Bank Street Stories

I always wanted to live at the beach. It had been my dream since I was a little girl. I longed to experience the sand and sea. My heart's desire was to become a famous artist who painted scenes with palm trees and blue waters. Finally, I was moving to a coastal town. It was only three hours from where I grew up, but it might as well have been paradise with how excited I was. My sister was coming with me, except she didn't care about painting palm trees and beach scenes. She was only in it for the shirtless guys.

The first time I met Daniel King, he had a busted nose. He was also a couple of years younger than me, which seemed like a lot back then. I had always thought of him as more of a little brother or friend.

I was in high school when I fell in love with Bradley Clark, the star of the football team. Things happened with us, and I ended up being homeschooled during my senior year. I am now the single mother of a three-and-a-half-year-old boy named Mac whose football star father has never so much as met him.

Laney King had been in a relationship with Michael Elliot since they were in high school. Everyone in Galveston assumed they were destined to be together. Michael wasn't true to her, but he never thought she’d find out he had been unfaithful while he was out of town. Things didn’t turn out like Michael planned. Laney had an unexpected hero looking out for her. Though James barely knew her, he felt compelled to set things straight. He just couldn’t sit back and watch Michael mistreat her.

For some, it's love at first sight. But things don't always work like that. Sometimes people take time getting to know one another before sparks begin to fly. And people can even fall in love with someone they once considered their enemy. I, Tara Castro, could for instance, get all caught up in the magic of finding a secret room and fall madly in love with someone who I initially despised.

I had a crush on Evan King when we were kids. If I'm being totally honest, I had a crush on him all throughout high school, too. I hadn't seen him in years, and then out of nowhere, we had a chance encounter on the beach in Galveston. I was anxious to see him, but we connected under less than ideal circumstances. Evan had been through a lot, and I considered getting in touch with him after that. But in the end, I decided not to.

Lines had been drawn and sides had been taken years ago. The King family did not interact with the Elliot family, and neither did the Grahams nor the Castros. The Elliots had burned those bridges decades ago, and none of the Bank Street crew made mention of them. They certainly never ate at their restaurant. The Elliots didn't shop at King's Hardware, go to Bank Street Boxing, or the ballet studio on the corner. In fact, they didn't even go to Carson's Diner. The Elliot family stayed off of Bank Street entirely. Both families had a stake in Galveston, but they lived without supporting each other or interacting in any way.

Mac Klein had made a series of disciplined life choices. He was now thirty years old and a successful professional athlete. He certainly would never think of looking up his childhood crush on social media so he could contact her in an effort to reconnect.

My mother wrote a young adult novel that eventually became a Hollywood blockbuster hit. Somehow, during production of the movie, I became friends with the star. Heath Vick was Hollywood's favorite leading man—a heartthrob, for sure. We instantly hit it off, but he was in a long-term relationship, so we ended up being friends. Then, out of the blue, Heath decided to leave her and set his sights on me. He was rich and famous, and he assumed he would have my undivided attention the second he wanted it.

Ozzy Abramson had made a name for himself as a photographer. His specialty was portraiture, and he built beautiful scenes around the people he photographed. He had a gift for saying just the right things to get his subjects to look their best. Ozzy worked with famous actors, models, and musicians all the time. He was extremely talented and easygoing, and that only served to increase his popularity. He was obsessed with finding ways to make people look even better in photographs than they did in real life. But then he met the woman who made that task impossible.