Saturday, July 24. 7:21 p.m. Lower Hutt, greater Wellington area, New Zealand.

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Ana made the beds with ruthless efficiency, as if the sheets themselves conspired to raise her temperature higher by not fitting smoothly over the single mattresses. Sally Wilcox was a dreadful gossip. Ana considered her an honorary grandmother, but the fact remained—Mrs. Wilcox had sunk many ships with her loose lips.

It irked how easily Ana had been manipulated into leaving Daniel alone, but inbred politeness prevented her from protesting. The elderly woman was a pro at manipulation warfare. Small as a sparrow, lethal as a hawk.

Ana tucked the last corner of blanket in place while faint snippets of muted conversation drifted down the hallway. She shook out a pillowcase and shoved a pillow inside, practically punching the stuffing around to make it fit.

What part of her life was Sally nattering on about? Hell. There was no shortage of scandalous labels attributed to her in the past to examine—devastated daughter, knocked-up young mother, and lastly, the grieving widow. She’d enough emotional baggage to overload an airport carousel. No doubt one glimpse of it would send Daniel, like any sane man, running in the opposite direction.

Ana huffed out a sigh, threw the pillow on the bed, and started battling with the next. Why did the thought of Daniel disappearing over the horizon bother her? Logically, it shouldn’t. The desire to know Daniel better, and more importantly, this attraction to him, was completely illogical. It transformed the solid bedrock she’d built for herself since Neil died into a murky quicksand.

Because she was beginning to like him, she really was.

His piercing eyes that saw too much, the dimples, and the tightly packaged body that filled out his shirt and jeans. And aside from the physical attraction, he made her laugh, was family-oriented, cared about people, and she could easily make the list a whole lot longer. Daniel would be the perfect boyfriend or even husband material for some lucky woman.

But not for her.

She had nothing to offer him, nothing left to give any man. If she’d known that before she married Neil three years ago, she might have saved them both the pain of a drift toward an ugly divorce. Maybe even saved his life, if he hadn’t been at that crowded bar late that night.

If she hadn’t the responsibility of being a solo parent to Theo and Alyssa, she might have capitulated into a brief and intense fling with Daniel. If he made love anywhere near as well as he kissed…her cheeks flamed hot and she tossed the pillow down.

But she did have the responsibility.

Two responsibilities.

Her mother’s heart wanted to howl, scream, and pummel the pillows on the bed. Tears spilled down her cheeks and she swiped them away with a white-knuckled fist. She was wasting time mooning over a man she could never have, and all the while her kids were miles away.

After a brief bout of weeping, and a quarter of a roll of toilet paper used to blot the tears from her face, Ana wrestled control of her emotions. Theo and Alyssa were safe. She couldn’t hold them in her arms and reassure herself right now, but they were safe. So she shut the door to the second spare bedroom with a loud click and started down the hallway toward the living room, letting her steps fall heavily on the floral carpet.

“Beds are all done.” She swung open the door, the beam of her flashlight spotlighting Daniel sprawled across the two-seater sofa.

“Come sit down now and put your feet up.” Mrs. Wilcox aimed her knitting needle at the empty seat beside Daniel, the only other place to sit in the room.

Daniel dropped his long legs off the other sofa cushion and she sank onto it with a grateful moan, keeping her body angled away from his.

“Daniel and I were talking about some of the equipment in the garage you could use tomorrow,” said Mrs. Wilcox.

I just bet you were. “Oh? That’s kind of you, but won’t you need it?”

“Don’t worry about me, dear. My Raymond’s been around earlier and he’s bringing Lisa and the grandkids to stay tomorrow morning since I’ve got a working toilet.”

She yawned, patted her crinkled lips with dramatic flair, and gave a shrewd glance in their direction.

“Oh my. It’s about time I toddled off to bed and left you young people to make your plans.”

Mrs. Wilcox dropped her knitting into the basket beside her chair and stood.

“Now, don’t you two worry about tiptoeing around after I’ve gone to bed. Make as much noise as you like. I sleep like the dead, so my Phil always said. Why, I would’ve slept through the earthquake itself if it’d been at night.” She left the room with a wink.

The skin on Ana’s cheekbones flamed hot. Mrs. Wilcox’s hint had all the finesse of a cement truck reversing over a foot. Was her awareness of Daniel that obvious?

“Did her Phil die of natural causes or did he run away from home?” Daniel said after a few awkward moments had passed.

Ana bit back a chuckle, her conscience protesting against laughter after her earlier bout of tears. Get a grip, she argued. You’re not in mourning, you’re allowed to laugh. My babies are fine. She managed a small, defiant smile. “I’d wonder that, too, after meeting her for the first time, but they really loved each other. Married for forty-nine years. Phil died two weeks before their fiftieth wedding anniversary.”

She paused and played with the wool of the colorful afghan blanket that covered the sofa. “Mr. Wilcox bought her tulips—her favorite—every twelfth of March for forty-nine years, the date he first met her. Now she visits the cemetery every March to put tulips on his grave. Hard to believe there are marriages like that in the world.”

Hearing the wistfulness threaded through her voice, Ana shut her mouth with a snap. She glanced at Daniel to see if he’d noticed. It was a mistake to look at him, for once she did she couldn’t take her gaze back.

“My parents have a marriage like that,” he said.

“Tell me about them.” Ana curled her legs on the sofa, ignoring the sensation of her knee briefly brushing his outer thigh.

