“So, you think talking to him will do some good?”

“It’ll be a little push. Or a big one if he’s in bastard mode. But mostly it’ll be the fact that he still loves you, Allie.”

Her eyes misted—she couldn’t help it. “I wish I didn’t need him to so damn much.”

“That’s the bitch about love—people don’t have much control over it. That’s what’s eating him up, sweetheart. It’s not you.”

That was the part that hurt the worst—knowing he couldn’t drop the control issues long enough to just love her, to let that old amazing love they’d shared rekindle into something current and real. They could have so much together if only . . .

But “if onlys” didn’t make a relationship—not the one she wanted to find with him.

She wanted to be able to say she could walk away forever if Mick couldn’t let his walls down with her. She wanted to. She wasn’t entirely certain she could.

Meanwhile, she had better learn how to pray.

*   *   *

IT WAS NEARLY ten that night when there was another knock at her door. She’d been halfway anticipating it, but her heart thundered in her chest as she smoothed her hair and went to answer it, knowing it would be him.

When she opened the door, he was a shadow silhouetted against the amber porch light, but she’d have known that big frame anywhere, his cocky stance, the familiar scent of him that immediately drifted to her, even against the backdrop of the magnolia blossoms and the crepe myrtle starting to bloom in her yard.

“Can I come in, Allie?”

Somehow he managed to sound demanding and humble all at the same time, but she moved back to let him pass. He went into the living room and stood facing the mantel, which was cluttered with items she hadn’t managed to put away yet: a collection of glass candlesticks, her sewing box, a folder full of the postcards she’d collected from all over the world during her travels. She followed him in and switched on a lamp.

“You still unpacking?” he asked.

“The cardboard boxes make it that obvious?” When he didn’t answer she prompted, “I suppose you didn’t come here to talk about my boxes.”

“No.”

He turned around and she gasped. “Jesus, Mick. What did you do to yourself?”

“It’s just a split lip.”

She marched across the room and held his chin in her hand. “Let me look at that.”

“I’m fine.”

“Have you had any medical attention?”

“I don’t need it, babe. It’s nothing.”

She dropped her hand and crossed her arms over her chest. “Don’t you ‘babe’ me. You’ve been fighting.”

He nodded.

“An illegal fight.” When he didn’t say anything she went on. “Mick, I know damn well it was one of those stupid club fights. If you’d been sparring, you would have just told me.”

“I didn’t come here to upset you, Allie. I’ve done enough of that already.”

Her blood went cold, a slow knot forming in her stomach. Was this where he told her—again—that she was better off without him before he walked out of her life once more?

She couldn’t speak, so she just nodded.

He was quiet for several long moments while her breath stalled in her lungs. He was so damn handsome, his lush mouth drawn tight around the swelling, his gray eyes full of shadows.

She waited.

He ran a hand over his jaw, winced when he came too close to the swollen lip. Finally he said, “I guess you know Jamie came to talk to me today?”

“Yes.”

“He made a lot of sense after he finished verbally beating the shit out of me. Which I deserved—I know it. He told me about his conversation with you. And it wasn’t like I wasn’t thinking about this stuff already. But fuck, Allie, when I woke up this morning and found you gone . . .”

“What?” she demanded. “You found me gone and what, Mick?”

The anger was rising again, making her throat go tight, but it was better than the pain, the panic at the idea of not having him in her life.

“And I couldn’t stand that I’d done it. That I’d been so dense. Needing to escape the issues so badly I acted like a twelve-year-old.”

She smirked a little. “Maybe fifteen.”

“Yeah.”

“Is that a half-assed apology, Mick?”

“No. This is. I’m sorry, Allie. I’m sorry it’s been so hard for me to let you in. I’m sorry I’m not coming through for you no matter how much we negotiate and talk and agree to try.” His gaze locked hard on hers, and he looked right into her in the way he always had, making her feel naked right down to her bones. “I want to try.”

Her heart twisted. Tears burned but she swallowed them down.

“Do you, Mick? Really try? Because this half-assed stuff is not going to work for me.”

“I know. That’s why you left. I get it. I would have left, too, if I were you.”

She bit her lip. “Mick, I think . . . there has to be more than simply trying, do you know what I’m saying? I feel like you have to sort of transcend what’s happened in the past. You accused me—rightfully so—of living in the past where we were concerned. But I think you do it, too. About a lot of things. Us. The accident. Your self-image when you were younger. I don’t think you’ve really let it go yet.”

He dropped his head and stuck his hands in his pockets, looking absolutely humble—so out of the ordinary for him that she waited with bated breath for what he might say. Either that, or for him to bolt.

Finally he lifted his head. “Okay. You’ve got me there. I was the troublemaker in my family. Neal pulled some pranks, but it was normal teenage stuff. I’ve always been a little darker. Not just the kink, although that probably had a lot to do with how I viewed myself back then. But the staying out late, cutting school, stealing my dad’s good Scotch.”

She couldn’t help but smile. “I always did like a bad boy. But Mick, none of that was really that terrible. You weren’t stealing cars or dealing drugs. You were just a kid with a bit of a wild streak. So what?”

“So you were the A student with aspirations and virginity intact.”

“And you were a high school man-whore. Again, so what?” she countered.

“Only until I met you,” he said, his gaze softening. “Once I met you . . .”

God, he had loved her so much once. She remembered the way he looked at her. The way he held her. As if nothing in the world mattered but the two of them being together.

“Mick, there was an innocence to you back then, too.”

“Me?”

“You were just a kid! Think about a sixteen-year-old now, from an adult perspective. If your nephew cut classes or slept with a few girls, would you think he was a terrible person?”

“What? No, of course not.”

“Then maybe it’s time you cut your teenage self some slack, too.”

“Fuck, Allie . . .”

He looked away, but she could tell she’d gotten through. She waited for him to absorb what she’d said.

He turned back to her and there was the edge of a grin on his handsome face. “But if he tied a girl up, we’d have to have a talk.”

“Yes, you would. And when he was eighteen you’d show him how to do it the right way. The safe way.”

“Yeah.”

“So, maybe not so terrible, are you, Mick? And if it’s the kink issue—”

“No, I’m starting to get that.”

“Okay. That’s good, especially because I feel like that’s what’s brought us back together.”

“I think so, too.”

“And you’re here. You came for me, and that’s important to me. But Mick, there’s still the damn fighting.”

“Sometimes I need it, Allie.”

She shook her head. “You are so stubborn, Mick Reid! You just make me want to . . .” She shook her head again. “And would you just . . . God, you really are dense!”

He moved in and grabbed her, pulling her in tight. The still-mad part of her wanted to scramble away from him, make him work for it, but she melted right into him, as she always did. Nothing in the world felt better than Mick’s arms around her, his scent, the feel of him. The mad faded away.