There’s a slump between the afternoon diners and the evening customers who come in for a party. I let Daisy finish up the cleaning and take a well-earned break on the swing-bench on the porch. The sunset is orange brushstrokes over a purple sky. At night, the stars are so bright the Milky Way looks like a thick blanket of diamonds draped over the sky. It’s quiet here. Except for the crickets and the occasional frog, there are no sounds of cars racing down the highway or police sirens in the distance. Crossing my ankles on the rail, I stretch and drag in the clean air. It smells of pine and cedar. I can never get enough of filling my lungs. I don’t take a single breath for granted.

My soul is content. My heart is at peace. I stopped looking when I drove away from Pretoria a year ago. I stopped swimming upstream so hard and allowed the current to gently drift me along. This is where I washed up. Pilgrim’s Rest. Ironically, I’m like one of those pilgrims who found their resting place. Finally, I can tick a couple of those boxes on my to-do-before-I-die list. I’ve retired to the countryside. The bar isn’t a Michelin restaurant, but I like the home cooking. It’s honest. No frills. What you see is what you get. I get to do what I love most–cooking–while finishing a correspondence degree in Food Science. Oh, and I’m taking Italian classes. Well, sort of. My kitchen help, a native girl from Naples, is teaching me to cuss up a storm. I even like the rowdy clientele and late-night singing. I made new friends, including Daisy, who is my bartender / bouncer. Not even the big folks mess with Daisy. She’s got a black belt in karate, and she can throw knives like she throws darts. I’m not living in a city of boutiques, architects, and posh private schools, any longer. I’m just the owner of a run-down bar in a bohemian town where no one gives a rat’s ass about my age or scars. It’s not that the people here aren’t curious about my past. It’s that they stopped asking questions I don’t answer.

Abby comes to visit every second weekend and holiday. She loves it here, but not enough to settle indefinitely. She enjoys the big city vibe too much. Hank, her brother, is the cutest thing since squirrels. I’ve babysat him on a few occasions when Debbie and Francois needed a weekend break. It’s good to see Abby happy. She dotes on her brother, and now that he’s started walking, he follows his big sister and Dusty everywhere.

Dorothy comes out here once a quarter to fish trout, her latest hobby. During those holidays, she stays in the guest bedroom upstairs, adjoining mine. My quarters are humble, but cozy. I still think of Brian, but it’s not a blooming ache that opens up and bleeds every time I poke my fingers into the memory. It’s a bitter-sweet reminder of life’s yins and yangs, of the darkness that stretches beyond the light, and the light that can’t exist without darkness.

My mind drifts to him, as it often does, in these silent moments between the rush of living and the quiet of longing. Evan was my first love, but Brian was my soulmate. The yin to my yang. It’s not until the figure hiking up the road is only a block away that I notice him, so lost am I in my thoughts.

He’s got a familiar gait. The way his boots pound the tar is both lithe and powerful. It evokes contrasting sensations of happiness and loss. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but then it dawns on me like a feather drifting gently down to the ground. It comes to me slow and sweet as understanding blossoms in my chest and heats my belly. His unusual length and the color of his hair remind me of the very object of my thoughts. His body is more muscular, and the highlights in his hair lighter, giving the blond a sandy hue, but the way he moves as he shifts a duffle bag on his shoulder is achingly familiar. I tense and relax at the same time. My body is confused, not knowing how to react to the jarring signals my brain is sending, but my mind is clear. My mind knows who is coming up the road, walking toward me with a lazy stroll even as every muscle in that manly body is drawn tight. His lips are curved in a smile, exposing one dimple, but his fingers clench around the strap of the bag. He’s a contradiction of cues, a whole lot of yins and yangs twisted together.

He stops in front of the porch and drops the bag to the ground. A small puff of dust rises up in the air. Resting his hands on his hips, he regards me from guarded eyes.

“Hello, princess.”

