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“Thanks, Neil.” I opened the door of the Bronco and stretched out one leg before adding, “Are you sure you don’t need me today?”

Sunday evenings were my one unreachable time. That had been well established during my months back in Adelaide Springs, even

if only my dad knew where I was during those few hours. But I was usually good to be on call during the morning and afternoon.

“Nah, thanks. I’m really half tempted to just run back to the office, grab my laptop, and then park in front of the inn until

that guy calls again. Surely it’s just a matter of time.”

I stepped out fully and then turned back and leaned my arm against the frame. “Yeah, what was your impression of him? Any

weird vibes?”

Neil shook his head. “Not weird, no. No weirder than any other big-city business types.”

“Did he tell you what he’s doing here?”

“No. I barely got two words out of him. He definitely wasn’t the ‘What do you recommend I do while I’m in town?’ type of tourist.”

Neil leaned across the seat toward me and spoke more quietly. “And did you get a load of that plane as it flew in?”

“No. He mentioned he flew privately—”

“My hoity-toity aunt from Tampa flew privately that one time she visited us a couple years ago, and it was still just a janky

charter service that had you feeling under your seat for loose screws that had fallen out. The plane this guy flew in on?”

He whistled through his teeth. “This was not that. Roland said it was the same kind of private jet Tony Stark has in Iron Man , but he was exaggerating a lot. It was just some little Cessna, I think, but still... pretty sweet.”

“And it just dropped him here, of all places? Were they grounded for mechanical reasons or something?”

Neil sat back up. “Oh, maybe. Hadn’t thought of that, but could be. The plane is still at the airport, so that would make

sense, I guess.”

I nodded. “Yeah, that’s got to be it. And it would certainly help explain why Mr. Brewster wasn’t in the best of moods. In

fact, all things considered, he was a lovely guy. Probably a lot nicer than I would be if I got stuck here.” I bit my tongue

to hold in all the jokes I wanted to make about that explaining my occasional bouts of crabbiness over the past year and simply

thanked Neil again and shut the door.

A gray cloud passed over the sun just as I stepped onto the sidewalk, and the instant temperature drop reminded me I’d left

my coat at the inn. But doggone it if I didn’t feel pretty warm again just two seconds later when the door to Milo’s opened

and Wes stepped out.

“Well, hi there.”

My voice took him off guard, and he appeared confused for just the length of a blink as his eyes rose from the sidewalk to

my face. As soon as he registered my presence, a smile spread across his face, and I couldn’t help but smile right back, like

a giddy mirror with a crush.

“Hi there, yourself. I’ve missed you.”

“It’s been less than an hour.”

“Well...” He stuffed his hands into his pockets and took a couple of ambling steps toward me. “In fairness, I’ve been missing

you for over half my life. Might take me a minute to shake the feeling.”

I chuckled, wishing I could turn away to hide the heat I felt rising in my cheeks. “That’s not true.”

“What’s not true?”

I shook my head. “Nothing. That was a nice, romantic thing to say, and I don’t need to pick it apart and analyze its accuracy.

Your Honor, I request that ‘That’s not true’ be stricken from the record and replaced with ‘Aww!’” My smile grew wider as

I took a step back from his continued approach.

“What? You don’t believe I’ve missed you for over half my life? Do the math, Addie. It is, sadly enough, true.”

I took another step back—not that I wanted to get away from him, but I felt like I was hanging on the precipice between needing

a little distance and tackling him to the ground and forcing him to make out with me on the sidewalk of Main Street. A choice

had to be made.

“It’s not the ‘twenty-two is greater than eighteen’ math I question, Senator. It’s more your overly generous rounding up of

the numbers.”

It was too soon to be joking about all of this, right? Even in a harmless, flirty way, after the events of the morning in

which, I was pretty sure, I had forgiven him for the atrocities of twenty-two years ago—or maybe even realized that I’d pretty

much granted him forgiveness before he ever asked for it. It still felt wrong to discuss it so freely. So casually.

No, wait. It felt like it should feel wrong. It felt like almost everyone I knew would think it was wrong. (Of course some of them would also

think it was wrong of me to forgive him. Or talk with him at all. Or do anything other than drop him into a shark tank strapped

to a freshly slaughtered sea mammal of some kind or other.) But as he took one more slow, deliberate step toward me, and I

took one last step back, bumping up against Beulah’s hood, I couldn’t have forced any of it to feel wrong if I had tried.

