Although in truth, he did. Wasn’t the romantic notion he’d dreamed up as he’d lain awake in bed last night prompted by guilt? Maybe the rift between them wasn’t entirely his fault, but a large portion of it was.

And he didn’t want to lose her.

Drawing in a deep breath, Doug picked up the bouquet, slid out from behind the wheel, and went in search of his wife.

He found her in the laundry room, makeup free, hair uncombed, dressed in her oldest sweats as she pulled a load of clothes from the dryer and turned to dump it on the folding table.

She jerked when she spotted him standing in the doorway, and a few of his T-shirts landed in a heap on the floor as one hand fluttered to her chest. “Doug! I thought you were going to be at the office most of the—” Her gaze flicked to the bouquet he was gripping . . . then moved back to his face, her expression morphing from startled to uncertain.

“That was the original plan . . . but I got to thinking about—” He swallowed. Cleared his throat. Shifted his weight. “About us, and how much fun we used to have—and how I miss those early days. They seem like . . . they feel like another life sometimes.”

She hugged the armful of laundry tighter to her chest, one of his handkerchiefs drifting to the floor to join the jumbled T-shirts. “To me too.”

“So I was thinking . . . why not try to build in more time for us? Leave our responsibilities behind for a few hours every week and focus on all the things that brought us together in the first place.” His heart was thumping as hard as it used to during his high school track meets, his respiration just as choppy.

Moisture filled her eyes, and she released an unsteady breath. “Why now?”

Because he’d come too close to throwing away all the years he’d invested in building a life with this woman he’d vowed to love and honor as long as he lived. And that had scared him.

But the impetus for his epiphany was irrelevant. What mattered was that it had happened. That he’d regained his senses before he made a mistake he’d have regretted until his dying day.

So he searched for other words.

“I don’t like how we’ve drifted apart—and I was afraid if that continued, we’d end up on opposite shores, with a huge gulf between us that couldn’t be bridged.” He exhaled. “I’d like to try and recapture a bit of our dating days, when we were young and carefree . . . and the center of each other’s world.”

“I’d like that too.” She sighed, and her shoulders slumped. “But we’re different people now. Life moves on. Circumstances change.”