“I know. And along the way, our love got buried under bills and aging parents and health issues and teenage angst and work pressures and deadlines and a thousand other distractions. I’d like to put it back on top of our priority list.”

She regarded him for a long moment, still clutching the pile of clothes. “Can I ask you a question?”

A nuance in her tone put him on alert, and he braced. “Yes.”

“Did you have an affair?”

His lungs locked. “What?”

“It’s a simple question.”

No, it wasn’t. There was nothing simple about it. But it did deserve a direct—and immediate—answer.

“No! Why would you . . . what have I done to make you think that?” Other than his lunches with Carolyn, he’d never spent one-on-one time with another woman since the day he’d met Alison.

She set the pile of clothes on the table, her throat working. “I don’t know. It’s just that you’ve grown . . . distant. When we are together, it’s so . . . mechanical. And all we ever talk about are schedules and chores and obligations. I thought you might have . . .” She tucked her hair behind her ear and picked a piece of lint off her shorts. “I mean, I know there are beautiful women out there, and I don’t have the figure I had twenty years ago . . .” Her voice caught.

“Alison.” He closed the distance between them, set the flowers on the folding table beside the clothes, and took her hands. “You were—and are—a beautiful woman. But I didn’t marry you for your physical beauty. I married you for the beauty inside—and despite the curves and challenges life has thrown us, I’ve never stopped loving you.”

She searched his face. “I love you too. I always have. But I didn’t know how to fix what was broken—or even how to bring it up.” She tucked the crown of her head into the curve of his neck and wrapped her arms around him, a familiar, tender posture he’d once savored but had too long taken for granted.

While adrenaline and testosterone provided fleeting moments of excitement, nothing beat the contentment of quiet affection in a relationship built on trust and history.

Thank God he’d realized that before he’d started down a path that would have destroyed what mattered most to him.

“Well, let’s work on it together, okay?” He brushed his lips over her forehead and handed her the flowers. “Beginning with this—and dinner tonight at Tony’s. I reserved a table for seven.”

Her eyebrows rose. “That could break the bank.”

“We can afford a splurge on occasion. One of the outcomes of having a fair number of working years under your belt—along with a few extra pounds.” He patted his midsection.

“You look perfect to me.” She smiled up at him, with all the sweetness he remembered from their long-ago dating days.