“I know it’s my own fault, so I’m really not seeking any sympathy here, Addie.” He stepped closer, and my breath caught in my throat. There was nowhere else for either of us to go. “But believe me when I say I missed you every single one of those eight thousand days.”

I swallowed hard as his eyes fluttered down to study my lips. “You did the math?”

“Okay, I confess. That was just an estimation. Feels about right, though.”

His fingertips landed on my hips and inched me toward him. And I swear I tried to turn my head to see if anyone was around,

but the only parts of me that could move were my hands, landing on his chest and slipping up around his shoulders, and my

feet, gladly helping him pull me as closely as he dared.

“Remember what your mom used to say?”

His lips got closer to mine as he smiled. “Which thing in particular?”

“‘Affection in private displays great respect; before it goes public, take time to reflect.’”

He dropped his arms from around me and took a step back as the laughter began, and I smiled as I studied the activated creases

at the corners of his scrunched-up eyes. “She was so weird!”

“Yep. The best kind of weird.”

The best kind of weird.

That was the perfect way to describe Marietta Hobbes, and it was the perfect way to describe how it felt to be standing on

Main Street in Adelaide Springs, once again hypnotized by the beauty of her son and all the affection I felt for him. And

while it had just been a few seconds ago that I wanted nothing more than to kiss him again and to invite the passion that

had overtaken us at the inn to work its magic once more, I was suddenly overcome by desires that somehow felt so much more

intimate—even if this PDA would scandalize no one.

“Hey,” I whispered, and he raised his head to look at me, the grin still spread out across his entire face.

Then I looped my arms around his neck, crushed my body against his, and hugged him.

And there was a brief moment (if the way he nuzzled his lips against my ear and the way his fingers danced across my back are to be believed) that he remained caught up in the rekindling fire of the minute before.

But then his breathing regulated, and his shoulders relaxed, and his arms enveloped me, and I knew we were on the same emotional page.

In embracing each other, we were embracing both the love and heartache of the past and the unexpected comfort and solidarity of the present.

“You know I didn’t miss you all of those days. Right?” I whispered into his ear. “I mean, it’s a romantic sentiment and all, and I’m sorry to

not be able to play along, but I cut it off at about the twenty-five-hundred mark.”

He sighed against me. “That makes me really sad.”

My jaw tightened, and the tops of my ears began burning as I pulled back to look at him, and the words came rushing out of

me before I even mapped them out in my head. “You don’t seriously think I sat around mourning the loss of you forever , do you?”

His eyes flew open. “No. Of course not. I didn’t mean—”

“Because, seriously, if so... how dare you?”

I attempted to pull away, but his arms didn’t loosen their grip. And truthfully, I didn’t try too hard. The love and heartache

of the past. The comfort and solidarity of the present. It was all still there somehow, and as much as I sort of thought I

needed to be offended, I suddenly wanted nothing more than for the sadness in his eyes to go away.

I spoke again, just as confident in my words and the emotions behind them as before, but I was okay letting the fight that

had been building up in me slip away. “Look, I like the way things are going with us. I do. But I need you to understand that

as much as I loved you then—and trust me, I did love you so unbelievably much—I don’t love you now.”

His eyes were locked with mine, and it should have been so awkward, but I was as comfortable sharing intimate space and air

with him as I was sharing the back seat of my vehicle with total strangers. And that was the truth of it, wasn’t it? Yes,

the developments were new. Forgiveness was new. But Wes and I were not.

“I’m not trying to be cruel here,” I continued, much more gently. “The fact is, I thought you were the love of my life. And then I met the love of my life. To me, that doesn’t minimize the way I felt about you. It really doesn’t. It was every bit as real and true. But I did move on. And Joel—”

“Addie, can I say something? Please?”

I gulped away the throat-closing feeling that welled up at the softness in his eyes and his voice and nodded.

“I understand that Joel is the great love of your life. I’m sorry if I gave the impression a minute ago that I thought you

should have stayed hung up on me forever. Nothing could be further from the truth. I know that what we had was real and true, and I know now that it was ridiculous to think you would just immediately move on. But

at the time, I had myself convinced it wouldn’t be all that difficult for you. So I don’t know how accurate you were being