“I’m not usually such a crybaby.”

“It’s okay,” he said, kissing away a tear. “It makes me feel hopeful that you might like me as much as I like you.”

“I do.”

Smiling, he kissed her again before he released her, leaving her bereft without the heat of his body pressed up against hers. He was headed for the door when he turned back to kiss her one more time, lingering long enough to draw more tears. “This time, I’ve really got to go.”

“This time, I’ve really got to let you.”

“Something this great? It has to work out. Don’t worry, okay?”

“I’ll try not to.”

When the door clicked shut behind him, Erin fell back against the pillows and gave in to a good cry. This was crazy! She was a mature woman crying over a man! But he wasn’t just any man, and he’d swung into town unexpectedly and rocked her world in more ways than one.

“I seem to have fallen completely and absolutely in love with you at some point in the last four months.”

Why didn’t I tell him that I’ve fallen, too? I should’ve told him. Erin covered her face with her hands, desperately trying to regain her equilibrium. After a long pity party, she got up, showered and left the room where they’d created so many precious memories.

Her heart ached that day and every day that followed as she went through the motions of supporting her parents and writing her column whenever she could steal a quiet moment.

Despite frequent texts, calls and FaceTime chats with Slim, she couldn’t seem to shake the malaise that began that morning in the hotel room and stayed with her over the next week, prompting her mom to ask more than once what was wrong.

She couldn’t say, exactly. But for some reason, she felt like she was fighting against a rip current, trying to figure out where she belonged now that her life had been irreparably altered by a handsome, sexy, wonderful man who wanted everything from her.

Could she do it? Could she hand over her heart to him and hope that nothing would ever happen to crush her again the way she’d been crushed once before? In a middle-of-the-night moment of clarity more than a week after she’d last seen him, Erin finally understood why she couldn’t shake the disquiet.

It was because she was on the verge of possibly taking the biggest risk she’d taken since losing her brother, and the fear of the many ways it could go wrong had her paralyzed with indecision. She didn’t have the slightest doubt that Slim was sincere in his feelings and his intentions. He was a good and honorable man who would treat her like a queen. He wasn’t the problem. She was.