He has the balls to start laughing. “Babe, what’s wrong?”

Bits and pieces of last night float to the surface. “You…you’re…” I swallow against another wave of alcohol-induced nausea.

“I drove you home last night.” He scowls. “Wow, you really were drunk. You slept snuggled against me all night.” It looks like he’s making French toast. He washes his hands in the sink and rounds the center island. “Karaoke? Apologizing? Do I need to do all that again? Because say the word, and I’ll grovel like there’s no tomorrow, even without the audience this time.”

Feels like the wind’s knocked out of me. “Apologize?”

“Yeah.” He takes my hands in his. “I’m back for good. Last night, you said I still had a chance to make this right. I’m sorry. I never should have left. I want to come home and be with you. Please?”

The room swirls and dips as another wave of dizzying nausea overwhelms me.

“Whoa, baby. Easy.” He helps me over to one of the chairs at the small table here in the kitchen, where he drops to his knees in front of me and holds my hand. “Nothing, huh? About last night, I mean?”

Images I thought had been nothing more than dreams float through my head. “It’s all pretty…blurry.”

He holds my hand pressed against his cheek. I feel morning stubble there gently rasping against my flesh, anchoring me to the present and reassuring me this is totally real.

“I worried you might not remember everything.” He smiles. “You were pretty much in the bag by the time I found you there. I stopped by here first, then looked all around town for you. Saw the ad for the Falls Inn in the paper in the living room and realized—”

“Wait.” I struggle to focus. “You still have keys to the house?”

“Well, yeah. You told me to keep them.”

My emotions swing widely and rapidly between overwhelming love for this man, that he kept his keys, and anger that my privacy’s been invaded. “Why didn’t you call me back last night?”

“I did. I left you a couple of voice mails. I guess you couldn’t hear your phone over the music.” He smirks. “And the alcohol.”

Damn him, that’s the same handsome smirk that disarmed me in college and started my fall for him then.

He releases my hand with a gentle squeeze, stands, and retrieves my cell from the counter, where he’d plugged it into my charger. He returns with it and once more drops to his knees on the floor in front of me.

I quickly scroll through the call log.

Yep. He called me back. Three times, and left me two voice mails. I don’t play the voice mails.

I set my phone on the table. “Okay.” I lick my lips and swallow back another, lesser wave of nausea. “Please start over, huh?”

He does, telling me what happened and why he’s in town. When he finishes I’m still feeling torn, even more than before. “So you were in town since yesterday morning and didn’t tell me…why?”

“Because I was afraid. I wanted to show up in person. I was going to do it sooner than I did, but what Keith Barnes told me threw a wrench into my plans. Now, I have to make this right. I got sidetracked researching so I can set up everything for him.”

I’m…stunned. “He was going to sell to a developer?” This is news to me. Something that big never stays a secret for long in this town.

“Yeah.” He reaches up with his other hand and cups my cheek. “Don’t worry. I will take care of this. I have to file more paperwork this morning but I can do it electronically from here. I have my computer with me.”

He points up at the table where I see that, in fact, his laptop is already set up and he has a document open on the screen. “It’ll take me a couple of hours. I want everything filed before I tell the firm the news about the sale being dead. That way, with everything in motion, Keith won’t likely consider any new offer the developer might throw his way. Not that I think he’d sell for any amount once I have this set up. He didn’t want to sell at all.” He studies me for a moment. “Are you going into work today?”

“No. I feel…crappy.” I do feel a little better than I did when I woke up. Emotionally, at least. Closing my eyes, I take a long, deep breath. “Can you please get me a glass of water?”

“Sure, baby.” He jumps up to do it. I keep my eyes closed and listen to the sound of his bare feet padding across the kitchen floor. Of him opening and closing cabinet doors. He’s shirtless and wearing a pair of dress slacks, and the view of him like that is too tempting—and the sound of him filling my kitchen too welcomed after years of loneliness—for me to think straight.

I’ve missed this and him. Years ago, I had once mentioned getting married, not long after he moved in with me after college. Back then, he said he wanted to wait to do that because he didn’t need a piece of paper to be with me. Plus, with me eventually owning the house and store, he said it would be complicated to set up the prenup properly. That it’d be better to wait until that was all official and on paper, and once he’d built his career. We had powers of attorney for each other about healthcare decisions and hospital visitation, but I didn’t push.

I was afraid to push him out of my life, or that if I pushed too much he might think I was too needy.

Then, when he left, I sadly realized maybe he’d known all along that he might one day leave me. In retrospect, his initial rebuff of getting married made sense when contemplated in that context. It was also a bittersweet relief that I didn’t have to spend money or emotional resources on a divorce. I could still lie to myself that things weren’t “over” between us.

I hear him return and he places the glass in my hand, presses my fingers around its cool sides, and waits to release it until and he knows I have a secure hold. Several long swallows help slake my drought and settle my stomach enough I can think.

Holding the cool glass pressed against my forehead with my right hand, I keep my eyes closed.

Desi doesn’t interrupt me as I digest all of this. As much as I love him, I can’t look at him when I ask it.

“How do I know you won’t leave me again?”

“Baby, I swear. Whatever you need from me, whatever you ask of me, I’ll do it.”

“But you left before. How can I trust you won’t get itchy feet in a few years and leave again?”

When he takes my left hand I finally open my eyes to find him slipping a gold band on my ring finger. “Marry me, Tommy. Please? We’ll draw up a prenup, and I’ll even pay for you to have another attorney represent you when we do. I want to marry you. I want my last name attached to yours. I want to wear matching rings and brag to everyone that you’re my hubby.”

