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to want to keep him there.
    Encouraged, he tipped his head and brought her in tighter against him. “Do ya remember,” he asked, as he shifted his focus to her neck, “how it was between us all those years ago?”
    “No.”
    Chuckling, Ned rested his hands on her hips and continued to kiss her neck. “Ya do, too. Ya can’t fool me.” They’d only just begun to sleep together when Bobby came along and ruined everything.
    Her hand on his chest stopped him cold. “Please don’t.”
    He was surprised to see tears in her eyes. “Aww, honey, what’s a matter?”
    “Nothing.” She stepped around him. Over her shoulder, she said, “I’m going to get dressed.”
    “Not on my account, I hope. I kinda like ya the way ya are.”
    She scurried away, but not before he caught the blush that flamed her cheeks.  
    Frustrated by the walls she’d built up around her heart, he flopped into a chair to wait. Fifteen minutes later, she emerged made up and put together—even though her red hair was still wet—and displeased to see him still there.
    “What’s going on here, Francine?”
    “What do you mean?” She got busy making coffee, apparently forgetting the power was out. When she remembered, she gave the coffeemaker a frustrated shove, causing water to spill from the top.
    Unable to sit still, Ned got up and went to her. From behind, he reached around for her hands, which were still trembling. “Whatever it is, we can figure it out. But ya gotta tell me what’s got ya so wound up.”
    “I said it’s nothing.” She shook him off and started cleaning up the mess from the coffeemaker.
    “Ya want me to go away and leave ya alone the way I did for thirty-something years?”
    “No,” she said softly.
    With his hand on her shoulder, he compelled her to turn to face him. “Then ya gotta tell me what’s going on. Why doncha want me to kiss ya or hold ya? I know ya like it.”
    Tears spilled down her cheeks, every one of them a spike to his fragile heart.
    He brushed them away and bent his knees to bring himself to her eye level. “Will ya talk to me? Please?”
    She wanted to. He could see that. But rather than share what had her so tortured, she rolled her bottom lip between her teeth and shook her head.
    “Francine… Yer killing me here.”
    “I’m sorry. Maybe we shouldn’t see each other anymore.”
    Ned’s mouth fell open in shock. “Ya don’t mean that.”
    “It’s probably for the best.”
    Staring at her, he could barely form a clear thought. The weeks they’d been back together had been the happiest of his life. It couldn’t be over. It just couldn’t. “It’s not fer the best. How can ya say that?”
    New tears leaked from her eyes, telling him that she didn’t want to end this anymore than he did.
    “Francine, honey, come on.”
    She shook her head and turned her back to him.
    Even though it pained him deeply, he took a deep breath and walked away. As he headed to the door, every step hurt worse than the one before. With his hand on the doorknob, he said, “Ya know where I am if ya change yer mind.”
    In a daze, he somehow managed to get down the stairs and into his car. He sat there for a long time staring out the windshield. Finally, he started the car and backed out of the driveway.
     
    Listening to him leave, Francine sank into the closest chair and let the tears come. Sending him away had been, without a doubt, one of the hardest things she’d ever done. But she couldn’t continue to deceive him or lead him on. She’d done that once before, and no way would she be responsible for crushing him a second time. It had already gone on longer than it ever should have.
    That was her fault. She’d been so darned happy to see him that day he popped up on her doorstep, asking her to dinner as if the more than thirty years since their last date had never happened—as if she hadn’t left him for another man without so much as a how-do-you-do for the boy who’d been so sweet and kind to