I woke with a start.

The room was dark, and there was a hard body pressed against mine providing excessive heat, to the point the dampness of our skin had welded us together. If the body had been anyone else, I was sure I’d have freaked out, but the warm masculine musk that surrounded me felt familiar in a way I couldn’t quite put my finger on. It left me reluctant to move from under the thick arm circling my waist.

A small part of me was on a constant loop, reminding myself that this man was a relative stranger and that the sex wasn’t something that connected us because sex was just sex—something millions of people shared consensually every day.

The rest of me argued against that fact because I didn’t want the disconnect to be true. I was enjoying Garrett’s company. I liked the way he made me feel, and I liked the way he made me laugh. I felt safe in his arms. This was the first slither of a non-physical connection I’d felt since I was a teenager. That didn’t mean I should outstay my welcome, though. In my limited experience, complicating things always ended in disaster.

I needed to get back to Megan’s and figure out what to do with all the land my father left me, along with the rest of the crap that was now on my plate. Then I needed to go back to Colorado. I had a home, a business, and Holly had school there. Garrett, as nice as he was and as fun a time as I’d had, was just in the right place at the right time.

The brush of his lips on my shoulder startled me enough to make me giggle and bury my face in the pillow that, once again, surrounded me with the scent of manliness that was Garrett.

“Sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you,” he said quietly, his index finger stroking my hip in a way that felt completely erotic. With a deep intake of breath, I rolled back against him and bit back a groan as the ache of good sex worked its way through my body. He found my lips easily and took them with just as much control and need as he had when we’d first arrived at his house.

“I thought you were asleep, is all,” I confessed, settling myself against his chest in something that felt too intimate for the situation. When I tried to move away, he tightened his arm around me to keep me there.

“I was.”

“Did I wake you?”

He rocked his body against mine, and his silent answer made my lips curl.

“You’re insatiable,” I whispered.

“I have a beautiful woman in my bed. I’d be disappointed if I wasn’t hard.”

He kissed me again, his body rolling to cover mine as he slipped between my legs so he could take more. Then he was inside me again, the pace slower and measured until I felt like I was drowning in need. He took his time then, his hands and mouth exploring as I rose to meet him thrust for thrust. When he wrapped a hand around my knees and pulled my leg up over his hip, he pushed inside deeper and harder until our bodies were damper, our breaths coming in pants, and my orgasm rolled over me in wave after wave of pleasure. I was barely aware of him following me over the precarious ledge of pleasure. I was so lost in my own head, bathed in the aftermath of sex and pleasure.

Garrett eased me from my own head with gentle kisses and endless compliments until I felt beautiful and needed without really needing to. Even in the darkness of the room, I could feel his eyes on me, studying me as his fingers navigated every dip and curve of my skin.

“You’re beautiful, Kay. I can’t seem to get enough of you.”

I laughed, my pleasure and indulgence lacing the sound while I stretched out my body and curled into his embrace. The ache was now a delicious burn from head to toe. It had been a while since I’d had sex twice in one night.

“I think that’s working out rather well for me,” I mused, running my palm over his broad chest and enjoying the thrum of his heart against it. “Although, I should probably get home.”

“It’s three in the morning.”

“I’m sure you have work, and I need to get to my car so I can run some errands in the morning.”

Garrett smiled and brushed some of my hair over my shoulder, his fingers lingering on my collarbone, which only served to make me shiver, my skin humming to life from his touch. I could see when he smiled at my reaction. His teeth were the lightest thing in the dark room. I was giving too much away, but at that moment, I couldn’t have cared less.

“I forgot the real world was still out there churning away.” He ran his fingers down my jaw to my chin, tugging gently until my lips parted so he could lean in and steal my breath with another kiss. “Stay… and I’ll take you back early.”

“I really can’t,” I whispered again, my lips pressing against his Adam’s apple. “I want to, but I can’t.”

“Then promise me another date.”

“When?” I didn’t really care how eager I sounded. I was eager. I wanted to see him again. What was the point in lying about that?

“Tonight.”

“A date or sex?” I said, chuckling. I would have been happy with either choice but his answer surprised me.