I’ve been living for this moment for one, long year. If I’d been living it my whole life, I’d still not be prepared. I stare at the woman I’ve lost on every physical and emotional level. It’s like a dream, yet, nothing has felt more real. The sheen of perspiration on her skin is real. The smell of her grapefruit perfume is real. So is the way her chest gently rises as she inhales. Most of all, so is that scar she earned because of me.

The woman who died twice. I carry the medical report in my pocket like a shrine to remind me of miracles and that nothing is impossible. Something as rare as what we had is worth fighting for. She’s worth fighting for. To hell with the how and why. To hell with the age between us.

For a long moment, we look at each other. Jane is even more crazily beautiful than I recall. The imperfection of the scar draws an eye to her beauty, highlighting her stunning features. She looks younger. Country living suits her. There’s a strawberry blush to her cheeks and a bronze hue to her skin. Her hair has grown to just past her shoulders. She’s wearing denim cut-offs and kick-ass cowboy boots with a matching hat. Her tank top is too tight for my liking. I can already imagine the other men’s eyes on her. She’s got her legs crossed and propped up on the rail, her stance not tensing one ounce at my unannounced presence. Any other woman who shares our kind of history would’ve chased me off her property, but not Jane. She’s too considerate, fair, and empathetic. More than that, she’s confident. She’s over me. She doesn’t need to chase the hurt away. My confidence takes a knock, but I’m here to do what I have to do, and I’m not leaving until it’s done.

I look around the building. It’s rustic. The log walls and unsanded floorboards aren’t what I imagined. I still associate Jane with expensive architecture and refined cuisine, although she doesn’t need the brands to make her the lady I remember. Even in shorts and boots she exudes an air of soft sophistication with that undercurrent of dark desires only a man like me who shares her tastes can sense. My gaze runs over the name of the bar painted in pink letters over the corrugated iron roof.

“Panties?” I’m amused and more surprised. What kind of a name is that?

A slight smile tugs at her full lips. “Go grab a beer inside. Tell Daisy it’s on the house.”

I narrow my eyes a fraction, loving her guts. She’s not only enjoying bossing me around, but also making a point of showing me I’m on her turf.

Picking up my bag and dumping it on the porch, I make my own statement. I’m here to stay. She barely gives the gesture any notice, nothing more than a cursory glance from the corner of her eyes. It’s as hot as a furnace in these parts, and I can do with a beer after hiking the last few kilometers from where my lift has dropped me. Pushing my palms on the doors, I swing them open. They make a squeaking noise. I make a mental note to oil the hinges. The interior is dark and cool, a welcome refuge. The tables and benches reflect the exterior in their homely design. Checkered tablecloths cover the tables, and potted cactuses are the center decoration. There’s a karaoke system and a jukebox in one corner. Nice. Snug, but it’s the hundreds of panties on the ceiling that catches my attention. Ha. Hence the name.

A woman with coal-black hair looks up from the bar. Her eyes light up with interest as they roam over me. “Howdy, stranger. What can I get you?”

“You must be Daisy.”

She leans an elbow on the counter. Her arms are almost as big as mine. Tattoos cover the skin from her wrist to her shoulder, which is visible under a strappy top. “Do we know each other? Because I’m sure I would’ve remembered.”

“I’m a friend of Jane, and I’ll have two beers, please.”

“Ah.” She straightens. “You’re taken. Lucky bitch.”

I won’t bet my money on the taken part, but I’m going to put everything I’ve got behind getting there.

She hands me two cold lagers. “Jane’s favorite. Unless you want something different?”

“This will do fine. Thanks.”

She salutes me with two fingers as I make my way back outside. Leaning on the rail, I twist off the caps and hand Jane one.

She tilts back her head and takes a big swallow. The way her throat moves forces my dick to attention. I can’t help it. She’s always had this effect on me. Even before I met her in person. I’m just glad my tools are still functioning, because I haven’t had a spontaneous hard-on since that day. I still can’t bring myself to say it. The day she walked away from my engagement party. The last day I saw her. She’s a miracle. Still a princess. And I want her. Irrevocably and immediately. My body starts pulsing until every nerve ending has taken notice. I haven’t touched another woman since Jane. The only way I settled my urges was with hand jobs, and now that she’s in front of me in flesh and blood, I both want to not lay a dirty finger on her and tear her apart with my cock. Her pussy, only inches away from me, reminds me how unfulfilling those hand jobs were. My desire for her hasn’t waned one bit. It grew worse. In an effort to cool down, I down half of the beer. She’s on a quarter of hers before she speaks.

