Yoga wasn’t helping.

Ice cream wasn’t helping.

Chocolate helped. Until it melted and then I was back where I started—miserable and alone.

Sitting out on the boat dock near Mom’s house on the lake, I stared at the slowly sinking sun. I was trying to pretend really hard not to think.

When the phone rang, it shattered the silence, and one look at the screen told me I wasn’t going to be able to blank out my brain much longer. Angel's voice came through the telephone. A part of me wished I hadn't left Vegas. I could use a friend right now, and my cousin was the best one I had.

We talked for a little while, about everything but the one thing I wanted to know and finally, unable to fake it anymore, I just lapsed into silence.

She seized the moment.

"You are so not okay, Emmy."

"How do you expect me to be?” I replied. Before she could answer, I added, “Seriously, I'm as good as I'm going to be for a while. But I don't want to talk about me. How is the baby?"

Angel huffed out a sigh. "Dirty pool, girl." But she relented. "She's doing better. The doctor said it was a virus called RSV. It's not much different from a cold really, but apparently newborn babies and RSV don't mix well. She's knocking it, though. My little girl is a champ."

"And how’s her mama?"

"Mama is freaked out. A sick baby, a cousin who could’ve been killed and now said relative has gone off the grid to parts unknown?”

“I’m not” I said, rolling my eyes. “I’m at Mom’s lake house. And I’m answering my phone, so not quite off the grid.”

“You might as well be in parts unknown. How am I supposed to help you?" Angel laughed, the sound sharper than normal. "How can I take care of you, or even be there for you when you went and took off like that?”

"I had to be away, Angel," I said softly. "I'm sorry."

"I know. I just..." Her words trailed away and an understanding silence spread out between us on the line.

“I guess I should probably go,” Angel said finally. “Colleen will wake up soon and I’d like to go pee without having to juggle with the gripey baby.”

I laughed a little, a real laugh. It felt good. “The exciting life of a new mama.”

“Oh, the glamour.” She hesitated a moment, then said, “I miss you, Emmy.”

“I know. I miss you, too.”

“You shouldn’t be all along right now.”

I wanted to tell her I’d be back in a few days, but I needed more time. I needed some distance between Sly and me.

At the same time, having this distance was a pain that was near visceral.

I’d left Las Vegas after Sly missed his first show, because I realized he was serious. He didn’t want to be with me.

For whatever reason, he didn’t want to be with me. I hadn’t been looking for a Happily Ever After—or maybe I had been, and I just hadn’t realized it.

But I hadn’t expected him to walk out on me on the worst day of my life without so much as a goodbye.

Not that goodbye would’ve helped. It would’ve just been another pain.

Sooner or later, I’d have to go back, because I wasn’t letting him chase me away from my cousin or the job I’d taken on. But I needed to heal. Not physically. The bruises from the attack were mostly gone, although my throat still hurt some.

It paled in comparison to the ache in my chest and I would’ve taken that pain any day over the ache in my chest.

I’d spent the past few days at my mom’s lake house a couple of hours from Vancouver. Mom and her new beau, Tom, were there, too, so I wasn’t alone to wallow in my misery the way I wanted to be, but maybe that wasn’t an altogether bad thing.

Mom was…trying.

The past few years we’d worked to rebuild the somewhat strained relationship that had formed between us since high school and right now, she was acting how I imagined she might have if I’d fallen in love in high school and turned to her for a shoulder to cry on.

Except I didn’t much want to cry on her shoulder.

It wasn’t that I didn’t appreciate her being there, but I’d gotten used to her…not being there.

I wanted to be alone to wallow in my grief so when I heard the footsteps on the gravel-lined path behind me, I bit back a sigh. “Mom…”

“I’ve been called a lot of things, but that’s a first.”

The low, hard voice sent a shiver up, then down my spine. Slowly, I turned and saw Sly standing on the path that led to where I stood on the dock. The fading sunlight turned his hair to flame and gilded his skin, turning him to gold. It was such a joke that someone who looked like all heat and warmth was more likely to freeze a girl out than burn her.

I would rather to have been burned by a hot poker than have him just shut me out the way he had.

But two could play at that game.

“What are you doing here?” I asked calmly, turning back to stare at the waters of the lake as the sun continued on its downward path toward the horizon. Before much longer, it would disappear behind the mountains and darkness would spread across the small lake behind Mom’s cabin. But until the dark and the chill chased me inside, I was going to enjoy the peace and quiet I had out here.

Preferably without the bastard who’d broken my heart.

“I came for you. You belong back in Vegas.”

I threw my hair back over my shoulder. “I’ll be back in Vegas when I’m ready to be. I wanted a few days off. Apparently, it’s going around.”

Sly grunted, then I heard a thud on the ground. “Okay. Guess I’m hanging out in Canada for a while.”

I turned back, gaping at him. The thud had been a big duffel bag.

“What’s that?” I demanded.

“My shit.” He shoved a hand through his hair. “I need clothes, don’t I?”

“No, because you’re not staying,” I told him.

“That’s not what your mom says.” He cocked a brow at me. “I was hoping I could get you to come back to Vegas so we could work things out—it’s closer to Texas, but if I need to be here to fix things with you, then here is where I’ll be.”

“You…” I almost had to pick my jaw up off the ground. “You talked to my mother?” Then what he said hit me. Texas… “You’ve talked to Addison.”

He cocked a brow at me. “She contacted Mac after you gave her his information. She came out the day after you left, apparently.” The final words came out like he was chewing them out of midair, terse and jagged. “She’s sorry she wasn’t able to meet you to say thank you.”

“But you met her,” I said slowly.

His face softened a little. “Yeah. I did.”

“Are you here because of her?” I demanded.

“No. I’m here because I’m an asshole.” He took a step toward me, his face intent.

“You were an asshole from the first time I met you. What’s changed?” I tossed out at him.

“Nothing.” Sly jerked up a shoulder in a shrug. “I’ve been an asshole since I was a kid—had to be one to survive. I ran away from home that night I found out Addy…Addison…well, shit. When he told me she was dead, he was packing to leave. I think he knew they’d come after him. He was just going to leave me there.” He looked away. “I don’t want to talk about this. But I’ve been in foster homes, homeless…I did everything short of killing someone to survive and that was all before I was eighteen, Emmy. Being an asshole, being hard is how I survived. It’s all I know.”

Inclining my chin at him, I asked, “So what are you telling me?”

“I’m trying to say I’m sorry.” He took another step toward me. Slowly, almost reluctantly. “I don’t know how to be with a woman, Emmy. Not like this.”

My breath squeezed out of my chest at his next words.

“But you make me want to find out.”

He took one more step in my direction as I blinked back tears. Holding up my hand, I said, “I don’t do things half-assed, Sly O’Malley. If you tell me this shit, you better be telling me you’re in this for real. Maybe I might have settled for whatever you wanted to give me before, but that’s not enough now. I want all or nothing.”

His next step brought him almost toe to toe with me and he dipped his head to murmur in my ear. “You’ve already got all of me. Turn me away if you want, baby. I’ve been nothing before. It’s all I am without you anyway.”

Bracing my hands on his chest, I shoved him back a little.

He went. His mouth tightened but then as I took a step in his direction, it started to curve up in a faint smile.

“You’re still an ass,” I advised him. “You know that.”

“Always going to be. But I’m one who loves you.”

In the next moment, I had my arms around his neck and his hands were in my hair. His mouth came down on mine. Opening for him, I let him kiss me, and I kissed him back with every pent-up bit of longing, love, and need that I’d held trapped inside me over the past week.

It was a lot.