Ding dong.

Lily looked up from the cake she was assembling, adrenaline surging. But a glance at the clock made her blow out a sigh of relief. It was only two o’clock. She was a little behind schedule with this cake—her last June wedding cake—but the bride’s mother wasn’t supposed to pick it up until five-thirty. It was a small cake for a small wedding. She had plenty of time.

But she wasn’t expecting anyone else. She quickly washed her hands and started for the door, finger-combing her hair as she passed the hallway mirror.

Hearing a thump on the porch, she peeked through the sidelight curtain and the adrenaline rush was back. Seeing that truck parked outside did crazy things to her heart. Probably always would. She hadn’t ordered anything recently. She closed the curtain, trying to decide if she dared watch him walk away.

She couldn’t help it. Holding her breath, she slid the curtain half an inch and watched the sidewalk. She must have missed him. But the truck was still there.

The doorbell rang again, scaring the holy stuffing out of her. She stifled a squeal, took a deep breath, and opened the door.

Disappointment deflated her like an under-baked cake.

The pot-bellied, middle-aged driver held out the familiar electronic signature pad. Sid, she thought his name was. The guy before Gage had taken over the route. “Delivery for you, ma’am. Need your signature here.”

She looked past him to the truck parked on the street in front of her house. “You’re not Gage.”

He gave a wry chuckle. “Not last time I checked.”

Her cheeks grew warm and she flashed him an apologetic smile. “Sorry. That didn’t come out right. Is Gage…still working for you guys?” She signed beside the X.

“Gage Simmons?” He nodded. “For a few more weeks anyway. Unless you know something I don’t know. From what I hear, he took a job up north.”

“So I heard.” Well, that was wasted adrenaline. “But he still drives for your company?”

“Like I said, unless you know something I don’t know.” The man shrugged, clearly not in the mood to help.

She frowned. And hoped against hope Sid wouldn’t go tattling to Gage that she’d grilled him. “Well, thanks for the delivery.”

“Just doin’ my job, ma’am.” He stepped off the porch and trudged across the lawn.

Gage never would have tromped on the grass.

She took the package inside and set it on the counter. It looked like samples from a company she hadn’t ordered from for a while. She would open it after the wedding cake had been picked up.

She worked on the crumb coat and assembled the layers and two tiers, then put the cake back in the fridge to chill for a few minutes while she got the icing bags and tips ready. She had just taken the cake out to pipe on the scrolls when the doorbell rang again. At this rate, it would be a miracle if she wasn’t late with this order. She wanted to give it at least a few more minutes in the fridge before they picked it up. Stupid weddings.

She peeked out to see the delivery truck parked in the same spot. She opened the door to see Sid standing there with another box in hand. A box no bigger than a Rubik’s Cube. He shrugged. “Sorry. Guess I missed one.”

She took it from him and glanced at the shipping label. “I don’t have to sign for this one?”

“No, but it’s so small I was afraid you might miss it.”

“Oh. Well, thank you.”

Closing the door behind her, she inspected the box. She wracked her brain to think what she might have ordered. This box was too small to be baking supplies. And light as meringue.

There was no return address. Too curious to wait, she sliced through the mailing tape with a paring knife and opened the box.

The doorbell rang again. What on earth…? Still carrying the box, she went to open the door.

Gage stood there wearing an expression she couldn’t quite interpret…a cross between his crooked grin and a grimace.

“Gage…” She could barely speak. “What are you doing here?” She looked past him to his car parked at the curb. “The delivery truck…?”

“Oh. You opened it?” He nodded at the package in her hands.

“Not yet. I haven’t looked inside. It’s…from you?”

He reached to put a strong hand over hers on the box. “Before you open it I have to ask you something.”

“Okay.” She thought she might melt at his touch.

“Do you… Is there someone else?”

“You mean…like, do I have a boyfriend?”

He nodded.

“No.” Did he think she was that fickle? “Do you?”

He grinned. “No, I don’t have a boyfriend.”

“You know what I mean. Do you have…someone else?”

“I wouldn’t be here if I did.” He took his hand away. “Okay. You can open it.” He looked nervous as a cat. Or nervous as someone who was allergic to cats?

But before she could finish peeling off the tape, Gage covered her hand again. “Wait. Maybe… I think I need to explain some stuff first.” He gently took the box from her hands.