“How did you find me?”

“Dorothy. Although, I always kept tabs.”

She nods in a way that doesn’t tell me if she approves or disapproves.

“Where’s your truck?”

“Sold it. I hitchhiked here. Walked part of the way.”

Her eyebrows rise. “Thinking of hanging around, then?”

I give the bar another glance. “I could do with a job.”

“What happened to Orion?”

“I resigned.”

“Your mom? Sam?” Her gaze slips to my bare ring finger. “Lindy?”

This needs some explanation. I sit down next to her. She doesn’t make space for me, but she doesn’t chase me away, either. Our hips are touching. Her skin burns me through the layers of our clothes.

“Jane…”

At the soft utterance of her name, she turns her head an inch toward me.

I wipe a sweaty palm on my thigh, clutching the beer bottle like a buoy. “That day…”

Say it, damn you. Get it the hell over with. Take your guilt and fucking own it.

I take a deep breath. “The day I almost…” I check myself. No use beating around the bush. “The day I killed you, I called my mom and told her to close the hatch.”

Jane’s fingers twitch on her bottle. I need to touch her. I need to soothe her, make up for too many things that don’t have words, but I have to take it slow. Resting my arm on the backrest of the bench, I let my fingertips casually, accidentally, graze her shoulder. She tenses. Regretfully, I ease up, moving my hand away just far enough so I’d still touch her if she shrugged or lifted her shoulder.

“She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t cross the lawn and close the hatch to prevent you from drowning,” I say softly. “That’s the day I realized it couldn’t carry on like that. I realized you were right. I had to do something to help her.”

Her voice is quiet but attentive. “Did you?”

“I booked her into an institution that deals with cases like hers. She didn’t like it, but she understands now.”

“Is she better?”

“She lives in her own flat in Hatfield with Sam. She has a steady job and friends. She’s been sober for a year.”

“That’s good.” She sounds sad in a nostalgic kind of way, as if she doesn’t like where her memories are taking her. “I’m happy for her.”

“She has a great therapist. He reckons they can stop their sessions this autumn.”

“It must’ve cost a fortune.”

“Toby paid well.”

She chuckles. “He did.” Slowly, she turns her head toward me. “Why did you resign?”

Her eyes say I had a great thing going. True, but nothing compares to her. Nothing is worth anything if I can’t share it with her.

“I gave up my studies.”

She discards her bottle on the floor, jumps to her feet, and walks to the rail. Leaning on it with her elbows, she stares at the darkening mountaintops in the distance. “You shouldn’t have done that.”

I leave my beer next to hers and follow her to the rail, molding my body around the air between us. The only point of contact I allow myself is to brush her hair over her shoulder, but I retract my hand when her body freezes up.

I push forward, laying my life at her feet. “It took me a year to get my life in order, a year to sort out my mother and Sam and the thing with Lindy so I could get back to you.”

She flings around, her earlier serene expression sparkling with anger. “You shouldn’t have done it, Brian. I’ve gotten over you.”

It hurts like a lance rubbed with poison through the heart, but I gladly take the pain. I’ll take anything to have this moment, to get another chance.

“I’m over you,” she says again.

I wince. “I know.”

“Then why did you come here? If it’s for absolution, you needn’t have bothered. I don’t blame you for what happened. I don’t blame you, because I’ve moved on. You should’ve, too.”

“I came here because I’m not over you.”

Her eyes cloud over. The lovely blue turns into a stormy gray. “No.”

She tries to move around me, but I plant my palms on the rail on either side of her body, caging her in.

“There are things you need to hear.”

She turns her head away. “No.”

