“We would have had to work on our marriage.” He shrugged. “Harder,” he added, in case anyone thought he hadn’t tried.

“Oh, dear,” she said. “John…have you seen the boys ?” she asked.

“No. Just a picture. Jess asked me if I’d take them fishing sometime. They’re pretty cute, but they don’t look like twins. I guess the dark one looks like his father.”

Leigh swallowed and nodded.

“Jess knows I coach Little League, and I still work the ski patrol in winter, part-time, and instruct kids in downhill. She said they’re real hellions,” he added, smiling. He rested his hand on her forearm.

“John,” she said, twirling her wineglass by the stem. “I’m not sure which one of us messed up worse…you or me.”

“How about if we just leave it in the past and go from here?”

“I don’t know if that will work. The past is following us around. And besides…go where?”

“Take a little drink of that wine, Leigh. Let’s get out of here for the rest of this conversation…in case it gets personal.”

“I think the rest of this conversation is going to be real easy and involve one little word,” she said softly. “No.”

“…‘No’ to what?” John asked.

“I’m not willing to pick this up where we left it, John. It hurt me too much. Even though it was at least as much my fault as yours, it was still very painful.”

John caressed her forearm. Boy, did he understand that. He was all through being belligerent and touchy; besides, she was right. All he wanted was to put an arm around her shoulders, maybe hold her hand, and talk about it. He had to resolve things with this woman for whom he’d carried a big, heavy torch for five years. Okay, he did want to see if being close to her caused him to feel the old feeling that he would never get close enough. But he only wanted to know. He wasn’t going to go crazy. Right away.

“Let’s go for a walk, huh? Alone? Talk a little. And I promise, you won’t have to say ‘no’ again.” He held up three fingers. “Scout’s honor.”

* * *

“You were never a Boy Scout, were you?” she asked later.

“No.”

“I should have known,” she said.

“It was only one kiss,” he said. “I just wanted to check and see if it was as good as I remembered.”

“And was it?”

“Yep. But what that means, I guess, is that it can be just as bad as it was, too. So we’d better finish that conversation.”