Owen spent fifteen minutes trying to figure out what to say before he threw in the towel. He’d run through everything from “so, how about this weather we’ve been having?” to “that was the most mind-blowing sex I’ve ever had in my life”, and while the latter was startlingly true, he didn’t want to give Cate a reason to tack her guard back into place. Lying here with her, their bodies warm and spilled together in the evening shadows, felt as good as the sex they’d just shared, although in a different sort of way, and if he opened his gruff, graceless mouth, her willingness to let herself feel it might fade along with the daylight.

She shifted against him, her stomach letting out a healthy growl, and Owen gave up a soft, surprised laugh. “Are you hungry?”

“Maybe.” Cate laughed quietly back. “We did kind of skip dinner.”

It had been worth every second, but he stood by what he’d said earlier about her not tasting her food, and he damn sure still wanted to feed her. “I don’t mean to brag, but I have it on good authority that my spaghetti and meatballs are a bit of a religious experience.”

“Is that so?”

“It is,” he confirmed, making sure his smile hung in his voice. He might not know what to say or how to say it, but food? Now that, he could do.

But Cate didn’t move from her spot on his bed. “I need to be sure this is still no strings attached, Owen. I’m not…” She exhaled against his shoulder. “I promised you I’d stay, so I will, but I can’t give you anything other than this.”

A pang centered in his chest. The last thing he wanted was for her to gather up her clothes and run, but she’d given him the courtesy of uncut honesty. The least he could do was be truthful in return.

“Look. We had sex—”

“Great sex,” Cate corrected, and, despite the gravity of the topic, Owen had to smile.

“Definitely great sex,” he agreed. “And I do really want you to stay. But I’m not going to pressure you into it, or anything else. We still have that honesty policy, right?”

She nodded, her hair shushing against the bed sheets. “We do.”

“So, let’s use it. I like being with you, Cate. It doesn’t have to be anything serious. We can take each day as it dawns if that’s what you need. I just want this.”

After a heartbeat, then two, her body relaxed against his. “Well, then. With a promise like religious-experience spaghetti and meatballs, how can I refuse dinner?”

Since her clothes were still strewn all over his kitchen floor and a chill had crept into the nighttime air, Owen gave her a flannel shirt from his closet. The thing pretty much swallowed her, with the red and blue fabric covering her fingers and draping her body to mid-thigh, but she looked as comfortable in it as he felt in the jeans he’d just slid back over his hips. Deciding to forego a shirt—at least for now—he led the way back to the kitchen, flipping on enough lights to cast a warm, golden glow around what was probably his favorite room in the house.

“Can I do anything to help?” Cate asked after picking up her clothes, folding some and replacing others, most notably, the pale blue panties that he’d had to fight himself not to literally rip from her hips less than an hour ago.

Focus, jackass. “There’s not much to do,” he said, grabbing a stock pot from a cupboard beneath the island and beginning to fill it with water.

“I could set the table.” She shifted toward the spot where he kept the plates, but something indefinable made Owen step directly in her path.

“Or you could relax with your glass of wine and let me do it.”

A tiny shadow flickered over her whiskey-brown stare, but she tempered it with a bold enough smile that he almost didn’t see it. “I’m perfectly capable of setting the table, Owen.”

“You’re perfectly capable of a lot more than that,” he said. “But this is supposed to be about me feeding you, remember?”

“You really don’t need to do that.” Cate’s reply was automatic, both her smile and her shoulders growing tight. “I promise, I do eat every day.”

A burst of frustration sizzled in his chest, and he almost put it to words. But her guard was up in full force, and there was only one way he was going to get her to let it down.

“I was honest with you a few minutes ago when we were upstairs, right? And we agreed that’s how we’re going to do this?” he asked, turning off the kitchen faucet and turning to look at her with a no-nonsense stare.

She stared back. “Yes.”

“Then talk to me, Cate.” Owen’s legs took a step toward her even though his brain had thoroughly cautioned not to, but he wasn’t dumb enough to think his brain was actually in charge here. Not when his heart was slamming away like it was. “How come you don’t let yourself enjoy things?”

