Not for the first time, however, he remained incapable of asking any further questions of her, or more, giving her assurances. Because he knew they’d be false, and also because he didn’t know how to ease that upset. “Myrtle?”

She glanced up.

“There is nothing wrong with it,” he said gruffly.

The lady cocked her head.

“Your name. It . . . suits you. It suits you perfectly. That’s why I repeated it that day.”

Her eyes went soft. “Oh.” Unlike all the times before, she didn’t prattle or say anything further on the matter, for which he was grateful. Because all this, easing another person’s upset and sadness and working to make them smile, was so foreign, and he was so rusty and it was so uncomfortable.

Too soon they’d both finished their cake, signaling what could only be the end of her celebration and their time together.

He should be relieved, and yet it was reluctance that brought him to his feet. “I should go,” he said needlessly anyway.

Myrtle stood. “Yes.”

Val came around the table and headed for the door.

Myrtle joined him, and they may as well have been any respectable couple, her a lady seeing him to the parlor door after he’d come to call. And it hit him square in the gut, with how . . . appealing that imagining in fact was.

He reached for his hat, and stuffed it hard on his head, hoping the force of that movement would dislodge what were only mad thoughts.

“I should go,” he said.

She dampened her lips. “Yes. You’ve . . . said that already.”

“Have I?” he asked gruffly. When he was around this woman, it was all jumbled—what was in his mind and what was real anymore.

“You did.”

“Because I should, you know. Leave.”

Myrtle lifted three fingers. “Three times, now.”

And something snapped inside him; something thin and tenuous broke under the weight of everything that had become confused. “Because I should leave,” he barked. “I . . . I . . . shouldn’t even be here. We shouldn’t be together, and I wouldn’t, you know,” he said, taking a step toward her, hating when she backed away because he’d frightened her, and because she was afraid of him. “I wouldn’t be here if your family was here, and they should be here.”

Her lower lip trembled. “I know.”

And tears filled her eyes, and with a groan, Val was lost.

He lowered his head to hers, even as she tilted her head back, and he kissed her.

Kissed her as he’d been aching to do. Taking her mouth with a gentleness at first, exploring the softness of that flesh, and then driven by this inexorable need, Val slanted his mouth over hers again and again, until she was moaning, and it was his name.

“Val,” she pleaded, and he was lost all over again.