He holds out a matching wedding band. “Forever. I need forever with you, because I haven’t been happy when I haven’t been with you.”

I find my hand reaching for it even before my mind fully engages and processes what he’s said. The ring sits there in my palm, a mate to the one now on my finger.

I guess I’m silent for too long because he drops to his knees again, his hands resting on the tops of my thighs.

“I love you,” he says. “I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I was stupid, and I was wrong. I let my mother guilt-trip me to take this job and I thought I could convince you to leave Maudlin Falls and want to be with me. But I had it all backward—I never should have left here, or you. This is where I belong, and I always have.”

When I meet his hazel gaze I see the pain there, the longing.

The grief.

Once again, my mouth engages before my brain. “Why wasn’t I good enough for you before?”

“You were, baby. I was stupid. Really stupid. Never should have left you. I will go to my grave hating myself for walking away from you and for the time I wasted between us.”

This feels…too easy? Is that what I’m looking for?

I don’t know but with my head pounding it’s hard to think. Heck, it’s hard to listen to him without wincing. He’s not screaming but my ears feel like they’ve been turned up to eleven.

Jester twines himself around my feet, then rubs his head against Desi before looking up at me and maowing. Like even my cat’s asking me to give Desi another chance.

I don’t know what I’m supposed to say. My heart wants to say yes and jump at this. My head says slow down because I’ve been emotionally scorched once already by this man.

The gold band warms to my touch. I roll it between my thumb and index finger as I struggle to process all of this. I know he wants me to put it on his hand right now, to reassure him that everything’s forgiven, except I need more.

I can’t manage anything over a whisper. “How do I know you won’t leave me again? How do I know there’s not more to this I’m not seeing right now? If this were someone else telling you about their ex suddenly reappearing and proposing, would you tell them to jump for it, or wait? Honestly?”

He sadly sighs. After he takes the glass from me and sets it on the table, he cups my hands again. “I would tell them to be very careful and take their time,” he says. “I’d tell them to guard their heart and make him work hard to earn it back.”

I force myself to look him in the eyes again. “Then why should I trust you yet?” Another thought hits me. “How many guys have you slept with since me?”

Despite the pain in his expression, I don’t take the words back.

I can’t.

“I’ve dated a few guys, yeah. But none of those relationships lasted. Mainly because I couldn’t make myself sleep with them. I couldn’t see myself with them. Every single guy, I compared them to you. None of them could come close.”

A shaky breath escapes me in a whoosh. “How many guys?”

To his credit I can tell he doesn’t want to discuss this, but he answers. “Five. Two I only dated a week each. Two of them lasted nearly a month each. The last guy, Freddy, is the son of a friend of my parents and he works at the firm. We dated nearly two months. I broke up with him three weeks ago. I didn’t sleep with any of them, I swear.”

It takes everything in me not to shove his hands away. “Can you see where I’m suspicious?”

“I can, and I don’t blame you for it.”

Silence settles over us for a moment. “You going to ask it?”

He slowly shakes his head. “It doesn’t matter. You had every right to live your life after I walked away.”

“No one,” I tell him, the jagged edges of the bitter words rasping against my tongue even as I hurl them at him. “There was no one for me. Not even just dating, not even to have coffee or dinner with. You know me. You know I don’t enjoy being around most people, especially strangers, and by myself.”

He squeezes my hands once more. “I’m sorry, baby. In the beginning, I thought I’d be able to convince you to want to move with me.”

“I won’t give up the store. I haven’t changed my mind there. If you want me, that has to be good enough for you. This is my life, and my future. You have to live here, with me, because I’m never leaving this town.”

He nods. “I know. It wasn’t fair of me to ask it of you, either.”

Damn him for shooting down every last one of my protests.

Damn him for taking responsibility and completely absolving me.

Damn him for making this stupid-easy in a dangerously comforting way.

I gently disengage my hands from his and twist the ring off my finger, holding both gold bands in my palm. “I can’t tell you yes today,” I finally say despite my heart screaming at me to throw myself into his arms. “But I’m not telling you no. I’ll tell you not yet. That’s the best I can do right now. I don’t know how long it’ll be, or what it’ll take, to turn that into a yes. That has to be good enough for you for now.”

He eagerly nods. “I’ll take anything, baby. Anything. As long as there’s hope, I’ll do whatever it takes.”

That word cuts into my soul, too. “How many of them did you call ‘baby’?” I don’t bother keeping the bitterness out of my tone. I think I’ve earned the right to be petty.

“Only you.”

To the best of my knowledge he’s never lied to me. I don’t want to think he’d start now, when he knows if he did and I discovered it that I’d never give him another chance. “How do I know when you leave here you won’t change your mind again?”

To his credit he nods. “You don’t. I’ll work my ass off to regain your trust. I do have to go back to Miami at some point. I need to empty and sell my condo there, and I have to sell the apartment in New York.”

I don’t know if I want to get my hopes up. At one time, this man was my forever. I’ve cried a river of tears worthy of the falls outside of town over him.

“Where are you staying right now?” I ask.

“I have a room over in Sarcan. The motel there.” I’m pondering my next statement when he adds, “If you don’t want me to stay here, I’m okay with that. No pressure. I didn’t want to assume anything.”

Overwhelmed, I close my eyes again. “Let’s start with breakfast and could you please grab me some Tylenol from the cabinet? And more water?”

He kisses me on the forehead. “Absolutely, baby.”

I sit there, eyes closed, trying not to hope.

But it’s darned hard not to.