“If you’re trying to kill me with curiosity, it’s working.”

He looked past her to the kitchen. “Am I keeping you from something?”

She was pretty sure she would choose to ruin this bride’s wedding day if it would keep Gage here. “Um… I have someone picking up a wedding cake at five o’clock. But…come and talk to me while I finish decorating it.”

“Oh good. I’ve always wanted to see you in action.”

If her hands didn’t stop shaking, the cake would be a complete botch job by the time she was finished.

Gage perched on a bar stool at the island, and once she found her rhythm, her hands steadied and her instincts took over. A white-on-white scroll pattern took form and after that, pastel peach- and cream-colored roses bloomed along the edges of each tier.

“Wow. That’s incredible how you do that.”

She shrugged. “It’s really not that hard.”

“You make it look easy, but I know it can’t be that easy.”

He watched her while she worked in silence. She longed to know why he was here, yet was terrified to even speculate, lest her hopes be dashed.

He scooted the bar stool closer. “I guess I should start talking?”

“I wish you would.”

“Okay.” He blew out a sigh. “Thing is, I don’t even know where to start. It’s…like this. Okay, I’m just going to say it.”

“Say it already, Gage! You’re killing me.”

He grinned, obviously pleased by the rise he’d gotten out of her. “So, I drove by your house the other day. I was on my route, but I was probably…stalking you.”

She stopped frosting and tilted her head, waiting for him to continue.

“After that, Lily, I just…I can’t get you out of my head.” He pounded a fist on the island counter. “Who am I kidding? I haven’t been able to quit thinking about you since the last time I saw you.”

Oh, please, God, please let this go where I hope it’s going.

“I promise I really did have your best interests in mind when I broke things off. But…there were some other things going on too. A long-distance relationship terrifies me.”

“Oh, but it shouldn’t, Gage. We can—”

He held up a hand. “Let me finish. I…need to say this, okay?”

She nodded, sobering, fear creeping in again.

“I loved a girl once. Another girl. We were practically engaged. She moved away. Just a couple of hours to St. Louis. It never even cross our minds to break up. And it worked for a while. But…long distance wasn’t enough for her. In the end she…found someone else.” He hung his head as if the betrayal were fresh. “I didn’t see it coming. I was the last to know, and…that hurt. It probably shouldn’t have, but it about killed me.”

“I’m so sorry, Gage. You should have told me.”

“I should have. To be honest, I’m not sure I even realized that was part of the reason I just couldn’t go there. The thing is, now that I’m less than five weeks from moving to Omaha, I’m realizing that we could have had the summer. The whole summer to find out if there’s anything here.” He motioned between them. “I just… Well, it doesn’t matter now. And no, it didn’t seem fair to you, because if it turned out there wasn’t anything between us, I’ve made you waste a whole summer on me. And it turned out there was, what could we do about it, you know? Eight hours is a long way. And it’s actually more like eight-and-a-half. I was down there last weekend looking for an apartment.”

“So, you’re still going?” Her heart sank.

“I have to, Lily.” A twinkle came to his eye. “Can I take that expression to mean that you still don’t want me to go?”

“No. I mean yes. You can take it that way. And no, I don’t want you to go. I never have.”

“Okay…” He held up a hand. “Hear me out, okay?”

She turned back to her frosting, turning the cake on its little pedestal as she piped on the scroll design, taking a step back every so often to make sure everything was coming out even.

“Here’s what I’ve been thinking. Neither one of us has another person in their life right now, right?”

She nodded more vigorously than she probably needed to but managed to keep her voice steady. “No.” Only you, Gage.

“So there’s really no huge rush to decide where this could go, right?” Again, he motioned between them.

“I guess not.” To be honest, she was in a little bit of a rush. She wished the man would just shut up and kiss her already. But of course, she didn’t say that.

“Okay, so I started thinking… We’re both just getting started in our careers, still kind of trying to figure out what we want to be when we grow up. Is there any reason why we can’t just take it slow and figure things out together? Yes, it will be long-distance, and that won’t be easy. Our time will be limited, but really, people do it all the time. And they survive. We might very well find out that things just don’t work between us. But it wasn’t fair to not give us a chance. I’m sorry I wasted two months finally coming to this brilliant conclusion.”

She lifted the icing bag, afraid to break the spell. “So…what’s your brilliant plan? What would this long-distance…thing…look like?”