“My mum, Sarah, is a registered nurse. Andrew, my dad, has been a farmer all his life, born and bred in the Manawatu. They met in hospital when Dad had an accident on his farm bike. Dad said he knew Mum was the one for him from the moment he woke up to see this beautiful angel bending over him. Seconds later she stuffed a thermometer in his mouth, so his first proposal didn’t go down too well.”

Ana laughed. “Did she accept?”

His dimples deepened. “She told him he must’ve sustained a brain injury in the fall, as well as a fractured collarbone and a broken leg. Dad told her he’d keep breaking things and ending up in her hospital until she agreed to marry him. Mum didn’t accept his marriage proposal that day, but she agreed to go out to dinner with him.”

“When did they get married?”

“Three months after Dad’s leg cast came off.”

“Your dad’s a bit of a go-getter, then.”

“It’s been the same with three of my brothers. Two of them married their wives within months of meeting them, and my second youngest brother got engaged a few weeks ago.” Daniel linked his hands behind his head, looking relaxed and entirely too comfortable.

Ana couldn’t prevent her gaze tracing and defining the smooth rise of muscle concealed under the fleecy jacket. Stop that right now. She blinked, focusing on his words once he continued to speak.

“The rest of them heckled him mercilessly because the wedding’s not till the middle of the year. Mum always told us boys we would fall in love so fast it would be like stepping off a cliff.”

“Love at first sight, huh? Maybe it is in your genes. Aren’t you the eldest? Don’t you get a hard time for still being a bachelor?”

“Yeah, Nadia and the guys rag on me a bit.” A frown twitched at the corner of his mouth.

Was he worried about Nadia and the rest of his family? Twinges of conscience made Ana shift uneasily on the sofa. In the panic for her kids, she hadn’t spent much time considering Daniel’s feelings. Of course he was worried. She didn’t own the monopoly on aching to hold family.

“You never got close to getting married?”

“Once,” he said. “It didn’t work out.”

“What happened?” Her tooth nipped her bottom lip. She was heading into dangerous territory. “I’m sorry. You don’t have to answer that.”

“It’s okay. It’s been a long time.” Daniel’s forehead creased briefly, the lines smoothing again as he crossed his ankles. “Charlotte and I went through basic training together. We were mates for ages, and at some point, about a year before I left the army, we sort of slid into a relationship.”

“Friends with benefits.”

“Something like that. We thought we loved each other, enough to get married, anyway.”

Ana leaned her elbow on the back of the sofa and rested her chin on her palm. “Thought? No stepping-off-a-cliff kind of thing?”

“To start with I bought into Charlotte’s vision of marriage: two people who were sexually compatible, had interests in common, and were headed in the same direction career-wise.”

Ana’s scalp prickled. Daniel could’ve been describing the reasons she’d accepted Neil’s marriage proposal. She’d cared deeply for Neil, appreciating his kindness to both her and Theo. They also started with friendship before their relationship developed at Neil’s gentle prodding into a romantic one. “You decided you wanted more?”

“That was part of it. My dad got sick a few months after Charlotte and I got engaged. I knew he couldn’t manage the property alone, so I decided to leave the army and take over. Two of my brothers were married and living in different parts of the country, and the youngest, Rob, was at medical school. Matt was already working on the farm, but he didn’t want to handle all the paperwork-type stuff that needed seeing to.”

Daniel rubbed his fingers over the shadowy stubble darkening his chin and then dropped his arm along the back of the sofa, stroking the blanket mere inches from her shoulder. “It made sense. The bottom line was I wanted to do it for my dad, and also for myself. I loved the farm and Dad’s idea of running quad bike tours. Charlotte thought I was crazy giving up my career. Just throwing away my potential, she said. She told me I didn’t always have to be the hero and rush in to save everyone.”

Ouch. Ana remembered her earlier accusation and the brief glimpse of hurt in his eyes. Before she weighed the pros and cons of touching him, she reached across and squeezed his hand. Their gazes locked as her fingers remained curled there. Her breath hissed from her lungs like a slow puncture and she concentrated on summoning the ability to inhale.

“She gave you an ultimatum?” Her voice barely rose above a whisper.

“Yeah, but I’d known it was over before it came to that. She never really understood who I was. The fault of suggesting a long-term commitment when I knew in my gut it wasn’t right, well, that was all on me.”

Ana looked away and let go of his hand, tucking her fingers tightly under her calf so he wouldn’t see them tremble. Marriage was not for her and she couldn’t pass the opportunity to tell him.

It was a stupidly huge assumption that Daniel even viewed her as possible relationship material. She’d likely read too much into a kiss that meant little more than an expression of relief and male exuberance.

“I guess Charlotte, like myself,” she said through tense lips, “isn’t cut out for long-term relationships.”

“You put yourself in that category?” Daniel leaned toward her, and she could see her statement arrowed tension throughout his muscles.

“Unequivocally,” Ana said.

“Being a widow doesn’t mean you’re not cut out for marriage—or a long-term relationship.”

No, widowhood didn’t mean she couldn’t begin again with someone else. It simply meant she couldn’t trust a man with her heart and that left her options in plain black and white. Love, at first sight or otherwise, wasn’t in her future. Her lack of trust had a nasty habit of killing it deader than dead.

“I loved my husband and I lost him. I couldn’t go through that again. I’m still grieving.” Ana slipped off the sofa and opened the lounge door. “I, uh, need to get some sleep. It’s been a crazy day. Night.”

“Good night.”

He didn’t try to stop her, and she needed to leave before Daniel saw the truth of her deception etched clearly across her face. If he challenged her further she might break then and there, admitting the attraction that arced between them. An attraction she could barely admit to herself. Better to leave him thinking she was still in love with a dead man.

Better for them both that way.