“I never thought of it like that, but I guess you’re right. We went straight out the back gate and into the park every day when we were kids. I seem to remember pushing you and Ray in the swings a time or two.”

Ava shook her head. “Not a time or two. Almost every day… especially if your mom sent you out to babysit us.”

“You remember all that?” Hunt asked.

Ava grinned. “Oh, I remember everything about you…I was in love with you forever, remember?”

Hunt took a slow breath. “Want something to drink?”

“I do if you do, and whatever you’re having,” Ava said, then followed him to the kitchen.

They sat down to iced Coke in glasses and a package of cookies between them.

“If your mom was at the sink, she’d be telling us not to eat more than two or we’d ruin our supper,” Ava said.

Hunt smiled. “Even though nothing ever ruined my supper.”

“Or mine,” Ava said, and took a bite of the cookie.

“Can I ask you something?” Hunt asked.

“Sure,” Ava said.

“Birdie said you didn’t date, but she doesn’t know everything. Is there anyone here you date? Someone special, I mean?”

Ava chewed, swallowed, and smiled. “You mean besides you?”

Hunt didn’t smile back. “I’m serious,” he said.

Ava’s heart skipped a beat as the smile slid off her face. “Maybe I am, too. How would that fit into your here-today, gone-tomorrow life?”

Hunt felt the world starting to spin around him. It had been a long, long time since he’d felt this alive.

“I don’t know. What’s old with you is new to me. You were a kid to me when I left,” he said.

Ava was afraid to hope…afraid to wish.

“I accept that, but what am I now? Curiosity?”

“No. But knowing you haven’t been married, or are engaged, and you don’t have a special someone in your life…and after running into the jerk who hurt you before, it makes me think you might not want one. I guess I’m just being careful.”

She took a deep breath. Saying this now was baring her own secret. It was scary. The rejection would be devastating, but he was worth the risk.

“Maybe I don’t have anyone else because I didn’t want a second best. Maybe I knew my heart long before I was old enough to speak it. Maybe I’m one of those women who only loves once.”

Hunt felt like he was flying. There was no wall, no boundary around him, only the truth on Ava’s face, and all he had to do was say yes.

“Fifteen years and a war can change a person. What if you don’t like the man I became?” he asked.

“Try me,” she said.

He grinned. “Will you go to dinner with me tonight?”