“I do,” she said. But her gaze slipped along with the argument, and Owen closed the rest of the space between them in two long strides of fuck it.

“You don’t. You make all of these incredible desserts and you only taste little bites to make sure they’re right. You won’t open yourself up to the possibility of starting a career doing something you clearly love—not even when an incredible opportunity is right in front of you. You keep everyone at arm’s length. I get that you don’t want to be hurt again, I really do. But why don’t you let yourself feel anything good?”

“I…”

Cate broke off, the fight in her protest falling hollow. Her eyes glittered, not so much with tears as pure emotion that tore at Owen’s chest.

But it was nothing in the face of what she said next.

“Because I was supposed to be in the car the day Brian and Lily died.”

* * *

Cate’s heart ricocheted around her rib cage, part from the shock of her admission and part from the truth itself. The words had flown out without her permission, as if they’d been some rabid, caged animal, mindless and desperate to be let loose.

“You…what?”

Her face flamed from the weight of her words. Of course, Owen was stunned. No one—not one living, breathing person—knew the truth. The confession left an odd, jagged hole in her rib cage, but now that it had surfaced from the spot where she’d kept it buried for so long, the rest of the truth just rushed right out of her.

“We were supposed to go to the movies in Camden Valley, all three of us. There was a new Disney movie out, and Lily wanted to go. I was surprised she asked,” Cate continued, guilt stabbing through her at the memory, at the argument that had come after.

She’s nine now, Cate. We’re running out of time to have another baby. You already stay at home—I don’t understand what the problem is…

She stuffed the echo of Brian’s voice down, but still, her own words came, sharp in her mouth like shards of glass. “Lily had been outgrowing a lot of that little girl stuff. But she asked, and Brian never told her no.” Another source of contention, another slice of guilt over all the times she’d played the role of the stern parent and Brian had spoiled Lily rotten.

“Cate.”

Owen’s voice, notched just above a whisper, told her she didn’t have to say anything else, that if she wanted to yank her armor back into place and say “forget it”, he’d let her. But he wouldn’t forget—damn it, she felt so good when she was with him that she couldn’t forget—and she shook her head and continued.

“The trouble was, it was a Saturday afternoon. That was the only day I really got to lose myself in the kitchen, and I’d started making croissants from scratch. They’re a righteous pain in the ass, with all the folding and rising, and the timing is really tricky, so leaving the batch I’d been working on pretty much ensured they’d have been ruined.”

Owen nodded. He stood in front of her, completely unmoving, giving her enough space to talk, but staying close enough for her to feel his quiet steadiness.

“I told Lily I didn’t think the movie was such a great idea. I know it was selfish,” Cate added quickly. “But we’d had a long week with her school science fair project and the PTA’s fundraiser, and between that and all the household stuff like cooking and laundry and driving all the way to Camden Valley for both ballet lessons and Girl Scouts…well, I wanted some time in the kitchen.”

“Taking the time to do something for yourself isn’t selfish,” Owen said, his eyes growing suddenly stormy despite the soft overhead light of his kitchen.

The irony of it forced a joyless laugh past Cate’s lips. “I didn’t think so, either, not in that moment. It was the first time I’d ever really chosen what I wanted to do over what Lily had asked for. Don’t get me wrong,” she added, “I’m not a martyr. I spent my Saturdays in the kitchen. At least, I did whenever we didn’t have a practice or a birthday party or an activity to go to.”

Which pretty much meant she got one Saturday a month to get right with the flour and butter and sugar, but she’d made it work. She’d had to. Her kitchen had been the only place where she wasn’t Brian’s wife or Lily’s mom or anyone other than herself, pure and simple. It had been the only place where she’d known how to breathe and just be.

“But when I told Lily no, Brian got really angry,” Cate said, her breath shaking the slightest bit. She knew what was coming, what her memory would cough up next. God, she knew it by heart.

Jesus, Cate. You’re putting your hobby in front of our kid? It’s just a batch of stupid bread. We’ll buy some on the way home if it means that much to you…

“Angry,” Owen repeated. She caught the steel in his voice a heartbeat later, and immediately shook her head. Brian might have been a lot of things, but he’d never been hurtful in the physical sense.

