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Closing her eyes, she lay back on the bed and prayed Cole someday found peace and met someone he deemed worthy of tearing those walls down for.

Even if that person wasn’t meant to be her.

She’d be just fine. The past month with Cole had opened her eyes to a lot of things about herse

lf. She was strong enough to care for him. And strong enough to let him walk away if that was what he needed to do.

She’d be fine. It hurt, but she would be fine.

If only she could convince herself that he was doing the right thing when her heart insisted that he wasn’t.

“What’s up with you and Sophie?”

Not looking up from his crossword puzzle, Cole shrugged at Ben’s question. “Nothing, as far as I know.”

“You weren’t at church Sunday.”

Cole snorted. “I haven’t been at church a lot of Sundays.”

“You’ve been a pain lately,” Ben added.

“Who wouldn’t be, having to put up with all these questions?”

Ben shot him a serious look. “You don’t plan to see her again?”

“It’s a small town. I’m sure our paths will cross.”

“We’ve still got the ‘wrapping and delivering the presents’ party. Maybe you’ll get lucky and she’ll forgive whatever your sorry self did.”

Cole shrugged. Sophie forgiving him wasn’t the issue. Never had been. From the beginning, she hadn’t judged him harshly. He’d prefer her anger and disgust over pity. Pity was the one thing he couldn’t deal with.

“You must have done something if you and Sophie are no longer a couple,” Ben pushed.

“We were never a couple.”

“Sorry, man.” Ben slapped him on the back. “I really thought she was the one for you.”

Andrew came back into the room, carrying an envelope that he handed to Cole. “This is for you.”

“What is it?”

Andrew shrugged. “How would I know? Open it and see.”

Cole took the business-sized envelope, noted his name written in bold print across the front. No address, no return address, no postage. Just his name.

“Someone hand-delivered it?”

Andrew shrugged. “I guess. It was in the office, and I was asked to give it to you.”

Cole frowned. He’d seen Sophie’s flowy, curvy handwriting, and this wasn’t it.

Not that he had any reason to automatically assume it might be from Sophie…except that who else would send him mail at the firehall?

Aggravated with himself for the direction of his thoughts, he opened the envelope and pulled out two slips of paper.

One was a cashier’s check for more money than he made in a month. The other was a note that simply said, “Have fun shopping for the toy drive. Make the donations from the fire department.”

Stunned, Cole turned the check to where Ben and Andrew could see.