A little bit of the confidence I had gained from the mere fact that he came to see me fizzles because his voice sounds a bit desperate and lost. His eyes are sad and tired, and I’m now wondering…maybe he just wants to tie up loose ends. Part as friends, maybe?

“I had forgotten,” I say quietly as I reach one hand out to tug on the hem of his jeans. I fiddle with the material and look back up at him. “I had forgotten what led me to you in the first place.”

“What do you mean?” he asks curiously.

“I don’t think I ever told you…but pretty soon after I accepted your invitation for that first date…I had decided to sleep with you that night.”

Garrett’s lips tilt up beautifully and his eyes widen in surprise. “Hussy.”

“I know. It was so not me,” I say with a blush.

“So why did you do it?”

“Because I wanted to live. I wanted to feel, and be free, and I wanted to have fun…pleasure…orgasms. I wanted to be with a beautiful man who made me feel sexy and desired. I wanted it all so I could push the cancer out of my mind.”

“And you were hooked after that first orgasm, right?” he says, a little too loudly, because the woman next to us sort of jerks in her seat and coughs into her hand.

“I was hooked before that first orgasm,” I whisper to him with a laugh. “But I had forgotten that. I got so swept up in fear that I forgot that I needed to live. My glass went from half-full to half-empty. And Garrett…please believe me…I never did it to hurt you. I was trying to avert a deeper kind of pain. I did it out of love.”

Garrett’s eyes lower and he twiddles his thumbs together in thought. When he looks back up at me, he says, “I think, deep down, the reason I never was in a relationship before was because I didn’t want to get hurt. I mean…yeah, I was hurt by my high school girlfriend, but I think as I got older, and I realized what was important in my life, I think I subconsciously focused only on those things that were safe and made me feel good. But that all seemed to melt away when I met you. And then I fell in love, and I couldn’t see my life without you in it. When you cut me out…it really hurt. And then I got angry. I’m sorry that I hurt you back. It was wrong of me to do that.”

“You’re forgiven,” I tell him with a soft smile. “I’m sure I deserved it.”

“You deserve the world,” he murmurs, and my heart melts for him.

Playing-hard-to-get time is over with. Not that I was doing a good job at it.

I push at Garrett’s feet and he takes them down, sitting up in his chair. Standing up, I grab my IV pole and push it a little closer to Garrett. In two steps, I’m between his legs, staring down at him. He looks back at me with his eyes shining brightly, his head tilted to the side.

Raising a hand up, I touch him softly on the face, and I’m rewarded as his eyes close and he sighs in pleasure.

“I love you,” I tell him, and watch as his eyelids flutter open, those impossibly long lashes only making his green eyes pop brilliantly at me.

“I love you too,” he says with a smile.

“Good,” I say firmly, and then turn so I can sit on his lap. He doesn’t hesitate, swinging my legs up and turning me to the side. He carefully arranges the IV line so it doesn’t get tangled, and then his arms wrap around me snugly. I lay my head on his chest and he kisses me on top of my head.

“I missed you,” I say, rubbing my cheek against him.

“Never again, right?” he asks, his fingers stroking the skin on my arm.

“Never again,” I agree. “Not getting rid of me.”

“Damn right,” he says. “We have our whole lives ahead of us.”

“Yes,” I say dreamily, confident in my future existence with this man. “We both have a whole lot of living to do.”

Epilogue

Olivia

FORTY-ONE YEARS LATER

“Grandma…hurry up so we can cut the cake,” Tamara squeals at me as she tugs on the hem of my dress.

Giving my hands a quick wash in the sink, I dry them and then turn to pick her up. Hoisting her little four-year-old body up high, I bring her back down to rest on my left hip. Yeah…I’m still pretty damn spry at sixty-six years of age.

“Want some cake, huh?” I ask as I tweak her on the nose.

She nods at me, her little blond ringlets bouncing up and down.

“Okay, but we have to find Grandpa,” I tell her seriously.

“He’s already sitting by the cake outside. He told me to come in and get you. Said to get your beautiful ass out there.”

“He said what?” I ask in mock outrage.

“He said—” she starts to repeat, but I lean in and blow a raspberry on her neck to stop the words. One curse word is fine…two reinforces it in her vocabulary, and I don’t want her preschool teacher freaking out and blaming her parents.

Tamara giggles as I walk out of the kitchen, through the large den, and out toward the back deck. I glance around our house, loving the country-chic flair that Garrett indulged me in when we bought it almost thirty years ago.

We settled in Denver, because after playing with the Cold Fury for seven years, he got traded to the Blue Devils and he lived out the rest of his hockey career here. By the time he retired, our kids were in middle school and we loved the area, so this is where we decided to stay. We still get back to North Carolina frequently to visit Alex and Sutton, and they come here a lot, but I miss them.