Josh drove to Hayley’s apartment as fast as he safely could, desperate to see her, desperate to ask her one simple thing.

He’d been out on the last long training run with the dogs in preparation for the upcoming Akpaliki Taurtut race, working through a mental checklist of all the things he still had to do—pack the camping gear and drop it at the registration site, get the dogs’ veterinary paperwork ready for check-in, and get the trailer hooked up to transport the dogs to the start of the race. Normally, Bruce would do much of the prep work, but he was under the weather with a cold, cough, and low-grade fever. Josh ordered him to rest to better ensure he’d be healthy for race weekend.

When he got home from the run, Maggie had just arrived back from the Christmas tree lighting festivities downtown. She filled him in on everyone she’d seen, including the fact she’d come across Jack and Hayley hanging out together, laughing and eating Alaskan fry bread. They’d invited her to go for a drink with them afterwards at the Pioneer Hotel, but she was jet-lagged and said no, and they’d gone on without her.

No, Josh thought. No, no, no. Not going to happen.

He set out minutes later for her apartment, and when he arrived, he looked around. Jack’s truck was nowhere to be seen, but he could have parked elsewhere for the ceremony in the park and they could have walked back together from the Pioneer.

His heart raced. Hayley and Jack were a lot alike. He’d noticed it at the first dinner he’d shared with Hayley at the North Star Café, how similar she was to his brother. Both were bright, friendly, community-focused, and seen as emerging leaders in Golden Falls. And the thought of them together killed him.

Jack would never do something so stupid as to leave Hayley out in the cold, alone, in the snowy darkness. Jack would never tell a warm, loving woman like Hayley he wasn’t interested in a long-term relationship. And Jack sure as hell would never let a week go by without apologizing for a wrong he’d done her.

He ran up the stairs and knocked twice on her door. He fidgeted outside. Was she not home? Was she still at the bar with Jack? Maybe he should go over there. Plop down at their table and say hell no to whatever those two were thinking of doing.

He rapped again on her door, but in his mind, he was already halfway down the stairs on his way to the Pioneer Hotel. Of course Jack would take her there, to the classiest bar in town. He had an appetite for the finer things in life … as did Hayley.

When the door opened, she stood like an apparition before him. Her hair was up, its damp wisps indicating she’d just had a bath. She was barefoot and wore a short grey silk nightgown so sexy it broke his heart.

“Is my brother here?” It came out gruffly, more forceful than he’d wanted. “Maggie said you left the park with him.”

Saying nothing, Hayley sighed and stepped back from the doorway so he could enter.

Josh looked around to see if Jack’s coat or gloves were tossed anywhere, which they were not. Realizing he wasn’t there, Josh’s frantic heart calmed a bit. She’d been watching TV, a classic movie she’d paused to answer the door. A man and a woman in fedora hats stood frozen on screen, close enough to kiss, although it was clear from their painful expressions they wouldn’t.

“Is that Humphrey Bogart?” he asked.

Hayley nodded. “And Ingrid Bergman. Casablanca. 1942.”

“I’ve never seen it, if you can believe it.”

“You’re missing out, Josh.” It was clear to him she meant more than the movie. “The tragic consequences of love in wartime.”

“Aren’t you cold?” he asked, taking in all her creamy exposed skin. He entered the room further, got the soft blanket from the couch which she’d been cuddling under, and wrapped her in it. She stood still, without emotion, and let him.

He gripped the blanket so it stayed closed around her.

“You can’t date my brother,” he said. “You just can’t. It would kill me.”

“You can’t tell me what to do, Josh.” Her eyes were cool, concealing the anger her words conveyed.

She rejected the blanket he’d put around her. Shrugged it off and stepped away from him. Damn, she was alluring when she moved in that short nightie, its thin silk flowing across her skin, showing off the hint of her hipbones and the curve of her breasts. The lack of panty lines indicated she was naked beneath it, and what he wouldn’t give to make love to her once more. To take her right there. A yearning overcame him, and he followed her. Near the fireplace, she held her ground and looked at him with defiant, smoldering eyes.

“Maybe I can’t tell you what to do, but I can tell you what I want,” he said.

He heard her sharp intake of breath, almost a gasp, familiar from the two times they’d been together, and he knew she wanted him, too. When he reached behind her head and softly gripped the nape of her neck, tilting her lips toward his, she let him. He kissed her, hard, and she kissed him back. With his free hand, he teased a nipple with firm, circular motions. She moaned, moved closer, and clutched the lapels of his jacket.

“I can’t get enough of you,” he said, moving his lips from her mouth to her jawline and then to her neck, which was so soft he could only kiss it gently. And her earlobe … that he could nibble. And suck on. And—

All of a sudden, he felt her body tense, and she pushed him away.

“You know what? Stop.” She looked to be near tears. “You can’t have it both ways, Josh. You can’t have me and reject me at the same time. And you can’t ruin things for me with other men.”

“How am I ruining things for you?”

