“No,” he said. “I’d like to be, but I get the feeling she’s not ready yet.”

“Maybe she’s just waiting to see if you can learn to communicate more effectively,” she said. Lindsey could not believe those words had just flown out of her mouth. She wanted to smack herself in the forehead. Honestly, she sounded like a corporate chucklehead.

“Well, it’s hard to find an opportunity to express myself what with that annoying, limelight-hogging Brit always circling her,” he said.

Lindsey knew him well enough to know he was making his voice sound grumpier than he actually was.

“He’s married,” she said. “So I believe that locks him firmly into the just friends category.”

Sully stared at her for a second, and Lindsey felt like they were coming to an understanding. She settled back down on her pillow, shifting on her side so she could still see him while they talked.

“There is one other small detail,” Sully said.

“What’s that?” For a panicked moment, Lindsey wondered if he had some secret bombshell to drop on her.

Was he married, too? Did he have a gambling, drinking, drug problem? Maybe he had an offspring from a previous relationship that he had neglected to mention. Lindsey felt her palms get sweaty as random thoughts flitted through her head, but she couldn’t latch on to anything specific. It was all white noise.

“You may not have noticed, but I’m not a big talker,” he said. “The communication thing is challenging.”

She looked at him. That was it?

“Shocking, I know,” he said.

Lindsey couldn’t help but smile. She supposed she could have rolled her eyes or made a sarcastic noise, but she was too afraid of derailing him when he was actually sharing to risk mucking it up.

“The thing is, just because I don’t tell people how I’m feeling doesn’t mean I’m not feeling anything,” he said. He stared into the fire for a moment. “I always thought it was obvious that if I showed up every day, I cared.”

“Sometimes people need a little more to go on,” Lindsey said.

“So my sister has been telling me,” he said. “And telling me and telling me.”

The harangued look he gave her told her more than words that his sister Mary had a lot to say about his relationship status.

“Sorry,” Lindsey said. And she was. Sully was a private man and she knew he had to be uncomfortable with everyone being up in his business.

“No, it’s my own fault,” he said. “I should have talked to you before I cut things off between us. I should have given you a chance to explain what you were feeling before I walked.”

Lindsey would have disagreed just to be polite, but since he was right, it seemed silly not to agree with him. Over the summer when her ex-fiancé had arrived in town in a misguided attempt to win her back, they had gotten embroiled in a murder investigation that had nearly gotten them all killed.

Lindsey had naturally felt responsible for her ex’s role in the situation and had felt terrible about what could have happened to him. Sully had misconstrued her concern for her ex as something more and had broken up with her to give her time to figure out her feelings. Lindsey had pretty much been mad at him ever since.

“It was a preemptive strike,” he said.

“You don’t say,” she said. This time she couldn’t keep the sarcasm out of her voice.

He flopped over onto his back and stared at the ceiling. “Couldn’t I just drop and give you twenty and we could call it even?”

“You owe me at least fifty,” she said. “And no.”

“I could run five miles in the rain with a knapsack full of books on my back,” he said.

“Relationships are not boot camp,” she said. She had to look away so he didn’t catch her smiling and mistakenly think she might give in.

“No, they’re a lot harder,” he grumbled. “Fine. It was my first year in the Navy and I was stationed in San Diego. I met a girl, a gorgeous girl.”

While he paused to collect his thoughts, Lindsey chided herself for the spurt of jealousy that was wreaking havoc with her insides.

She wanted to ask how gorgeous and demand a description, but her good sense prevailed and she kept her mouth shut. She also promised herself that she would interrogate his sister Mary at their next crafternoon and see what she knew about the gorgeous girl from San Diego.

“We spent all of my free time together,” he said. “Her family was all career Navy, so I knew she understood the life. I really thought she was the one.”

“How old were you?” Lindsey asked.

“Twenty-two,” he said.

Lindsey nodded. It was all coming into focus now. That age was never kind to relationships. While old enough to drink, vote and go to war, picking a mate in the early twenties was fraught with hormone-induced disasters. The relationships that survived from those early years were the stuff of legends.

“I shipped out, a low-ranking officer on my first time out to sea. We were out in the Pacific on a guided-missile frigate. While there was a lot of excitement, a ship full of sweaty men sure does make whatever you left behind seem even more lovely in comparison.

“We stopped in Tahiti, which was unlike anything I had ever seen, and I found a pretty black pearl ring. It was set in gold nestled in a ring of diamonds. I knew I had to buy it for her. It wiped out all of my pay and my one credit card. But it was worth it because I was sure she was worth it.”

Lindsey had a feeling this wasn’t going to end well. A part of her wanted to tell him to stop. She didn’t need to know, but then, wasn’t this what she had wanted from him? To know how he felt and why he felt that way? She hadn’t expected that hearing the hurt in his voice would hurt her as much as it did.

She forced herself to buck up. “What happened?”

“When I got home, I called her up and asked her out to dinner,” he said. “I told her I had something to tell her and she said she had news, too.”

“When I picked her up, she threw herself at me,” he said. “It was a pretty passionate reunion.”

Again, Lindsey felt the green-eyed monster roar in her chest. She shook it off like a dog shedding rain off its fur.

“Over dinner I gave her the ring and asked her to marry me,” he said. “She hesitated for just a second. I knew I had surprised her, so that was all right. I was enthusiastic enough for both of us. I outlined my dreams for us, you know, big wedding, me moving up the ranks in the Navy, a houseful of kids, the whole shebang. She was quiet and looked like she was going to cry. For the first time, it occurred to me that maybe she didn’t want all that. I braced myself for a solid rejection and then she said yes.”

Lindsey was shocked. He had never mentioned being engaged before. She knew she shouldn’t feel like it was a sort of betrayal, but that sort of thing was supposed to come up in the first few weeks of dating. That’s what all those awkward meals over sourdough and linguine were made for—to discover the other person’s previous engagements, marriages, time spent in jail and communicable diseases. How could he not have mentioned it?

“So you were engaged?” she asked. Her voice sounded faint and she cleared her throat.

“You would think so, wouldn’t you?” he asked.

Lindsey turned and propped herself up on her elbows while Sully was still lying down. She stared at the top of his head, waiting for him to explain.

“I’m not following,” she prompted him, and Sully heaved a long sigh.

“My girl neglected to tell me one thing in her letters to me,” he said. “While I was gone, she had managed to catch herself a higher-ranking officer and married him.”