“Both. I’ll even pick you up.”

I smiled and kissed him, my body pressing against his so he ended up on his back.

“I’ll meet you,” I said, and rolled from the bed as naked as the day I was born. “Same place, same time?”

Garrett didn’t respond immediately. Instead, he clasped his hands behind his head and watched me as I stepped into a patch of moonlight, his hum of appreciation not missed by me as I hunted for my underwear.

“I want to take you on a real date,” he finally responded, turning to lay on his side, his hand propping up his head. “Which means picking you up, opening doors for you, feeding you, dancing, and more exquisite sex, and a sleepover.”

“Exquisite?”

He smiled again and held out a hand to me as I pulled my thong over my hips. I indulged us both by taking it, allowing myself to be tugged close and arranged on his chest as he linked his arms behind my ass, holding me in place.

“Are you telling me you didn’t enjoy that?” he asked, grabbing a handful of one butt cheek.

“That’s not what you said,” I corrected, tugging on his beard and tracing his bottom lip with my thumb. “I really enjoyed that. Twice.”

“But not exquisite?”

“Not quite.” I squirmed, suddenly feeling ridiculous that I was making a thing out of this. The sex had been amazing, better than most because there had been a strong attraction between us, but it hadn’t been perfect. I’d had perfection before, and that came with a deeper connection, a soul talking to a soul, hearts beating as one and lives intertwined. Nothing could touch that kind of connection. It’s how I felt, but the fact that he was now waiting for an explanation made my cheeks heat. “Gives you a goal to reach.”

He studied my face in the dim light and nodded. “Challenge accepted.”

Rolling us, he hovered over me yet again, his forearms holding his weight from my body. The way he continuously studied me made me restless. It made me wonder what he was seeing. Could he see the quiet pleading? The neediness? The desire? Or was it the fear he saw? Because I was scared shitless of letting him get close.

“Stay,” he whispered again.

“I can’t, not tonight. I have appointments in the morning.” That wasn’t a lie. I had a breakfast date with my daughter. He just didn’t need to know the specifics. I never told the men I slept with about Holly because they were never around long enough, and she didn’t need to deal with that in her life. I was protecting her from the slow revolving door that came with my needs, and although I liked Garrett, I would be leaving eventually. I had a life in Colorado, and all this was temporary. This was for fun.

“Tonight then.”

“Tonight,” I agreed.

It took me another twenty minutes to get out of Garrett’s bed, and another ten minutes to get out of his house and into his truck. By the time I got back to Megan’s place and curled up in my own bed, the clock told me it was after four thirty in the morning.

Holly came and bounced on me at eight.

“How was the date, Mom? Tell me everything,” she said, hopping onto my bed and fighting me for control of the covers as I pulled them over my head. I was tired and sore. I had aches in some very interesting places that I wouldn’t be explaining anytime soon.

“It was fun, baby. He taught me how to two-step,” I said with a yawn, my palm pushing against her face as she peered over the blankets at me.

“You? Dancing?” She giggled, squealing when I tickled her side.

“Yes. Me. Dancing. A two-step, specifically. Cheeky brat.”

“Can you teach me?” she asked, settling in, cross-legged as I threw the comforter back. “Katie says that they dance like that at school dances here.”

I looked over at her and tipped my head to the side in question. “Why would you need to learn, baby? You don’t go to school here.”

Holly looked down at her hands and sighed softly. I knew what that meant. The gesture was one of those traits she’d inherited from Dustin. She always put things in the right order in her head before she spoke. She was careful with the people she loved and wanted to make sure that her meaning wasn’t misinterpreted. So I waited, my fingers fiddling with her friendship bracelets until she was ready to talk to me.

Instead of answering my question, though, she lifted her head and met my gaze. Her eyes filled with a silent apology. Her train of thought had taken a new direction.

“What is it, kiddo?”

“Can we still go and see my dad? While we’re here, I mean?”