“You ruined things between me and Evan by posting what you did on the projector wall at Singles Night. He dumped me because of it. You knew perfectly well he’d know it was you saying those things, and that you were referring to me.”

She was right—he had known what he was doing and that it might cause problems. The truth was that seeing them together at the Sled Dog, laughing and touching and flirting and becoming a couple, irked the hell out of him. He should be the one making her laugh. He should be the one she looked to with teasing eyes. At the same time, he’d known how illogical his jealousy was. He’d walked away from her, after all.

“Hayley, I—” He paused, helpless to explain himself.

“Don’t even,” she said. “Don’t make any excuse for your behavior.”

“I was going to say I’m sorry.”

“It doesn’t matter if you’re sorry—you still ruined things!”

“I just … I wanted you to know that letting you go wasn’t easy. But I shouldn’t have projected it onto a wall in front of your new boyfriend.”

She snorted dismissively at his words and then crossed the living room, going to her bedroom. Josh watched longingly as the swish of her short slip teased him, invited him to follow. He stayed put, though, and when she came back a few seconds later while pulling a matching robe over the nightie, keeping her distance, he understood he’d been right to tamper his desire. She locked eyes with him as she tied the sash of the robe around her waist and gave him a little smile, almost as if it was against her better instincts.

Home, he thought. This was what being at home with Hayley would be like, her walking around barefoot in a silk nightgown, giving him a smile as she closed a robe around her, knowing he’d want to open it immediately. Even when they’d argue, he’d want to open that robe.

He moved toward her, hoping to finagle a way to do just that, to express with his body what he couldn’t with his words. He stopped a few feet away from her. Feeling the awkwardness of his bulky jacket contrasted with her lack of clothing, he took his jacket off, tossed it on a chair, and felt his chest expand as he faced her. Blood rushed to other parts, too.

“I’m sorry I was selfish,” he said. “I’m sorry I put it up for your date to see. And most of all, Hayley, I’m sorry about what happened on the trail, that I left you there by yourself.”

Anger, then lust, then anger, then lust cycled through Hayley’s gorgeous hazel eyes. He took a step closer, hoping her lust would win out. He wanted his hands on that silk. He wanted her on top of him, in control. She might spurn him at first, ride him for her pleasure alone, but eventually she would soften toward him and the wisps of her hair would tickle his face. Her lips would find their way to his, and they would taste like honey and Hayley and everything good.

But unfortunately, her lust did not win out.

“You left me alone in the woods,” she said, her tone punctuated by accusation. “Do you know how scared I was? I haven’t been alone in nature ever, because I’m terrified of getting lost, Josh. Terrified. Unreasonably so.”

“I had no idea,” he said. “Why didn’t you say something?”

“You said in the profile interview you’d take a woman on a sled ride as a test.” Tears pooled in her eyes. “I guess I thought you were testing me, and I wanted to pass the test.”

His heart squeezed in exquisite pain. How could he have been such an idiot?

“Hey, hey,” he said softly. “Don’t cry.” He saw how she was shaking, and he pulled her to him and cradled her face in his hands and wiped her tears away. Her skin was smooth and warm, soft to the touch. “I promise I wasn’t testing you.”

“Maybe not consciously, but you’ve been testing me this whole time. You test all women, looking for reasons why they’ll never be right for you.”

Her words stung, but he pushed them aside, buried them in the deep recesses of his heart, along with all the other uncomfortable truths he tried to ignore.

“You were safe.” His hands were on her shoulders now, tantalizingly close to the flimsy spaghetti straps of her nightie, which would be so easy to slip off. “I knew nothing would happen to you, and it didn’t. Hayley, I’d never let anything happen to you.” He meant it. He felt protective of her. Possessive. He moved a thumb under one of her spaghetti straps and pulled it off her shoulder. “I keep people safe—it’s what I do.”

He felt her resistance to him wavering as she drew her body into his touch.

“You say I don’t reveal myself to men,” she said. “Well, here’s a revealing story. When I was a kid, eight years old, my mom was throwing one of her massive parties, raising money for some charity, drinking cocktails and hobnobbing with her rich friends, completely neglecting my brother and me like she always did. My older brother went off with his friends and left me alone upstairs. I had math homework due the next day—I was never good at math—and I needed help with it. My dad works in finance, so I knew he could help me.

“I decided to go to his place. He lived in a high-rise condo in downtown Miami, right on the water. My mom got the big mansion on Hibiscus Island in the divorce. I called him to see if he could come pick me up, but he didn’t answer. So, I got dressed, put my homework in my backpack, and left the house, walking. I got off the island just fine—there’s only one road in and out of the neighborhood—and got to the bus stop. I’d never taken the bus before and didn’t know what I was doing, and, to make a long story short, I ended up taking the wrong route and got off in a bad neighborhood. Like, a really bad neighborhood.”

“Oh, Hayley,” Josh said, dreading what she might say next.

“I wandered around in the dark, no clue where I was. I heard gunshots. A woman dressed in a miniskirt and a bra came up to me and told me to ‘get the hell off her corner’ or her pimp would beat me up. A couple guys in this car slowed down when they saw me and—” she broke off, remembering.

