He came over to her and bent to kiss her cheek and then her lips when Jenny turned her face up to him. Looking down at her, his eyes bright with excitement, he said, “I’ve been thinking.”

Jenny held her breath as if she were a third party watching the dream unfold. She’d never gotten this far. She always woke up at the kiss.

“What about?” she asked.

“You should go off the pill now.”

Flabbergasted, she stared up at him. “We said we were going to wait a year.”

“I don’t want to wait. I want everything right now—you, us, our baby. I want it all. Will you think about it?”

Still stunned, she nodded. “Yeah, sure. I’ll think about it.”

“Good,” he said with that irrepressible smile. He knew she was powerless to say no to him when he looked at her that way. “Gotta go. Love you, honey.”

“Love you, too.”

He came back from the door. “One more kiss.”

Amused by him, Jenny hooked her arm around his neck and lost herself in the kiss, opening her mouth to the thrusts of his tongue.

And then he pulled back, looking down at her with eyes gone glassy with desire. “Mmm. I’ll need more of that later.”

“You got it. Have a good day.”

“You, too.” After one last short kiss, he was out the door. Gone. Forever.

Jenny woke up sobbing, gasping for breath as the memories flooded her, overwhelming her with the sweetness, the poignancy and the unbearable sadness. And somehow she knew, in her heart of hearts, that she wouldn’t have the dream again and felt like she’d lost him all over again.

Her sobs woke Alex. “What, baby? What’s wrong?”

She was crying so hard she couldn’t speak for a long time.

He held her in his arms, rubbing her back and whispering words of comfort that went straight to her heart.

“I had the dream again,” she said as soon as she was able. “I finally remembered what he said that morning.”

“Oh God, Jenny. Do you want to tell me? I’d understand if you didn’t…”

“I want to tell you.” She took several breaths and wiped the tears from her face before she related their last words to him. “All this time… I couldn’t remember. I knew it was something big, but I didn’t know what. And now…”

“Now you know, and it hurts almost as much as it did the first day.”

“Yes.” That he understood was an incredible gift at a time when she desperately needed it. Her heartbroken sobs filled the room. He held her until there were no tears left, until her head throbbed and her eyes ached from crying. “Why do you suppose I remembered that the same night you and I talked about children?”

“I don’t know. Maybe because you were finally ready to hear what he said?”

“I suppose.”