She thought maybe now she understood for the first time how much she’d really hurt him, and felt sliced in two. “What could we have done? Gotten married and lived happily ever after, and forgotten the warehouse fire ever happened?”

He shoved his hands into his pockets, the same hands which had taken her to bliss and back only moments ago, and now they were as apart as strangers. “I don’t know.” He shrugged. “I didn’t believe in happily ever after. All I know is I believed in you, and how you made me feel. Which was alive.” He slowly shook his head. “When I’m with you, it just bursts out of me. But I’m a selfish SOB. I need it back and I need to know, Red. Is this going anywhere other than your living room floor?”

Her breathing had already gone to hell. At his question, her chest tightened. Admitting her burgeoning emotions to herself was hard enough. “What if I know I have feelings, I just haven’t been able to sort them yet?”

“Then sort them. But I know you, Red. You’ll tell yourself it’s not real, it’s just temporary. You’ll tell yourself whatever you have to so that when you leave, you can do so without looking back.”

She gaped at him. “You think I’m pushing you away so that I can leave again?”

“I don’t know what I think.” He waited, giving her a chance to help him.

But she couldn’t seem to think under a spotlight.

“You know, Summer,” he finally said. “No one can disappoint me quite the way you can.” And with that knife to the heart, he walked out the door.

She clung to the doorway and watched him get to his Camaro before she remembered something that pierced through her pain. “Joe.” She ran after him in her blanket, blocking him from getting into the car, getting wet all over again.

“Go inside,” he said, sounding exhausted.

“Wait. I forgot to tell you something.” She grimaced because she couldn’t believe it. “Several somethings actually.”

As wet as she was, he looked at her. “What?”

“I forgot to tell you about the phone call I got earlier. I think I said something about it at the bar—”

“Tell me.”

“I was asked to go away. They even said please. Can you imagine?” She forced a laugh. “A polite stalker.”

He suddenly had his fire marshal face on. “This happened when exactly?”

“Earlier.”

“Did you recognize the voice?” he clipped out, no longer her giving lover, but a man on the job.

“It was a text message. Out of area phone number.”

“Let me see it. Don’t tell me you erased it,” he said when she just stared at him.

“I didn’t.” She had to smile. “It’s just that you look so tough and in charge when you talk in your cop voice.”