She held her breath the moment the words were out, her teeth impaling her bottom lip as she studied my face. If I’d had to guess, she’d approached Megan about this before she’d come to me again. Holly was smart, thoughtful, and selfless. She would have been worried about my reaction if she’d thought I’d been avoiding it, and I knew in my gut Megan had given her the answer I’d have wanted her to. Ask your mom. That she was here asking was proof enough, and who was I to deny her? I’d had Dustin for one short but beautiful, happy year, but she’d never had him at all, only my memories of him. As hard as it was, I tried to encourage her to ask questions. The very least I could do was bridge that gap for her now we were here.

“I think that would be good,” I replied, opening my arms and smiling as she fell into my embrace. The weight of her against me always eased the anxiety that threatened to take over some days. I loved her more than I’d loved anything in my life. “Why don’t we get dressed, go for breakfast, then pick up something for him?”

“Like what?” she asked, her voice thick against my shoulder.

“Something that will let him know we’re thinking about him.”

“We don’t need to pick anything up. I have something.”

We didn’t spend much longer cuddled up together on my bed, and that saddened me. I missed those days when she was little and wanted to spend hours snuggling and asking questions about life. Holly, however, seemed motivated to visit Dustin, and if she could have pushed me into the shower, I think she would have. She tried to talk me out of taking one, but after the night spent with another man, I couldn’t go without washing first, though that was something I couldn’t and wouldn’t even try to explain to my fourteen-year-old daughter. We met at the car. She’d run into Megan’s house to pick something up, while I’d started the car to get some heat going, leaving me sitting staring out at the landscape unsure how to feel about anything anymore.

I’d fallen asleep in the early hours of that morning with a lightness inside of me. Years of weight had temporarily been elevated, and the brief respite from the memories that constantly assaulted me had been a godsend. I’d stuck to the places I hadn’t had memories with Dustin since I’d arrived, the only exception being the grove of trees where he’d surrounded me in a welcome embrace. The cemetery wasn’t somewhere we’d spent any time together, but that had been the last goodbye between us, and that was what I was dreading the most. I wanted to be strong for Holly. I wanted this to be what she needed in order to fulfill her wish of knowing her father in a capacity other than my words.

Breakfast was a brief affair, fast food taking the place of somewhere we could sit down. Holly didn’t say much while I drove, but I made sure to point out important places where I’d spent time with Dustin. When I drove past the school on the way to the cemetery, I pulled into the parking lot and stared at the small shack that looked broken atop the gym.

“See that,” I said, pointing up at it.

“What?”

“On top of the gym,” I said, pulling her closer to me and pointing to the–now leaning–wooden shack with renewed enthusiasm.

“The pile of wood on the roof?”

“Yeah. It used to be a small shed. They called it Coach’s Retreat, but he stopped using the place when he quit smoking. He gave the key to your dad so he could study up there, or get away from his girlfriend at the time. We spent a lot of time there together.”

“Why?”

“It was the only place in town I could get my radio station, and he knew how much that meant to me. So, we’d sneak up and lay on the cot, talking about music and the future. He made me laugh so much. Your daddy was like you: smart, kind, and incredibly thoughtful.”

“Funny, too?”

“Always funny. His favorite thing to do was make me laugh.”

“Because you have a pretty laugh.”

“Thanks, baby.” I gave her a wink and pulled away then out from the school lot. I didn’t hurry. I couldn’t. As much as I wanted to give Holly the only thing she’d ever really asked for, there was a part of me that wanted to get as far as humanly possible away from Dustin’s grave. My heart hated the thought of him being there. The void of nothing was too much of a contrast to the vivacious man I’d always known.

I couldn’t stall forever, though, and all too soon we were passing through the gates, and I was pulling to a stop with a shuddering breath. I stared at the spot where I knew he lay and reached for the door handle.

“Mom?”

I turned back to her. “Yeah?”

“Take a minute.”

Another thing she’d inherited from Dustin… an intuition I would never understand. I could have kissed her for thinking about me, but this visit wasn’t about my feelings or me. We were here for her and Dustin. I wasn’t going to take that away from them. He deserved to see her as much as she deserved to see him.

“I’m okay.”