“Don’t be afraid of the truth. The truth is all we’ve got. I’m going to give you what I couldn’t the day Sam’s phone call and the storm interrupted us, what I couldn’t give you the night Clive walked in on us at the country club. I’m going to give you what you deserve.”

“Brian…”

I grip her chin and turn her face back to me. This way, she can’t hide her truth and the way it brims in her eyes. She can’t hide her pain and love from me. I know her too well, this woman who invaded my heart and life. My everything. My obsession then, my obsession now. I itch to kiss that scar, to show her that I love every old and new part of her, but what needs to be said can’t wait.

“I met Benjamin in Oscars.”

“I know. He told me everything.”

“Let me finish. He showed me a photo of you and asked me to help him avenge his dead friend who you’d allegedly cheated on. I only found out later he’s Evan’s brother when I saw his poster on a lamppost. He offered me a lot of money to sleep with you.”

She flinches and tries to pull away, but I hold on.

“He offered me fifty grand to sleep with you and give him photos as the proof. I said no. The truth is, from the minute I saw that photo of you my curiosity was piqued. My gut stirred. I was already obsessed without even having seen you in person. I had to meet you. I had to see if the reaction that photo had on me would be the same in reality. I can’t explain it. I can’t justify it. I just knew I’d regret not looking you up for the rest of my life. I stalked your house. It looked deserted. The lights were dark, and the garden was overgrown. I thought maybe you’d moved. Maybe it wasn’t the right address. Diving into your pool was an irrational decision I made on the spur of the moment after one beer too many in a bar. I wanted to be in your space, to feel what it felt like around the things that were you. I never expected you to be there that night, but I’m glad you were. I’m glad you came outside in your tight T-shirt and pants. I’m glad you cooked me breakfast. Every moment I spent in your company, every minute I was around you was premeditated, but not for fifty grand. The grand prize was you. It was making you mine.”

“Brian, stop.”

From the furrow between her eyes and the quivering of her lips, I know this is hard for her to hear, but I’ve got to lay this out between us. She has a right to know.

“I fell for you before I met you, when I met you, and every day after. I couldn’t tell you about Benjamin. I knew you’d bail, and I couldn’t lose you. Yes, I watched you on the security feed. Yes, I jacked off to the images of you, but I never showed another soul. When you brought me those photos, I was boiling with rage. I knew Benjamin had hired someone else for the job. I promised I’d cut off his fingers if he harmed you, and I don’t break my promises.”

Her eyes widen in alarm. “Please tell me you didn’t amputate Benjamin’s fingers.”

“I almost did. I found the scumbag before he skipped the country, but he told me you’d made peace. He told me about the camera he’d hidden in the house, and how Dorothy had made him destroy the photos and films.”

She lets out a breath.

“There’s more. I’m not a good man. I killed two people.”

“Your mother’s assailants,” she whispers. “I put two and two together.”

“Cowan found the gun that would’ve incriminated me in the cellar after what happened to you, so I cut a deal. In exchange for walking free, I delivered Monkey Williams, Lindy’s father, who ran a crime syndicate in the north and west. I wore a wire and got Cowan the evidence he needed to shut the whole mafia operation down for good. Monkey had me in a corner. He made me witness a murder and blackmailed me to marry Lindy. This was the only way I saw out. It took us a year to get enough evidence to wipe out the syndicate.”

I wish she’d say something, but she’s only looking at me, deadly quiet.

“Monkey’s in for life. Lennert, the guy who cut you up, got killed in a shootout with the cops. Clive pulled a gun. Got shot in the heart. He was the one who told on us. Eugene and Albert left the gang before things got heated. Lindy was charged with the murder of three men she’d commissioned. She won’t be seeing anything but brick walls and orange jumpsuits for the rest of her life. Staying away from you for a year damn well nearly killed me, but I had to do it to keep you safe. Lindy threatened your life. I owed Cowan to finish the job and honor our deal.”

“What about your engagement?” she asks softly, a lingering pain simmering in her eyes.

I’m going to take that pain away. That’s the sole objective of the rest of my existence.

