“He’s ten years younger than me.”

Val’s eyes bugged out. “Ryn! Oh my God. Do tell. Who? What? Where? When?”

“I work for him. I’m sure I should have some rule against that, huh? But I’m self-employed and it’s never been an issue or even a possibility before now. He’s kind, and funny, and he plays the piano … like he can seriously play the piano. But he’s also a god, Val. I’m talking celebrity-sports star-fitness model god. It’s not that I have some awful self-esteem, but if you saw this guy you’d understand. I have no idea why he’s interested in me … in that way. I feel like I’m having my own Shallow Hal moment. You know, like he’s looking at me but seeing what he wants to see and it’s just an illusion.”

“Ryn—”

“Don’t.” She shook her head. “I need you to be my forty-something friend. I don’t need you to give me a self-esteem boost. I’m not saying I think I’m ugly or lacking in all sex appeal. I’m just being realistic. I love ice skating and I’m pretty good at it, but I’m never going to make the Olympic team. Do you get what I’m saying?”

Val squinted a bit. “This guy is the gold medal of guys?”

“Exactly.”

“Have you had …” Val wiggled her brows.

Ryn blushed. “Yes. Oh. My. God. Yes.”

“And?”

Ryn laughed. “Back to the Olympic scenario … if sex were an event. He’d take the gold.”

“I hate you.” Val shook her head.

“You should.” Ryn sighed. “I think there is a long line of women who hate me. Hell, I’m jealous of myself. I just know someone is going to shake me, and when I wake I’m going to be so pissed it was all just a dream.”

“So he’s a god. The sex is award-winning. Yet I get this vibe that something’s wrong.”

She chewed the corner of her lower lip and nodded. “It’s the age thing, but not like I’m going to break a hip during sex. Although his stamina is—”

“Yada yada … he’s a fucking stallion. I get it.” Val rolled her eyes.

Ryn chuckled. “Anyway, he lived a cavalier life before he moved to Omaha, but now he’s looking for something different.”

“A mature woman?”

With a twist of her lips, she shook her head. “A wife—a child-bearing wife.”

Val’s eyes grew wide as she mouthed Oh.

“Yeah. This is so messed up. When we’re together I can’t stop wondering if he’s attracted to me or my maturity and child-bearing hips.”

“I thought you had a C-section with Maddie.”

“You know what I mean.”

Val laughed for a moment then it fizzled when she looked at the true concern on Ryn’s face. “Is it really about believing he could be genuinely attracted to you, or are you not wanting the same thing? I have two teenagers and I can’t imagine starting that all over again—nursing, diapers, sleep deprivation.”

Ryn rested her chin in her fist and nodded slowly. “It’s everything. My hormones are all over the place. I don’t even know if I could get pregnant. And if I did, can you imagine what a monster I’d be with even more hormones coursing through my veins? And you’re right, there’s the new-mom thing. At one point I dreamed of more children with a man who loved me, but I think over the past few years that dream disappeared, and now I don’t know if it still exists.” She laughed. “But really … it’s all so insane because I’ve known him for less than two months. He’s mysterious, unpredictable, and I’m so far out of my comfort zone I can’t think straight when we’re together.”

Val shrugged. “You’re in your sexual prime. Go for it.”

“In less than ten years he’ll leave me because my female parts will be all dry and shriveled up. And the crazy part is I wouldn’t blame him because the guy was made to …”

Val perked a single brow. “Made to … fuck?”

Ryn smiled. “I think so. I’m not even sure he’s wired for monogamy. It would be like Secretariat being a circus pony—all that wasted potential.”

They both laughed.

“I’m scared, Val.”

She grabbed Ryn’s hand. “He’s not Preston and you’re no longer that woman.”

“I know, but he’s still alive and in my life because of Maddie. Even after all these years I swear he’s still messing with my mind. I second-guess everything, including what I want. I’m forty, for God’s sake. I should know what I want by now, but I don’t because somewhere along the way I lost a piece of myself. And because of Maddie I feel this incredible guilt like regretting Preston means I regret Maddie.”

“Ryn?”

She took a cleansing breath, ashamed those words even came out of her mouth. “What?”

“If being somebody’s wife again or having another baby is even a one percent chance in your mind, then get the guy. Suck him—pun totally intended—for all he’s willing to give you and then…” Val winked “…give him to me.”

Chapter Twenty

Day

Jones looked at Luke. Luke looked at Jones. Neither would concede that the other deserved to be in the dog house. As Luke’s gaze drifted to the fourth empty Heineken bottle hanging from his loose grip, he felt fairly certain the mutt would be sleeping in his spot that night.

Francesca needed a heart transplant or she would die. He remembered the days when he would have given her the heart from his own chest. Those days were gone and his heart left a few hours earlier to go for a bike ride. Even four beers in before one o’clock on a Saturday, Luke knew with every bit of his existence that Jessica Day was meant to be with him.

Somewhere along the way he unintentionally convinced her she needed him. Every day he wondered what would happen to them if she realized he needed her more. Beneath all the pain, the regret, the blood, the deaths … Jessica Day was a survivor. It’s not what she did, it’s who she was, and nobody could touch that part of her: not Four, not Matthew Green, and not Dr. Jones.

He closed his eyes and an hour later, which felt like two seconds, the door opened. The sweat-soaked body of the woman who carried his heart like a torch walked to the kitchen and filled a large glass with icy water from the refrigerator door. She didn’t acknowledge him. He couldn’t blame her. Some strange and completely irrational part of his mind wanted her to be pissed at him. Jessica could never be ordinary and he accepted that—a sick part of him even loved that about her—but just for one moment he wanted the Jessica that showed she had a jealous side.

“I don’t want you to be a martyr.”

She turned with narrowed eyes, wiping her mouth along the back of her hand. “You assume I’m suffering somehow?”

Moving his empty bottle like a pendulum, he clenched his teeth but the words still came out. “My ex-fiancée is dying and you tell me to go see her.”

Jessica set her empty glass on the counter. “She’s not necessarily dying.”

“It doesn’t matter. That’s not the point.”

“O-kay … so tell me what is the point?”

Luke slammed the bottle onto the coffee table then tugged at his hair. “The point is you should be concerned that my going to see Fran could stir up emotions from my past. That … that seeing her in such a helpless state could cause me to leave you to be by her side because I might think she needs me more than you do.”

“Whoa … how many beers have you had?”

He didn’t answer, choosing instead to stare at the floor, breathless with anger. Anger about what? He wasn’t sure.

“Jesus, Luke. I was jealous of slutty Lickey, and then your lunch date in Tahoe before I knew it was with your sister. But that was when I didn’t know how you felt about me. That was before you promised that someday you’d beg me to marry you. That was before you asked me and Jones to move in with you. If something has changed, then now would be a good time to confess. Otherwise, I’m not going to be jealous of your ex-fiancée, who may or may not be dying, unless you keep saying shit about seeing her and it stirring up emotions that would make you leave me.”