Josh drew her onto the sofa. She allowed him to wrap her close in the blanket before she continued, and she let him take her hands in his.

“Anyway, I was crying and terrified and I just walked toward the brightest, most well-lit place I could see. It was a twenty-four-hour convenience store. I know, the kind of place that gets robbed, like, twice a day. Anyway, I went inside and asked directions to downtown Miami. The clerk was young, took pity on me, and called her own mom to come and give me a ride home. She showed up fifteen minutes later, in an old car, and she was the nicest lady. I told her where my dad lived and the whole way, she kept telling me how happy and relieved he would be to see me. How worried he must have been, and what a big hug he’d be sure to give me. I almost started to believe it myself.”

Hayley had begun crying, soft tears on her cheeks. Josh gently wiped them away.

“She eventually found the right building downtown. She asked if I was sure this was where he lived, and I said yes, the dolphin place. It had a stylized dolphin as the logo. She parked on the street out front and said she would wait until my dad came down to get me. I told the guy at the desk my dad’s name, and he called him, and I could tell from how he responded that my dad was chewing him out. Then my dad came down, came out of that elevator looking nothing but annoyed with me. ‘What are you doing here?’ he said. ‘You’re supposed to be with your mom.’ I told him I needed help with my homework and that I’d gotten lost in a bad place and gotten a ride from a nice lady … he saw her car, took me by the arm, and marched me back outside. ‘Take her to her mom’s,’ he told the lady. ‘I don’t have time for this.’ And he left me there on the street next to this stranger’s car.”

“Holy shit,” Josh said, unable to imagine such callous disregard. He thought of his own parents, his happy, chaotic upbringing, the dedication and support his dad showed him. He couldn’t imagine who he’d be without it, and his admiration for Hayley grew even more. In spite of such awful parents, she’d grown into a woman who was warm and caring, one who would make a great mother.

“What happened then?” he asked.

“The lady drove me back to my mom’s house. Took me up to the door and rang the bell. One of the hired help answered. I said thank you to the lady, that I’d better just go back inside, but she insisted on seeing my mother. When my mom finally came to the door, she says, ‘La-di-dah, oh, hello, who do we have here?’ She had no clue I was missing. I was gone for over four hours, and she thought it was the funniest thing that she hadn’t even noticed.”

Anger on her behalf roared in Josh’s gut. “I have to say—I despise your parents.”

“That makes two of us. The lady who gave me a ride was furious. Absolutely furious with my mother, and she said some choice words which my mom completely blew off. I’ll never forget before she left, she knelt down so she was on my level, and she hugged me close and said, ‘You deserve better, Hayley. Always remember that.’”

She looked up at Josh, the tears still falling. She straightened her spaghetti strap back into position, then she pulled away. Stood up.

“And I do, Josh. I deserve better. I don’t deserve to be left in the woods while you go off to live your life without me.”

“Hayley, I—” Dammit, he thought, at a loss for what to say. He’d never felt so awful about anything, and he knew this wasn’t only about him leaving her in the woods. He was about to turn thirty. How could he be so jumbled in his emotions? He should go back to the beginning, work through it logically, as logic had never failed him before. “We had a deal. I was going to be your dating coach, remember? Remember how we started out? I wasn’t ready for … I’m not ready for …”

He sighed, and then she sighed.

“I’m trying to walk away, Josh. I’m trying to let you go. I’m trying to move on and honor our agreement.” Hayley looked at him pointedly. “But you’re not letting me.”

That’s because I fell for you, he wanted to say. And I had no intention to, and now I don’t know what to do about it.

“I have the dogs ….” he said helplessly.

“Honestly, Josh, shut up about the dogs,” she said. “The dogs aren’t the problem. You’re the problem.”

She looked away from him toward the television, to the pained couple who lived in black and white, and whose love was destroyed by war.

“You’re stuck, and it’s all in your head, and I simply don’t get it. You can have love and the dogs—it doesn’t have to be one or the other. It doesn’t have to be all or nothing. But if you don’t want me—which you don’t, you told me you don’t—you can’t tell me who I can and can’t date.”

“You can’t date my brother,” he said again, because it was all he knew for sure.

“You can’t say that,” she snapped. “Don’t you understand? You get to go off and live your lone-wolf life like you claim you want, and I get to go and date whomever I want—and yes, it could include your brother. And yes, it might still include Evan. You have no right to show up here whenever you want and kiss me like you did and then tell me I can’t have you—because I. Deserve. Better.” She took a deep, resolved breath, crossed the room, and opened the door. “It was just a fling, Josh.”

He got his jacket, went to the doorway, and paused before leaving. He took in the scent of lavender and honey she must have bathed in before he arrived, knowing he’d never again smell honey or lavender and not think of the woman standing before him.

“It wasn’t just a fling,” he said. “It was something more, and you know it.”

The look she gave him was sad.

“Whatever it was, it’s over.”