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Ruthie drifted off to sleep and he watched the light sweep by outside and thought about new beginnings. New pathways forward.

New opportunities to be the man he should have been all along.

When she stirred, a good hour had passed and she blinked up at him sleepily. Then smiled. “It seems impossible after all the pizza I ate tonight,” she said, her voice all scratchy from the screaming and the sleep. “But I’m starving.”

“You got a bit of a workout in,” he said, and watched her grin wider. “Though I think we both know that I did all the work.”

“How rude,” she protested, but he could see that she was teasing him.

And they kissed for a while about it.

When it got a little spicy, he pulled her up, dressed her in his flannel that she wore like a dress, and carried her back into the main kitchen in the inn.

He refused to put her down until they reached it. Then he sat her up on the counter and moved around the space in only his boxer shorts, while he threw together a snack for them both.

“I love grilled cheese,” she said happily when he handed her hers.

Dallas didn’t tell her that he already knew that. He only smiled and ate his.

Then he put the plates in the sink, moved between her legs there on his counter, and kissed her some more.

He carried her back to his bed and this time it was fast, intense, and just as shattering.

She sat on top of him, took him in deep, and rode him hard.

And when they were both wrung out and panting, they cuddled up together as they fell asleep. She turned at one point, so he arranged himself around her the way he always had before, on the bed they’d slept in together for so many years.

Dallas pulled her in, and curled himself around her back, so she had one arm of his as a pillow, and the other one snug around her waist.

He breathed her in.

He could hear the tiny noises she made as she breathed beside him.

And he slept so deep, and so hard, that he didn’t wake up again until morning.

It was the most he’d slept in years. Eight years, to be exact.

And the only problem was that when he woke up, Ruthie wasn’t there beside him.

Chapter Ten

Ruthie woke up to find herself deliciously, extravagantly warm.

She knew instantly that she wasn’t in her little lighthouse chamber, because waking up in the morning there wasn’t nearly as toasty as this. There was always cold air on her face, for one thing. She would burrow down beneath her covers, curl herself into a ball, and enjoy the contrast between her cool face and the rest of her buried in warmth.

All very cozy, but not like this.

It took her a moment to orient herself. She could feel him all around her. His arm was wrapped around her. His face was buried into her shoulder.

Ruthie stretched a little, turning in his grip, until she could see that gorgeous face of his.

And just like that, she remembered.

She remembered.

It wasn’t like a burst of knowledge. It wasn’t violent, or intense, or anything like she’d imagined it might be if it ever happened. Another hit to the head, maybe. Something suitably dramatic, like seeing him again, kissing him, all of last night.

Big, sweeping moments—that was what she’d imagined.