She gave an almost urgent shake of her head, and tears welled in her eyes. “Tim… I can’t… um,” she started, and then a tiny sob came out of her mouth.

This had me pulling her hard into my arms, and I kissed the top of her head. “Tell me. Tell me so I can fix this for you,” I urged her.

Again, she shook her head and actually brought her arms up to break my hold, stepping away from me. She took in a deep breath and blinked her tears away. “I’m sorry, Tim. But I can’t see you anymore.”

Rage exploded within me. “What the fuck? Because of what your father said?”

That bigoted bastard forcibly threw me out of his house four days ago when Holly decided it was time for me to meet her parents. She was nervous, and apparently rightfully so, but was convinced the only way to go about doing it was to pull the Band-Aid off quickly so to speak. So she told her parents she wanted to invite her boyfriend over for dinner… and they happily agreed.

When Holly brought me inside the living room to meet the esteemed Dr. Philip Reynolds and his socialite wife, Marielle, I knew the moment her father’s eyes landed on me that the evening had just taken a terrible turn. He exploded with offended rage, snarling that his daughter was not going to date “someone like me”. A quick glance at Holly had told me that she was utterly and completely stunned by her father’s outburst, seemingly shocked into absolute stillness. Only when her father latched on to my arm and started hauling me toward the front door did Holly jump into action, screaming at her father to let me go.

I was only eighteen years old, but I was already pretty much filled out. A six-foot linebacker for our high school football team, I outweighed Dr. Reynolds by a good forty pounds, but I didn’t make a move to fight against him. I couldn’t do that out of respect for Holly.

The rest was sort of a blur. Holly grabbed ahold of her dad. He shoved back against her, and she went falling to the floor. Then I was pushed out onto the front porch, and the door was slammed in my face.

Four days later, Holly told me she couldn’t see me anymore, and I became one of the sad statistics where my first love broke my heart and pretty much ruined me for any other woman.

Blinking away those bitter memories, I look at Holly now standing in front of me. I’d lost all track of her after graduation and, despite everything, I am immensely pleased to see she fulfilled her dream of being a doctor.

“I’m not exactly sure what to say,” I tell her truthfully. “It’s a little surreal running into you here… in New Orleans of all places.”

“I’ve been here for nine years,” she says. “Transferred my sophomore year from Columbia to Tulane. Did both my undergrad and medical school here.”

I blink at her in surprise because Holly had her life all mapped out when we were in high school. She was going to go to Columbia and then follow in her father’s footsteps to be a cardiovascular surgeon. She was going to join his practice where they’d work side by side to save people together.

“Your plans changed a little,” I comment.

“Just a little,” she says with a wry smile. “But what about you? What are you doing here?”

“Just visiting my sister for my vacation. I work for the New York City Fire Department in Brooklyn.”

“Denise,” Holly says with delight at the mention of my sister. “How is she? She was always so nice to me.”

“She’s good. Fantastic actually,” I say, and it starts to feel like old times again in the way we are lapsing into easy talk.

“And Sam,” Holly gushes. “God, he’s adorable. What’s your wife do?”

“We’re divorced,” I tell her, not feeling an ounce of awkwardness that Holly is asking about my ex. It didn’t seem solicitous, just curious in a friendly way. “Just about a year after Sam was born. But we’ve maintained a good friendship. She’s a teacher.”

Holly doesn’t say anything for a moment, cutting her gaze down to the floor and back. When she looks back up at me, her eyes are apologetic. “I’m really sorry, Tim. For everything. Just… I feel terrible and my father was just horrid… is horrid… and if I could go back—”

I cut her off. “Holly… it’s okay. It wasn’t your fault.”

“Wasn’t it?” she says bitterly. “I didn’t fight for us. I didn’t stand up for you. At least… not until it was too late.”

The melancholy tone of her voice causes the hair to stand up on my arms. “What do you mean, ‘not until it was too late’?” I ask her, my hand automatically coming out to grasp onto hers.

She squeezes my fingers. “My father and I—”

The door to the office opens abruptly and Holly drops my hand, leaning sideways to look past me. Amy has Sam by the hand, his other arm in a sling. “Sorry to interrupt, but I have Sam all ready to go.”

I smile at Amy, who hands me the discharge paperwork and turns to leave. I squat down in front of Sam. “How you feeling, buddy?”

“Fine,” he says with a coy smile, his eyes cutting back and forth between Holly and me.

“Good,” I say as I stand up. “Let’s get you home.”

Sam turns toward the door, but I hold him back with a hand on his shoulder. My head turns back to Holly. “When is your next night off?”

Her eyebrows rise in surprise. “Um… I have the next two days off, and then I pull a double.”

“Dinner tomorrow night?” I ask her. “We can catch up and you can tell me about your father.”

“Okay,” she says with a smile, her eyes round and warm as they rest upon me.

“Okay,” I tell her and return the smile.

Chapter 4

Holly

My doorbell chimes, and my nerves fire up hard. Giving a last fluff of my hair in the mirror, I look at myself sternly and mutter, “Tim is just a friend. This is going to be a nice, friendly dinner where we catch up and nothing more.”

My reflection sneers back at me. “Yeah, right. You’re just as attracted to him as you were in high school. You’re still in love with him for that matter. Just give in, baby. Your fate is sealed.”

I stick my tongue out at myself and turn off the bathroom light. The doorbell chimes again so I hurry my pace to my front door, take a deep breath, and open it.

And holy hell… men shouldn’t be allowed to be that gorgeous. Tim shouldn’t be allowed to be that gorgeous, because it makes me squirm and itch. He’s six feet of solid muscle, something I didn’t appreciate the other day in the hospital. He’s wearing a dark gray t-shirt that’s molded to his chest and abdomen with well-fit, dark jeans. His arms and shoulders are ripped, and he clearly has continued his stringent workouts that he followed in high school. His right arm is covered in a sleeve of tattoos, the detail of which I can’t see easily because of his dark skin.

It’s not lost on me, or Tim, that I’m perusing his body and when my eyes finally drag up to meet his, those amber irises are looking at me intently with just a slight quirk to his lips in amusement. Then Tim gives it back to me, slowly raking his gaze down my body. I’m pleased with my choice to go with a peach-colored blouse that hangs off one shoulder and a white denim skirt that showcases my legs. I left my hair long and loose, because I could never forget the way Tim constantly used to run his fingers through it.

“You look beautiful,” Tim says, his voice husky.

“You do too,” I whisper, and with that mutual acknowledgment that our attraction for each other still exists, an electric current seems to sizzle between us.

“Our dinner reservations are in fifteen minutes,” he murmurs while his eyes do another pass down my body. “You ready?”

I swallow hard and, before I can talk myself out of it, I say, “Or… we could just stay here… I’m sure I can whip something up or we can order a pizza.”