I pushed the door out of the way and hopped out with as much energy as I could muster. I met Holly at the front of the car and gripped her hand as she threw her backpack over her shoulder, and we started up the path. Neither of us said a word as we walked. I couldn’t bring myself to break that silence as his name came into focus on the headstone. The cold marker wasn’t how it had been the last time I saw it, but I hadn’t expected it to be. The engraving of Dustin’s name, dates of death and birth, and his football jersey number were all clean, but the space around it was filled with notes in permanent marker and roughly scratched words. This wasn’t graffiti. It was a tribute from friends and teammates leaving messages of love to a friend whose life had been taken too soon.

I stayed back, my eyes moving over scribbled words, a smile creeping over my lips as a wind tore over the small mound of the hill and wrapped around me in greeting. I let myself believe it was Dustin because it was the only thing that kept me standing there instead of breaking down in tears.

I trained my eyes on our daughter as she knelt in front of his headstone. The wind teased her hair as she reached out and traced Dustin’s name with her fingers. I knew she was crying by the hunch in her shoulders and the tremor of her long hair. I felt the heartbreak in my heart as much as I felt Dustin there with us. I knew better than to go to her. If she’d needed me, she would ask or hold out a hand for me to take, so I stayed where I was, my heart bleeding as she pulled her backpack into her lap and opened the zipper.

“Hi, Daddy,” she whispered, undeterred by my presence. “I know it hurts Mommy to be here, but I wanted to come see you. Mom said people bring you things to let you know they’re thinking of you, so I brought Starlite.”

Holly pulled out the first toy I’d ever bought her. It was Rainbow Brite’s horse, the same one my mom had bought me when I was a kid. She loved that thing with all of her heart, and when she’d grown too big to carry the plush horse around, it had taken pride of place on her bed. She’d brought him with her like she did when we went camping in the mountains, and now she was giving her prized possession up to Dustin. This was a piece of her she was leaving behind, and I could feel the significance of that because I knew what it cost her to give that memento of her childhood up.

I was sure I wasn’t going to make this visit through without crying, but that particular hurdle was one I hadn’t been prepared for. The gesture sent me on a mental trip and brought me to my knees behind Holly, my hand resting on her shoulder in silent support.

“He will remind you of me when we go home,” she continued, setting Starlite against the headstone and tugging on the longer strands of grass to clear the spot. “I don’t need him anymore, and I always have Mom’s stories to remember you by. She misses you a lot, but she always talks about you and tells me about the things we have in common. I have your eyes and your kindness. I feel like I know you most of the time, but I wish every day that I could have met you… just once.” Holly’s voice grew thick with her denied sobs, and she leaned back against me for comfort.

I couldn’t help myself from kissing the top of her head. She wasn’t the only one who wished for that. I’d spent years wishing the same thing over and over again to no avail. Every milestone in our daughter’s life had been marked with the very same wish. I just had no power to change the past. I never had. The only part of her father I had left to offer was his brother and father—her uncle and her paternal grandfather. Neither one of them even knew she existed, though, and maybe now was the time to fix that.

Maybe.

I let myself think about the fallout while Holly talked. She told him about everything she loved in her life, how she wanted a dog and maybe a horse one day. She told him about school, the girl that didn’t like her, and the boy who did. He was told her favorite color, things to eat, and the songs and movies she loved. This was a gift for me to listen, too. I didn’t feel like I’d failed completely as a mother. Holly was content, happy, and wonderful. She was a blessing in my life, and maybe she’d win the two surviving members of the Hill family over. She’d charmed everyone else who ever met her.

I sat there for almost two hours, listening, then sat there alone when she went to gather a bouquet of wildflowers for his grave. She didn’t like that he was the only one without flowers, and I loved her for her thoughtfulness. Running my fingers over Starlite’s rainbow tail and mane as I waited, the conversation for Dustin was being spoken in my mind. He’d heard all of this before, but that didn’t stop me from repeating the conversation while his name etched itself into my eyes.

Fourteen years. Fourteen long years without him, and I still dreamed of the way he loved me. How he held me in his arms and looked at me like I was the only person that meant anything. I wasn’t sure I’d ever find that again. I wasn’t even sure I wanted to.