When Love Did Come

An odyssey of the heart begins the moment college university professor Rayel Capistrano saw another man's wife in a kitchen one late April afternoon. Her name was Jennifer Tablante-Pineda, and Rayel Capistrano wanted her, wanted her more than his next breath. Something deep in his bones had whispered, "She's the one." And Jenny Pineda, in her thirty-fourth year, had heard the voice, too.

It was love the second time around between this maverick, wide-bodied, writer-engineer who still rode his beloved mountain bike from their teenage years and the introspective, brown-eyed wife of a new colleague. It called forth feelings enough to make old friends become more than friends again. It forced two people to come to terms with their lives in ways they hadn't imagined, and it led them both into magical places only lovers know. But it also brought with it the pain of choices and loss. Jenny wasn't a free woman. And Rayel Capistrano wasn't a young man, foolish with dreams; he was a mature man dead certain of the dreams he wanted.

And then one day, when the time came for him to prove his immortal love, he did what he had to do to make her his...