“I think mean is a better word. At least, when it came to me baking.”

Owen frowned, his brows cinching together in obvious confusion. “I’m sorry. I don’t follow.”

Cate’s pulse peppered her belly with dread. But she’d already poured half the story all over his kitchen floor. There wasn’t any practical reason to hold back now.

“Just before graduation, I got a scholarship to the Culinary Arts Academy.”

His lips parted, but nothing came out for a long second before he finally asked, “The one in Harrisonburg?”

“Yeah. I knew it wouldn’t make me a celebrity chef.” She nearly laughed at the thought. “I mean, the academy is a great school, but the Shenandoah Valley is hardly New York or Chicago. I didn’t need all that, though. I just wanted my own bakery.” Her chest suddenly felt like there was a steel band around it, gripping tighter and tighter, and damn it, this shouldn’t be so hard to say after all this time. “But Brian wasn’t as...enthusiastic. He blew it off as a pipe dream. Joked that cookies were for bake sales, not businesses. Stuff like that. He made it really clear he thought culinary school was a waste of time and money, and that my owning a bakery one day was about the craziest thing he’d ever heard, including stories of Bigfoot and aliens at Roswell.”

“I don’t mean to speak ill of the dead,” Owen said, sawing off each word. “But I didn’t realize Brian needed a lesson in proper manners.”

Cate shrugged. She’d come to terms with this part of things long ago. “He was scared I’d leave Millhaven and never come back if I pursued baking, and, to be honest, the fear probably wasn’t unfounded. I’m not close with my parents. Nothing was tying me here, and I’d have had better luck opening a bakery in a bigger city like Harrisonburg or Charlottesville or Staunton. I cared about him, but culinary school…God, it held so many possibilities. And I wanted them all so badly.”

“So you were going to go?” Owen asked.

“Yes.” Cate nodded. “I hadn’t told Brian for sure, but I think he suspected. I had half my things packed in boxes when I found out I was pregnant with Lily.”

She took a second for her conscience to slide between her ribs and squeeze. The first thing she’d felt when she’d seen that test turn bright, undeniable blue, had been dread. No. Not this, anything but this, and she’d never be able to erase that. Not even with the love that eventually came after and would never, ever come again.

Cate cleared her throat. “So, obviously, I gave up my scholarship to get married to Brian instead. We made a good life together for our daughter, but he did everything he could to keep me from baking. Guilt trips, making fun and calling his meanness a ‘joke’. Promising we’d look into renting a space for something small here in Millhaven, then going back on his word. But I never stopped baking”—God, it had been her lifeline, her oxygen on some of those days, when Brian’s contempt was on full display—“and he never stopped hating it. On the day of the accident, we’d argued even before Lily asked about the movie. It was why I’d chosen such a difficult recipe to begin with, actually.”

“What did you argue about?” Owen asked.

“Brian wanted another baby.” Wanted probably wasn’t the best word, she knew. What he’d really wanted was more leverage over her, more reasons to keep her busy and out of their kitchen. He’d made that clear in the argument, even though she’d have said no regardless. A baby will keep you focused on what’s really important around here, he’d said, as if the sliver of stolen time she spent in the kitchen every month had been some sort of national threat. “He told me I was being self-centered because I didn’t want to have any more kids, and that I had no right to put baking first. The thing with Lily only made it worse. He said he wasn’t going to put up with my foolishness anymore, and he threatened to throw out the batch of dough I’d been working on.”

Cate shivered. God, she could still hear the hiss of his words in her ear, the malicious bite of it would serve you right for being so selfish as fresh as if he’d just uttered it. “For the first time in my life, I snapped.”

“That doesn’t seem unfounded,” Owen said quietly, and if anyone else had told her the same story, Cate probably would’ve agreed. Of course, this was her story. One she’d kicked into motion. One that drowned her in so much guilt that she couldn’t even open the drawer in her kitchen that held the trivet Lily had made for her without wanting to break down and cry.

One she couldn’t undo.