“I swear I never touched Lindy. I didn’t lay a finger on her except for the day I was forced to put a ring on her finger and the day I almost strangled her when I found out what she’d ordered Lennert to do to you. I’m sorry. More than I can ever express. The whole engagement thing was a farce, and I made sure everyone knew it the day Lindy went to prison.

“I needed to tell you this so you know I’m coming to you clean. No more secrets. I know I fucked up, and I’m going to work harder for you than ever. I betrayed your trust, but I’ll win it back, if it’s the last thing I do, because there’s one thing you can’t argue. We belong together. You may be over me, but if we both try, you can fall for me again. We can start over.” I glance back at the bar. “Here. Anywhere you like.”

She shakes her head, already retreating mentally from me. “You forgot an important factor. No matter what we lived through and survived, the difference between us is still twenty-three years.”

I wipe the hair from her forehead, framing her face between my hands. She’s straining against me, trying to pull away when I bring my lips closer to the white lines that mar her cheek.

“Please, don’t,” she whispers.

“I own this scar.” I press my lips to it. “I own it because I’m the cause of it.” I look into her eyes so she can see the truth in mine. “You’ve never been more beautiful.”

“Brian.”

“You have to hear this. Before the accident, I would’ve used everything in my power to keep you, even blackmailing you with those damned photos myself.”

Her eyes flare, but I continue mercilessly.

“I didn’t only lose you. I had to let you go. I set you free so that I could claim you back the way it’s supposed to be.”

I’m clinging to the fact that she’s not pushing me away. I’m clinging to the way her chest rises and falls faster, to how her nipples grow hard under her top. Looking down, I’m met by her delectable cleavage and the white lace of her bra peeping out from under the strappy T-shirt. My already hard dick strains in my jeans. Leaning closer, I let her feel the effect she has on me. Damn, it feels good where the little hard pebbles push against my chest. I want to dip my fingers between her legs to test her, but I have to slam on some brakes.

With a whole lot of difficulty and some more, I pull away.

Her eyes are hazy, like when she’s battling with lust, but they’re also uncertain. “What do you want me to say, Brian?”

“Say yes. Say you’ll give me another day. Another week. I’ll take anything. Whatever you’re willing to give.”

Her gaze flitters to the bar. “It’s hard work. Long hours and little pay.”

Hope blooms in my chest. “I’ll take it.”

She bites her lip. “It’ll have to be a sleep-in position. It’s a small town. There aren’t any other flats for rent.”

“Is that where you sleep, up there?”

She nods.

“Then I’m in.”

“Without checking it out first?”

“I don’t need to check it out. I’ll be in your bed, and I know exactly what’ll be there.”

A glint of humor creeps into her eyes, a little bit of light that expels the shadows. “You’re pretty sure of yourself, aren’t you?”

I’m going to work on that, until there are no more shadows in those midnight blue eyes. “I’m sure of my feelings where you’re concerned.”

She looks down at her toes, seeming to weigh my answer. Letting her out of the cage of my arms, I drop them by my sides. I’m done playing and manipulating. I’m done forcing. This has to come from her.

The wait is excruciating. She can send me packing all over again, or she can let me in and give me another chance. The wheels must be turning in her head. She studies my face as she chews her bottom lip. Ever so slowly, she raises the tips of her fingers and runs them over my knuckles. I hold my breath. It’s a fragile caress, and my whole future balances on which way that small gesture of affection is going to tip. Our gazes remain locked as our fingers intertwine. I’m not sure who took whose hand first. It just kind of happened, this small gesture that holds all the meaning in the world.

“On one condition,” she says, already tightening her hand around mine.

“Anything.” Whatever it takes.

“It’s all or nothing.”

My heart stutters with a leap of joy. A year’s agony peels away as I press my lips to hers, tasting her bottom lip with a soft nip.

“I’ll take all,” I say, letting the dam burst inside of me and crushing our mouths together.

There’s surrender in the kiss, but also domination. We’re both surrender. We’re both domination. We’re two of a kind wound together by fate.

Our love is stronger than age and secrets.

Our love was meant to be.