Her passionate night spent in Hank's arms was followed by three weeks of torture.

If it had seemed to her like she ran into him at every inopportune moment before, her new post-sex reality was far, far worse. Hank Logan haunted her memories and her thoughts, lurking around every corner of Cedar Springs.

And now, hardly a day passed that she didn't cross paths with him.

Conversation between them was stilted. They were getting good at commencing with, and sticking to, formalities. There were moments when Lana thought she detected something in his eyes—a spark, maybe, that she felt certain would lead to an invitation in the next instant—but they would almost always be interrupted. Hank would get called away to work, or a Cedar Springs local would hail them and increase the awkwardness. Tenfold.

Lana had taken to keeping her own invitation balanced on the tip of her tongue. Sleeping with Hank had done the opposite of bringing her closure. He was in her system now more than ever. The memory of his burning kisses, his possessive touches, raced through her veins like wildfire. She feared it would consume her—and leave nothing of her behind but a wisp of smoke—a drifting, twisting memory of a woman who had never learned to move on from her lost love.

Hank Logan had shattered her world ten years ago. His reappearance now might very well be the thing that destroyed her.

It would have been poetic, if it wasn't so utterly pathetic. Lana hated feeling as if she had no control over her own tragedy.

She hated it more that she had grown to expect to run into him.

Hank was not at the diner today, which came as both a relief and a disappointment. Lana frowned as she seated herself at the breakfast bar. Dyna bustled over and efficiently turned over the cup in front of her, filling it with steaming coffee, but then another customer called her away, which left Lana a moment to puzzle over her confused feelings as she took her first sip of the inky beverage. What did she really have to look forward to when it came to running into Hank? It was obvious by now that he thought their night together had been a mistake.

Lana just wished she knew what she thought about it.

"Storm's comin'," Dyna paused in front of her with the carafe of coffee and a hand on her expansive hip.

Jerked out of her thoughts, Lana blinked, lifted her head, and turned to look out the windows of the diner.

The sky looked the same as it ever did, lately: hazy. She hadn't detected any change in the air on her morning walk to the diner—but then, almost all of her attention was turned inward these days.

"How do you know?"

"Trust me. When you get older, you just start to feel these things." Now Dyna was looking at Lana like there was something to puzzle out in her expression. "You feel a lot of things before they get confirmed. More coffee, hon?"

Lana shook her head. She felt guilty already for having barely touched what Dyna had put in front of her. "Actually, I was wondering if I could trouble you for a milkshake, today."

"A milkshake?" Dyna's eyebrow rose, the arch matching the angle of the hand on her hip.

Lana laughed self-consciously. "Yes. Strawberry, if you have it. It just . . . sounds perfect right about now."

"Anything to eat with that?" There was a half-amused innuendo in her tone that Lana couldn't begin to translate. It was almost as if Dyna was fishing for something besides her order.

"I already had breakfast this morning," Lana lied. She had spent a good twenty minutes revisiting her pantry and refrigerator again and again, but none of her usual groceries had looked at all appetizing to her. Her cravings had led her directly to Dyna's. "This is going to sound weird, but if you have any of those little sandwich pickles, I wouldn't say no to a few."

"Happy to oblige." The older woman’s brow furrowed, and she tilted her head to regard Lana out of the corner of one eye. The strange look didn't escape Lana's notice, even as Dyna turned away to fill the bizarre order.

Hearing her lunch preferences stated out loud worried Lana, too. This wasn't normal, even for someone who didn't share her bird-like appetite.

Milkshakes and pickles? That was decidedly not a cuisine that even the most creative of Dyna's younger clientele would come up with.

"Dyna? Do you mind if I get all that to go? I just remembered I have an errand to run."

"Not at all, sweetie."

Dyna packed up her order without charging her for the pickles. Lana tipped extra for the milkshake and departed with an abrupt goodbye. A part of her worried that she was coming off as strange—but she felt strange.

She stopped by the store on her way home.

Half an hour later, milkshake drained, pickles devoured, Lana had nothing else to distract her as she paced up and down the length of her kitchen. Her eyes kept shooting to the little pink box she had purchased from the store as if she expected it to leap off the counter and bite her. She couldn't bring herself to open it . . . not yet.

First Response, the label read. Even the brand name reminded her of Hank Logan.

Lana had never taken a pregnancy test before. That's not to say she didn't know how it worked. She passed the box again, side-eyed it, then swept it off the counter, keeping her expression neutral, even disinterested. No one was watching her, yet all the world seemed to be holding its breath and waiting to see what would happen next.

She walked purposefully toward the bathroom, where she opened the package, shimmied out of her pants, and followed the instructions carefully. Afterward, she dutifully waited five minutes for the test to develop.

Then, hands trembling, she picked up the little stick and stared at the results.