“I was just so angry,” Cate whispered. “I told Brian I was going to stay in the kitchen and finish the recipe I’d started, and that he wasn’t going to guilt me about it anymore. I said it was past time for him to make good on all those empty promises he’d made that I’d own a bakery one day, and that this time, I wouldn’t let him blow it off. The fight was the worst one we’d ever had,” she said, her heart beginning to thump faster behind the borrowed flannel of her shirt. You’re never going to have a bakery, Cate. A dream like that isn’t for you. Best to wake up and remember that. “It ended with him storming out to the movies with Lily. I stayed home, and, well, the rest is…the rest.”

She let go of a shaky exhale, her heart climbing into her throat. Owen had asked her a question, and though she’d taken a roundabout path to get there, it still needed an answer. “I’ve played that day back in my head a million times. What if I’d given in and just said yes? Would Brian not have stormed out of the house so fast, into the path of that deer he’d had to swerve to try and avoid? What if I’d said no, we’ll all go tomorrow instead? Then it wouldn’t have been raining, and even if he’d had to swerve, the car wouldn’t have flipped over or smashed into that tree. Or”—hot tears filled Cate’s eyes, as they always did when she got to this what-if, the one she’d wondered in those early days if she’d truly deserved—“what if we’d all been in the car together, and I died instead of Brian or Lily? What if my daughter—”

“Stop.”

Owen’s hands were on her shoulders, his stubbled jaw unyielding and his eyes full of a brand of fire she’d never, ever seen before. “Your fight with Brian was terrible, yes, and the accident, even more so. But don’t do that to yourself.”

In a white-hot instant, her guard came crashing down. “Why not? It’s my fault, Owen! I said no. I fought with Brian. I told him I wouldn’t leave the house. I yelled at him that if he wanted to take Lily to the movies so badly, they should just go. I’d never done anything like that before, ever. But I was so angry at him for pushing, for making me feel like a bad parent when I loved Lily so much, for continually belittling my dream—God, for all of it—that I just snapped.”

She started to cry at the same time Owen’s arms came around her, so honest and strong and right, and she selfishly soaked in the feel of him even though she knew she didn’t deserve it.

“Don’t you see?” she asked into his shoulder, the words ragged in her throat. “That’s why I can’t have my own bakery now, and it’s why I don’t let myself feel good. How could I possibly have anything happy when I’m here and they’re not? When if I’d just done one thing differently—”

“Cate.” Owen pulled back, cupping her face between his big, callused hands, holding her steady without force. “That accident wasn’t your fault.”

“But—”

“No.” He shook his head. His voice carried no heat, but the truth in the single word sent goose bumps over Cate’s skin. “You were mad—with good reason, I’ll add—and you got into an argument. But you didn’t put that deer in the road, and you didn’t make Brian swerve to miss it. That accident wasn’t your fault, and it’s past time for you to stop believing it was. I know you loved Lily, and that you were left behind.” Owen thumbed the tears, which were falling in earnest now, from her cheeks, his gaze never wavering, his words low and strong. “And that makes you feel guilty, but you are worthy of happiness. You’re talented and beautiful and smart as hell. You deserve to live your life.”

Cate opened her mouth, primed to argue. But, oh, God, Owen’s hands felt so achingly good wiping away her tears, and when he said those words to her—the same words she’d adamantly denied for three long years—she realized the truth.

He meant what he was saying. And she might not believe it on her own, but when he stood there in front of her, telling her she was worthy of pursuing her dream and feeling good, she began to think at least maybe it was possible.

They stood there together, her crying and him silently dispatching every tear, for an amount of time Cate couldn’t measure, until finally, she nodded, shifting forward against his chest. Owen kissed the top of her head before parting from her wordlessly, moving to the sink to transfer the stock pot full of water to a burner on the stove. He finished preparing dinner, and she set the table in between long sips of wine. Eventually, they started talking about easy topics like what sort of books they both liked and their favorite flavor of ice cream, and when they sat down to eat twenty minutes later, some laughter threaded through the conversation, too.

And Owen wasn’t wrong. His spaghetti and meatballs were the best thing Cate had ever tasted.

She had two huge servings to prove it.