“Okay. You can open the box now. Well, as soon as you get to a stopping place on the cake.”

She glanced at the clock. She was good. Close to done and it wasn’t even quite three o’clock. She finished the last of the piping and washed her hands. After she’d dried them, Gage handed her the box.

She peeled off the rest of the tape and opened the box.

She pulled out three strips of paper. They looked like tickets of some kind. She inspected one: SAVE THE DATE. October 5-8.

She furrowed her brow and looked at him, clueless.

He gestured toward the slips in her hand. “Read the rest.”

The other tickets were identical except for the dates. One was for November 21-23 and the last one for December 23-27.

“I got my work schedule, the sports seasons, and you need to know that those are the only dates I have off the whole rest of the year. I have to work a lot of weekends at this job. And those last two are Thanksgiving and Christmas, and I know your parents will probably be home then, but… Maybe by then you’ll want me to meet your parents?”

She felt the weight of a thousand tears lift from her. “So you’re saying these are date dates?” She giggled. “You know what I mean. You’re saying you’ll come home—back to Langhorne, I mean—on those dates? And we can spend time together?”

He nodded. “And I don’t know if you can ever get off for a weekend, but you could come and see me too. My sister’s there, and I know she and Jake would be glad to have you stay with them, and I’d love you two to get to know each other.”

Lily stared at him, feeling like she needed to pinch herself to prove this was really happening. That Gage was really sitting here in her kitchen bringing all her hope and prayers and dreams back to life.

He watched her as if trying to gauge her response. He must have been unsure, because the persuasive arguments kept coming. And she let them, savoring every word.

“We have four weeks before I have to move,” he said. “Four and a half. And after that, in between visits we can text and e-mail and Skype and even write long, mushy, old-fashioned letters and send them in the mail if you want. Is that something… Would you be willing? Just to try it? One day at a time? And if one of those days we realize, hey, this just isn’t going to work, well, then at least we won’t have to look back and wonder. Because…I’ve wondered every single day, Lily, if I made a huge mistake letting you go.”

“Oh, Gage.” She didn’t want to cry, but tears were threatening.

He smiled that beautiful crooked smile of his. “I’m going to take that as a yes?”

She nodded, still not trusting her voice.

He rose and came around the other side of the island, took the slips of paper from her hand and set them on the counter. Then he took her hand and, slowly, ever so gently wove his fingers through hers. “I just kind of think it can work. I’m not sure exactly how yet, but I think if we were meant to be, if God intended us to be together, we’ll find a way. And if we don’t, we’ll have fun figuring that out too. Okay?”

He looked at her and must have felt like she still needed convincing. “Lily, we don't have to see every twist and turn on the journey in front of us. We just have to take the first step...and then trust God to show us the next one… And the next. Right?”

She squeezed his hand and looked into the bluest eyes. His words infused her with hope. “I… I think I like that plan.”

He leaned in and kissed her forehead, brushed her bangs back and inspected the spot above her eyebrow, then kissed it. “Looks good. You can hardly even see the scar.”

She nodded. She didn’t tell him she wished the scar would never go away, because it made her think of him every time she looked in the mirror.

He cupped her cheek in his palm, a twinkle coming to his eyes. “What I’m most worried about is how I’m going to live in Omaha without your cinnamon rolls and cupcakes and gingersnaps and poppyseed bread and—”

“And Snickadillies,” she whispered. “Don’t forget Snickadillies.”

Laughing, he lifted her chin and pressed his lips to hers. Gently at first. And then he kissed her like he was making up for all the weeks of kisses they’d lost.

Suddenly, Gage pulled away. Keeping his hands on her arms, he looked down between them where Fudge wove his way in a figure-eight around their legs.

Lily gave a little gasp. “Is he going to be a problem…between us?”

“He and I might not be best buds, but I think we can probably work something out. I could handle everything except…you said Fudge sleeps in your bed?”

She nodded, trying to look guilty. “He’s really warm on a cold winter night.”

“Yeah, well, so am I. And seriously, I could probably handle everything except sleeping on a bed where a cat also slept.” He grinned. “And I gotta say, I kind of like the thought that someday it might be you wearing my ring, and me on the pillow beside you instead of that stupid cat.”

“I think we can probably work something out.” She laughed and let him kiss her again. And again.