“Oh, yes. The ice broke, and I sank like a lard ass until Luke fished me out. But when Ma heard about it, she made me take ice baths for a week as punishment.”

“She did not!” Gloria laughed.

“Okay, so maybe they were lukewarm baths, but still. The woman is a mercenary.”

“I’d like to meet her someday,” Gloria mused.

Aldo brushed his thumb over hers. “Say the word. I promise to stand valiantly between the two of you.”

She laughed, the brightness of it filling up his truck, his chest. Yeah, this was worth coming home to and worth not leaving again.

* * *

He eased up to the curb in front of Gloria’s mother’s house. If she wondered how he knew where she lived, Gloria didn’t ask. She slipped her hand out of his and fished the pie plate off the floor. “I believe this is your payment for chauffeuring me,” she said.

He caught a whiff of the cinnamon-y goodness under the foil. “I think we should get married,” he decided.

Gloria’s jaw dropped, and then she laughed again.

“I’m serious,” he insisted. “Just, maybe spend the next six months thinking about it, okay?”

“Yeah, I’ll do that,” she said, still laughing when she released her seatbelt.

“Hang on,” he said, sliding out from behind the wheel. He hurried around to her door and opened it. “You’re engaged to a gentleman.”

She stepped down onto the sidewalk. “I am?” There was a lightness in her words and in her eyes that sparkled under the streetlights, and Aldo couldn’t think of anything he wanted more than to kiss her right then and there.

There was a low rumble behind them, and Gloria flinched, the light fading from her face, was replaced with a flash of fear. Aldo turned, putting her behind him, and spotted a neighbor two houses down wheeling their trash bin to the curb.

He turned back, intending to rub the goose bumps off her arms with his big, warm hands. But when he reached for her, she took a nervous step back. “Sorry,” she whispered, hunching her shoulders.

“Gloria.” He said her name softly. “It’s okay.”

She gave a jerky shrug of her thin shoulders that broke his heart a little bit more. “No. It’s not. And I don’t know if it ever will be.” Her whispered confession destroyed him.

“Sweetheart,” he tried again. But when he saw her nervously swipe her slim fingers under her eye, he couldn’t stop himself. She couldn’t cry in front of him. He’d never give her a reason to, he vowed.

Slowly, carefully he wrapped his arms around her and held her against his chest. She tensed against him for a second, and with a sigh too big for her body, she let go and relaxed into him.

“Have you thought about talking to someone?” he asked gently.