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  He’d loved who she was. He’d loved her with all his aching heart. “You turned out amazing,” he whispered through a rough throat. “In spite of all the odds.”

  “No. Not then. Then, I was a coward.” Her gaze was steady but shimmered with regret. “What we had scared me, Sam. So damned much.”

  Ah, hell. He stroked a finger over her temple, drawing a loose strand of hair back out of her face. “I would never have hurt you, Sara.”

  “I knew that, deep down I knew that, but fear isn’t always logical.”

  And he knew that, too.

  “I just wanted…” She sighed. “I needed to tell you how sorry I am, for how I left, for staying gone, for not contacting you, all of it. I ran away, Sam, and I’m so damned sorry.”

  He wished she hadn’t. There was no denying that. But…he needed to know that it would be different this time. It wasn’t enough to be sorry. “It was a long time ago. You had a crappy childhood, and looking back, running away to Paris made perfect sense.”

  “I’m just so sorry… I…”

  Sorry again. Not “I’ve changed.” Not “I want you, Sam.” Not “I’ll do whatever it takes to make it work this time.” And he realized that there could be nothing between them without those words. He sighed. “It’s okay, Sara. Honestly. You can stop apologizing. I’m fine, I’ve moved on.”

  And until today, he’d actually believed it. He hoped she believed it, too.

  CHAPTER 18

  He’d moved on. Dammit. This wasn’t going to work. He didn’t want her back in his life.

  Sara felt her eyes sting, her throat burn. She never cried, ever. “Don’t make this easy for me.” She sat up, wrapping her arms around herself, looking over at her icy, wet clothes. “I don’t deserve your forgiveness.”

  “Yes, you do.” He put a hand on her back. “Everyone deserves that much. Sara.”

  She closed her eyes.

  With a groan, he sat up as well, and reached for her, but she tugged free to reach for her underwear and bra, icy and wet or not. “I need clothes for this,” she muttered.

  “Why, to hide?”

  She went still but didn’t look at him. She heard him sigh and he handed over her blouse, then jammed his legs into his wet Levi’s with a wince. He stood there in just the unbuttoned jeans, looking good enough to eat, eyeing her far too intently for her comfort.

  “You’re good at hiding,” he murmured. “I guess some things don’t change.”

  “I have changed,” she whispered, wanting it to be true. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you. I might be a late learner but I have learned. I know I can’t have a future until I face my past. That’s what I’m doing.” She grabbed her pants. “Trying to right my biggest wrong.”

  “And I was really your biggest wrong?”

  “Walking away from you was.”

  Looking staggered, he just stared at her, looking like he was waiting for something more.

  Her clothes clung to her and made her shiver again. She turned away from him. He pulled her back around. “Seriously. It’s okay, Sara. I’m over it. You can strike me off your list.”

  He really was over her. God, she didn’t know his rejection would hurt this much. “Okay, then. That’s…” Heartbreaking. “Good.” She could barely talk, though she managed a smile. “I just…wanted to make sure we were okay because I’m going to be in town, and—”

  “And you didn’t want it to be awkward.” He shook his head. “It won’t be.”

  Okay then. Look at them, being all mature. “So there’s no residual anger?”

  “None.”

  “You were mad at me,” she said through a thick throat. “Earlier. When you first saw me.”

  “Okay, yeah. Maybe. Seeing you brought back a whole shitload of emotions I didn’t want to face, emotions I was pretty damn sure I’d left behind.” He pulled on his shirt and shuddered at the iciness of it. “But it was your right to go. I just wish you’d have told me you were going. I thought I did something, that I chased you away. I blamed myself.”

  “It was never your fault,” she whispered. “I just had some growing up to do. Some exploring.”

  “And, as it turns out, so did I.” He opened the door and looked out. “The snow’s letting up. We should go.”

  It was over. She said she’d come to make amends, and she’d done that. The end.

  Too bad it wasn’t the end she really wanted.

  CHAPTER 19

  Sam hated the look on Sara’s face, hated knowing that he’d hurt her this time, but truth was truth. She might still be the beautiful, funny, smart woman who’d once lit up his life, but he couldn’t go there with her.

  Not again.

  Still, when she shivered, he pulled her in close.

  With a sigh, she snuggled in.

  He let her, bending his head to hers. Then she opened her mouth on his throat and his heart kicked. “Sara?”

  “If this is goodbye, then let’s make it the goodbye I cheated us out of five years ago.”

  He should have pulled back, should have been strong enough to understand that this would only make it all that much harder to truly walk away, but as was already established, when it came to her, he wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed.

  But he was the hardest.

  She knew it, too, as she rubbed up against him, letting out a soft murmur of pleasure at the feel of him.

  He kissed her. She kissed him back—their hands fighting to get their wet clothes back off. He tugged her blouse from her shoulders and then her bra. She did the same to his jeans, and before he knew it, they were once again at the desk. This time he backed to it and she straddled him, and oh yeah, he was inside her, holding on as she rode him straight to heaven.

  Afterwards, they sagged to the floor to catch their breath, which took Sam a lot longer than he would have liked. But this was it, their goodbye, and he knew it.

  And given the look on Sara’s face, she knew it, too. They dressed in silence, and when he got ready to carry her out—piggyback style in deference to her now badly swollen ankle—she set her head on his shoulder. “I’m sorry about a lot of things,” she said very softly. “But not today.”

  Yeah. Him, too.

  “Maybe—" she started, and his heart took a hard kick. Come on, Sara, say it. He wanted her to push for them. Wanted her to want it as much as he was coming to understand he still did. But that had always been their problem, him pushing, him wanting, and her simply going along with it.

  She needed to make the next move.

  But she never finished the thought.

  So he carried her out.

  CHAPTER 20

  One week later.

  Sara entered the fire station where Sam worked, nerves dancing in her belly like freshly hatched butterflies.

  She’d thought about him nonstop, about that day in Big Falls Canyon. She’d come to Santa Rey to make amends so that maybe he could forget what she’d done and, she hoped, invite her back into his life, his arms.

  Only he’d been so dead-set on the fact that he’d moved on, it’d thrown her.

  But in the week since Big Falls, she’d realized something. He’d never said he didn’t want to see her. Only that it wouldn’t be awkward if they did.

  Maybe…maybe he’d been waiting on her. After all, she’d left him, so the move was in her court.

  If she wanted to see him again, that is.

  And she did.

  So damn much, she did.

  She held a plate of brownies. Sam loved homemade brownies. Or at least he used to.

  Inside, a tall, handsome man came toward her with a nice smile. “Can I help you?”

  “Is Sam here?”

  “He’s in the kitchen. Go on through.”

  With a deep breath, she walked into the kitchen and found Sam standing in front of the stovetop, flipping pancakes. He wore a dark blue T-shirt with his firefighters’ association logo on a pec and his uniform pants, and he looked…hot.

  Tak