“But last night when I was telling you about Jon, and how we were best friends and grew up together, you had this look on your face. That was you and Nate, wasn’t it? You were best friends.” She saw a soft pink flush slowly creep across Joanna’s cheeks, and knew she was right. Should she drop the subject? Maybe, but the appeal of talking to someone who might understand the complexity of moving from friendship to romance was too great. “If you have any words of wisdom on that subject, it would be great to hear them. I need all the help I can get.”

“Wisdom?” Joanna started to laugh and Ashley looked at her.

“What? Why are you laughing?”

“It’s the thought of anyone asking me for advice on romance.”

Ashley grinned, too. “They say you learn from your mistakes.”

“And you want to learn from mine?” Joanna shook her head. “I’m not sure what I can teach you, except don’t do what I did.”

“But Nate—tell me about Nate.”

“There’s nothing to tell.” Joanna was evasive. “I haven’t seen him in twenty years.”

Conscious that there were people around them, Ashley leaned forward. “When you walked into that room it was like watching something out of a movie. You almost fell over, he caught you, you stared at each other. I have never seen two people look at each other the way you did. You were glued together. It was like—I don’t know—an electric shock or something. I expected to hear a harp playing. I felt like saying, Hello, I’m over here, but I didn’t because I knew neither of you was going to notice me.”

“That’s really not—” Joanna shifted in her chair, flustered. “I was worried about you. Thinking about you.”

“I know, and I’m grateful for it, but right at that moment you weren’t thinking about me, Joanna. You weren’t thinking about anything but him, and I don’t blame you.” Ashley grinned at her. “Those blue eyes of his are a killer. And he has good shoulders. Between him and Greg, there was no way any reporters were coming through the door.”

“Could you stop?” Joanna glanced nervously behind her. “Nate and I knew each other, yes. But it was twenty years ago. We grew up in this small town and we’d barely stepped outside it. I was friends with Greg, Nate and Mel. Close friends.”

Ashley knew she’d been witnessing something far deeper than friendship. “Greg was with Mel. And you were with Nate.”

Joanna knocked the spoon off the table and retrieved it, flustered. “Ashley—”

“That would explain a lot. You walked through that door and it was the first time you’d seen him in decades.”

“Ashley—”

“You must have been so stressed about seeing him, but you did it, anyway.” The pieces fell into place, and she realized just how stressful that meeting must have been for Joanna. “You put yourself through that for me. You did that for me.” She felt a twinge of sympathy and guilt. “Was it something you’d been dreading? Seeing Nate again?”