She bent her head and leaned it against his chest. “I know it does, and it’s not because I don’t want to pursue this with you. It’s just… I can’t.”

Though he could see and feel her inner torment, he dropped his hands from her shoulders and took a step back, which was the last thing he wanted to do. What he really wanted was to wrap his arms around her and hold her until she conceded that what was happening between them was a good thing. But until he understood more about her inner torment, he didn’t know where to start with convincing her.

“I’m sorry, Paul.”

“Me, too. I didn’t mean to push you.”

“You didn’t. Everything that happened was because we both wanted it.”

“I wish…” Paul thought better of what he was going to say and shook his head. “Never mind.”

She didn’t ask him what he wished for, probably because she already knew. Hope turned away from him and walked around the broken glass on the floor to get the shirt she’d taken off. The rain continued to come down hard outside, beating against the tin roof on the building in a steady rhythm.

“You can wait out the storm here if you want to.”

“That’s okay. I have stuff to do at my place. I’ll see you later.” She was out the door before he could say anything.

Paul blew out an unsteady deep breath. He reached for a broom and dustpan and cleaned up the broken glass. The shards of glass were a fitting metaphor for how he felt at the moment. Shattered. To have had something so amazing yanked away when they hadn’t had the chance to see what might be possible was nothing less than devastating.

He wasn’t a man who couldn’t take no for an answer. She’d left him with no choice but to accept her wishes. As he dumped the broken glass into a trashcan, he decided he wasn’t going to let himself descend into self-pity. Before the flirtation, or whatever it had been with her, he’d been determined to start dating again, so that was what he would do.

Withdrawing his cell phone from his pocket, he went through his list of contacts, determined to make this call before he lost his nerve or gave in to the urge to descend into misery over what he couldn’t have. Hope was an amazing woman, and he wished that things could be different. But with reality staring him in the face, he pressed send to make his call.

“Hello?”

“Oh, hey, Chloe, it’s Paul Martinez.”

“Hi, Paul, how’re you?”

“Doing good. You?”

“Better now that the summer is over and things are back to normal around here.”