“Too fast. I knew that in my head, but falling for someone can short-circuit your common sense. I did convince her we should give it another month or two before we took such an important step, and she agreed. In my mind, I was thinking of an Easter proposal. But we didn’t make it that far.”

Given the previous hints he’d dropped, it hadn’t been a simple breakup—if such a thing existed. Whatever had gone wrong in that relationship, the man beside her must be carrying around a boatload of guilt if he’d written off romance forever.

“Do you want to tell me what happened?”

“The truth? No. It’s hard to revisit a bad scene. The only person who knows the whole story is Adam, and we don’t talk much about it anymore.”

Her spirits plummeted. If Brent had shared the painful episode with no one but his best friend from childhood, there wasn’t much chance—

“But I’d like to tell it to you too—so you’ll understand why I’ve shied away from romance.” Waves of tension rolled off him as he felt around for the cup holder and fitted his mug into it.

“I’d like to hear it.” And hopefully find a way to convince him there was room in his life for love.

Despite the shadows in the car, she could see his throat work as he swallowed. “I’ll try to spare you as many of the gory details as possible—but three weeks before Easter, while I was on a routine traffic stop, I was critically injured by a drunk driver who slammed into me.”

Eve gasped. Critically injured meant he could have died.

The mere thought of that sent a chill through her.

Yet it was obvious the vibrant man beside her had made a remarkable recovery.

She touched his arm, the gesture involuntary. As if her subconscious required physical confirmation he’d survived. “What sort of injuries did you have?”

“Broken leg, shattered pelvis, fractured wrist, ruptured spleen, and head injuries. I was in a coma for six days.”

Her stomach bottomed out. That was far worse than she’d expected.

“But you recovered and went on with your life.” That was the most important fact.

“Yes—after months of rehab. For weeks, the doctors weren’t sure I’d ever walk normally again.”

“Oh, Brent. I can’t begin to imagine trying to cope with all that.”

“Neither could Karen.”

They passed under a streetlight as his comment hung in the air between them, and Eve studied the flat, rigid line of his mouth, the deep grooves denting his forehead.

“Did she . . . walk out on you?” What else could his comment mean?

The car passed back into darkness, leaving his features in shadows. “No.”

Not what she’d expected.

“So what happened?” If he’d told her this much, that direct question shouldn’t scare him away.