling him by his first name.”

“When?”

“A few years ago. I went to college here, and he had me over every now and then for dinner with him and his boarders. Usually served some dish of the flaming-esophagus variety.”

“Sunday nights?”

“Generally, yeah. R.J., what’s wrong?”

She shrugged. “I guess I’m just jealous. I missed so many years with him-by his choice and my mother’s, maybe even a little of mine. You had him when I didn’t.”

“He’s only in his midsixties. He’ll probably outlive us all.” Jared winced at his insensitivity, considering her father’s untimely death. “I’m sorry…”

“No, don’t be. Wounds heal, Jared. I’m not angry with my grandfather for what happened to my father and your uncle. I wish I understood more about it, but-”

“But Thomas won’t tell you.”

“That’s right. And I can’t force him. It must be horrible, having to live with that guilt. No matter what happened, I don’t think Dad would’ve wanted that. Look, you’re missing your press conference.”

“No problem,” Jared said quickly, not wanting to leave. “By the way, what were you doing there? I won’t flatter myself you came because you knew I’d be around.”

She laughed. “No, I was taking pictures for a noncredit photography class I’m taking, but I really came because of the design studio your father hired. I was hoping to scarf up a press kit.”

“That can be arranged. You’re an art major?”

“Political science and history.”

“A true Blackburn.”

She shook her head. “I’m on the ‘wrong’ side of the Charles River.”

“I just thought of something,” he said suddenly, half-lying. In truth, he’d been toying with this idea since he’d realized R.J. wasn’t going to tell him to go to hell and be done with him. “There’s a party of sorts tonight to celebrate today’s groundbreaking on the new building. I didn’t think to invite anyone. Would you care to go?”

Sitting back, Rebecca eyed him with that vaunted Blackburn incisiveness. “As your date, you mean?”

Jared coughed. “Well, yes.”

“If you’d told me you’d be asking me on a date when I was eight years old, I’d have…I don’t know, kicked you in the shins or something.” She peeled a snarled rubber band off the end of her braid and shook loose her hair, and Jared shifted on his bench, properly dazzled. She added, “I’d love to go. Is this thing a hotsy-totsy party?”

He laughed. “As hotsy-totsy as they come.”

“Then I’d better start tracking down a dress.”

She started out of the booth, but Jared put a hand on her wrist. “R.J.-I’m glad you don’t hate me.”

The smile she gave him was surprisingly gentle and filled with memories. “How could I?”

Rebecca didn’t own a party dress. A short denim skirt, yes. Jeans, sweatshirts, turtlenecks, sneakers and knee socks, yes. But no party dress. Sofi, however, had a solution, and it arrived an hour before Jared was to pick her up in the form of Alex, a theater arts major who, Sofi announced, would dress her. Before Rebecca could make a decent protest, Alex was at her closet.

He didn’t stay there long. “Your farm-girl look’s a no-go. It’s a wonder there’s not a pitchfork in there.”

“You didn’t dig back far enough,” Rebecca told him.

“Funny, funny.”

He tried Sofi’s closet. Rebecca warned him that nothing would fit her wildly different frame, but Alex was undeterred. He hauled out hangers dripping with skirts, blouses and dresses-and rejected everything.

Sofi was insulted. “What’s wrong with my clothes? I bought half that stuff at Bloomingdale’s!”

“Too New York. We want Boston. Something elegant and understated. Something that says old money.”