Cassidy finished typing and let her hands drop to her sides. The office sounds around her were surreal, as if she’d been on a trip through time that had only affected her.

On her screen were twenty thousand words that rehashed the most difficult year of her life. Her time in The Community. Her near death experience dangling from the Seattle Space Needle. Her father’s arrest and public humiliation.

Austin was in it, too. She needed the piece to be an authentic representation of that time in her life and that couldn’t be so if she left him out. Besides, the Post had run a photo of her in Austin’s arms when they hit the ground, the photographer catching a moment of such intense intimate feeling, it was useless to deny there had been a relationship.

Her editor walked into her cubicle and sat. He was a tall skinny man with deep brown skin who’d been more of a father to her this past year than her own would ever be again. “Julianne had the baby?” he asked.

Cassidy grinned, the memory of her sweet little half-brother’s birth still fresh in her mind. It had taken some time, but Cassidy and Julianne had repaired their friendship. Cassidy was making every effort to embrace this new part of her family instead of pushing them away. “Six pounds, four ounces. She named him Charlie.”

“Aww. Tell her to bring him around sometime. And if she decides she wants her job back, she’s just got to say the word.”

“Thanks, Derek. I’ll let her know.”

He looked pointedly at her laptop. “Did you get to the end?”

“I did.”

“And do you hate it?”

The piece she had written was like the ugliest part of her soul smeared on canvas. “I do.”

“Then it’s honest and true. Probably win a damn Pulitzer.”

She laughed, her eyes watering with unshed tears. “I wouldn’t relive this year again if you paid me.”

“Does she get the SEAL in the end?”

She shook her head, her fight to keep her tears in check no longer even a question. “It wasn’t meant to be.”

“Good. The Pulitzer judges hate happy endings.”

She laughed begrudgingly. “Fuck you, Derek.”

“Tell me something, princess. If I read the rest of what you’ve written there, will I want you to end up with that man?”

“Probably.”

“And if you could write the ending any way you wanted to, would you want the two of you to end up together?”

“Probably.” She wiped at her cheek. “But it’s not fiction. It’s reality.”

“It’s your story, Cassidy. It may be reality, but you get to write the ending.” He stood up and smacked a rolled-up newspaper on her desk before leaving.

She reread the last few paragraphs, which now seemed like a pathetic attempt to wrap something ugly up tight with a bow. She saved her progress and closed the computer, packing up her things to go home.

By the time she got to her car she knew she didn’t want to go home.

She pulled out her cell phone, searching for Austin in her contacts, but it wasn’t a phone call she wanted with strained conversation and long distance apologies. She wanted Austin, right in front of her face.

Instead she dialed Cowboy, who’d become a fast friend during her time in Atlanta. “Are you guys in town?”

“I’m flattered, but I’m kind of seeing somebody.”

“Leo,” she laughed.

“Oh, you want Austin!” he feigned surprise. “He came in last night. Should be home, far as I know.”

“Thank you.”

“Anytime, sweetheart. I was hoping you’d call.”

She hung up, exhaling dramatically and dropping her shoulders before opening her browser and looking for a flight.

Derek was right. Her life wasn’t something that happened to her. She made it happen, and she wasn’t willing to settle for the way things had ended between her and Austin.

The piece she wrote for the Post put it all in perspective and allowed her to flush all the aching and turmoil from her system, leaving only a weary acceptance and a loneliness she wouldn’t name until Derek did it for her.

She missed Austin.

It was nine-fifteen the next morning when Atlanta appeared on the horizon, almost ten when she rang his bell.

She was certain he’d be glad to see her until she was in the air hurtling toward him through the sky, but she forced her fears to a tiny corner of her mind and locked them in there. The cab dropped her off at his condo.

I hope I didn’t screw this one up forever.

She rang the bell. He answered the door in sweatpants and nothing else, his hair tossed from sleep and his eyes boring holes into hers.

“Cowboy said you’d be home.”

He nodded. “Here I am.”

“I’m sorry, Austin.”

He pulled her into his arms and held her tightly, it was as if not a moment had passed since she knew she was in love with him, and she promised herself not another moment would go by without him in her life.

“I missed you so much,” he whispered into her neck. “I’m sorry I made it so hard for you to love me. That I wanted you to choose between me and your father. I won’t do it again.”

She shushed him and kissed his mouth. Their first kiss was gentle and poignant. Their second was full of lust.

There’d already been too much talking. All she wanted to do now was show him how much he meant to her, to share her body with him and hold him tightly inside her.

Austin pulled her shirt over her head with one hand and slammed the door shut with the other.

She was home.