“I was just thinking about what I wanted.” She grazed his neck with her nails, getting a kick of satisfaction when his whole body seemed to tense in response.
“Anything,” he said with such sincerity she knew he meant it.
“To go back in time,” she whispered. “Twenty years, Dec. Before…it all. To that incredible summer when we were so stinking innocent and ambitious and…” She leaned into him, lightly pressing her body to his.
“Supercharged,” he whispered into her ear, making her laugh.
“That was the young part,” she joked.
“Speak for yourself. I’m pretty charged.” He splayed his hands over her back, riding them up and down over her cotton sweater, making her arch into him ever so slightly.
Tipping her head back, she relaxed into him, looking up. “Can we do that? Go back in time?”
“’Fraid not. But we can…” He brushed her lips with the lightest kiss. “Be right here, right now, tonight, not thinking about all those roads not taken. Just the one that we’re on this minute.”
“Mmm. I kind of like this road.” She lifted up on her toes to deepen the kiss, parting her lips to taste more of him.
“Me, too.” He pulled her tighter to him, letting her whole body feel the cuts and slopes of his powerful chest and the sexy pressure of his hips. He slid his hands up her back, tunneling into her hair, giving her a million chills and shivers.
Angling his head, he intensified the kiss, letting their tongues touch and send electrical shocks of pleasure down her body.
“Evie,” he whispered into the kiss. “I can’t believe how much I’ve missed you.”
She let out a light groan of agreement, lifting her chin to let him kiss her jaw and throat.
Heat rose from deep inside, a sweet, torturous burn that made her want to kiss him longer and harder and…everywhere.
The back door to the animal hospital clunked with the sound of someone coming out, automatically inching them apart.
“You want to leave?” he asked.
“I am hungry,” she admitted. “So maybe some food is a good idea.”
He eased her away, but held on to her waist. “Let’s go.”
They walked arm in arm around the corner, falling into an easy conversation when he asked for more details about Judah’s surgery. Talking about the procedure helped her hormones settle down, but the buzzy, achy, thrilling feeling never really went away, still there when they ordered and ate and talked and laughed.
By the time they finished dinner and ordered their pie to go, Evie finally felt like that full-body hum was under control.
“So…” Declan wrapped his fingers around the coffee mug and leaned forward. “Can we make this official?”
She started humming again. “Like, Facebook official?”
He laughed. “Is that still a thing? Do you not see these gray hairs?” He pointed to his temples. “I mean family official.” He inched closer and lowered his voice. “Will you go to Sunday dinner at Waterford with me tomorrow?” He leaned over the table. “My mother issued a very personal and heartfelt invitation.”
She had no doubt that was true. She’d seen so many members of his family in the waiting room that morning—including Colleen Mahoney, who’d been warm and sweet and parted with, “We hope to see you tomorrow!” And the grannies, of course, who’d showered her with interest. They’d all been so welcoming and genuine.
“I’d like that,” she said. “Not sure if it makes anything ‘official,’ but…”
He smiled. “I can’t remember taking anyone to that dinner before.”
“Not…what was her name? Bethany?”
“Not anyone.”
“Well, hate to break it to you, but you took me there a lot of times.”
“Anyone else,” he clarified. “Not that there ever has been…” His voice drifted off, and he looked down into his mug.
“Declan, I’m sure there have been many other women in your life.”
“None that mattered.” Then he reached across the table and closed his hand over hers. “Have you been in love these past two decades, Evie?”
“I’ve been in like,” she said. “I’ve wanted to be in love, almost talked myself into it a few times, but…” She lifted a shoulder. “It never happened.”
“And that’s why you’ve never had a baby?”
She dropped back and sighed, wanting to tell him at least some of her journey. “I tried assisted reproduction or donor insemination, as it’s called.”
He curled his lip.
“Exactly,” she replied. “It’s about as inviting as it sounds. And it failed twice, and I didn’t want to go through it again. It was stressful and exhausting.”
“You can get pregnant, though, right?”
“As far as I know, everything is working.”
“And you really want a child,” he said.
“More than life itself,” she whispered, making him close his eyes as if she’d hit a bull’s-eye. She squeezed his hand. “But the fact that I don’t have one isn’t your fault, Declan.”
He looked at her, silent, obviously not agreeing with that.
“I also looked into adoption, here and overseas.”
“How far did you get?”
“Not very,” she admitted, shaking her head. “I didn’t have whatever a person has to have to go that route alone. Time, energy, enthusiasm, unspeakable courage. None of it was there for me. If someone had handed me a baby and said, ‘Here, this is yours to raise and love,’ I would have been delirious. But the process is designed to weed out the weaklings, and I guess I was one of those.”
He snorted. “You’re anything but weak.”
“I wasn’t strong enough to do that alone. So maybe I’m not strong enough to be a single mother. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. It’s too late.”
“Is it?”
She searched his eyes for a clue to what he was thinking. It wasn’t hard to figure out, not when she could read his eyes as well as anyone on this earth. “You’re not still thinking about that, are you?” she asked.
“I’m not…not thinking about it.”
“Declan.”
“Evie.”
She smiled. “Step back and try to work out the logistics of that for a minute, will you?”
“A little complicated since you live in Raleigh and I live here, but…”
“Are you moving to Raleigh?” she
