“Okay. Did you cry? When she left you?”

He rolled his eyes upward to find an answer. He shook his head just a bit, frowning. “I don’t think so. Didn’t cry, didn’t beg.” He leveled his gaze at her. “Didn’t sleep either, and since I couldn’t sleep I worked even more hours. I kept trying to figure out where I’d gone wrong. For two years we seemed to be fine and then once the ring was on the finger, everything went to hell.”

“So what did you do?” she wanted to know.

“I did my chores,” he said. “All the things she wanted me to do that when I didn’t, drove her crazy. There were little rules. If you’re the last one out of the bed, make it. If you eat off a plate, rinse it and put it in the dishwasher. If something you take off is dirty it doesn’t go on the floor, but in the hamper. I thought if she came back, she’d see I was capable of doing the things that were important to her.”

That almost broke her heart. “Drew…”

“In medicine we have a saying, if you hear hoofbeats, don’t expect to see a zebra. I was thinking horses—it’s pretty common for surgeons to have relationship problems because of the pressure, the stress, the time they have to spend away from home. Horses. I brought her with me to my residency program, took her away from her mom, away from her job and girlfriends, and then I had even less time for her than I’d had as a med student. And we fought about it—about my hours, her loneliness. But when she left me, she didn’t go back home. It took me so long to figure that out. I thought it meant she was still considering us. She moved a few miles away. Not because I was still a consideration, but because there was a guy. I never suspected a guy. I didn’t even know about him for six months after we broke up. It was a zebra all along.”

“Ow. That must have hurt you bad.”

He leaned toward her. “My pride, Sunny. At the end of the day, I missed her, hated giving up my idea of how we’d spend the rest of our lives, but it was mostly my pride that was hurt. I’m real grateful to Penny—she walked away while all we had at stake was some cheap, hand-me-down furniture to divide between us. If we weren’t going to make it together, if she wasn’t happy with me, I’m glad she left me before we invested a lot more in each other. See,” he said, taking Sunny’s hand in his, “I think I put Penny in charge and I went along, and that wasn’t fair. When a man cares about a woman, he owes it to her to romance her, pursue her, convince her. I learned something there—you don’t just move along toward something as serious as marriage unless just about every emotion you have has been engaged. Like I said, we grew on each other. Lots of times I asked myself why I thought that was enough.”

“But what I want to know is, will you ever be willing to risk it again?” she asked.

“Yes, and I look forward to it,” he answered.

“You’re just plain crazy! A glutton for punishment!”

“No, I’m reformed. I always heard it was a good idea to fall in love with your best friend and I bought that. I thought if you could meet someone you really liked and she also turned you on, all the mysteries of life were solved. I still think you’d better be good, trusted friends with the person you marry, but by God, there had better be some mind-blowing passion. Not like when you’re sixteen and carry your brain in your… Well, you know. But next time, and there will be a next time, I want it all—someone I like a lot, trust, someone I respect and love and someone I want so bad I’m almost out of my mind.”

“Do you think you’ll ever find that?” Sunny asked.

“The important thing is that I won’t settle for less. Now, you’ve had a year to think about it—what’s your conclusion about what happened?”

She pursed her lips and frowned, looked down for a second, then up. “I was about to marry the wrong guy and he bolted before he could make the biggest mistake of his life. But don’t look at me to thank him for it—the mess he left was unbelievable. Over a hundred gifts had to be returned, my parents had paid for invitations, a designer gown, flowers and several big dinners—including the reception dinner. Flowers were distributed to the wedding party so they wouldn’t just be wasted… It was horrendous.”

“Have you ever wondered,” he asked her, “what one thing would make that whole nightmare a blessing in disguise?”

“I can’t imagine!” she said.

Funniest thing, he thought. Before tonight, neither could I.

He moved very slowly, scooting closer to her. He lifted the glass of brandy out of her hand and placed both hers and his on the coffee table. He put his hands on her waist and pulled her closer, leaning his lips toward hers. He hovered just over hers, waiting for a sign that she felt something, too; at least a stirring, a curiosity, that would be enough for now. Then slowly, perhaps reluctantly, her hands slid up his arms to his shoulders and that was just what he needed. He covered her mouth with his in a hot, searing kiss. He wanted to see her face when he kissed her, but he let his eyelids close and allowed his hands to wander around to her back, pulling her chest harder against his, just imagining what more could happen between them.

The kiss was warm and wet and caused his heart to thump. He’d had quite a few brief fantasies linked to desires. Earlier, out by the Christmas tree in town, he’d had a vision of kissing her and then licking his way down her belly to secret parts that would respond to him with powerful satisfaction. He wanted nothing as much as to lie in her arms, skin on skin, and explore every small corner of her beautiful body.

But that wasn’t going to happen now. Not tonight. Not tomorrow.

He pulled away reluctantly.

“I haven’t been kissed in a year,” she whispered. “I had decided I wasn’t ever going to be kissed again. It was too dangerous.”

“No danger here, Sunny. And you’ll be happy to know you haven’t lost your touch. You’re very good at it.” He looked into those hypnotic blue eyes as he pushed a lock of her hair over her ear. “If I had married Penny, if Glen had shown up when he was supposed to, I wouldn’t be kissing you now. And I have to tell you, Sunny, I can’t remember ever feeling so good about a kiss…”

She could only sigh and let her eyes drift closed. “We are a bad combination,” she whispered.

“I can’t believe that…”

“Oh, believe it.” She opened her eyes. “You were a guy who just went along with what a woman wanted and I was a woman who, without even thinking about it too much, pushed a man into a great big wedding he didn’t want.” She swallowed and her eyes glistened. “I hate to admit this to anyone, but Glen kept telling me things—like he just wasn’t comfortable with the size of that wedding, and he wasn’t sure our work schedules would be good for us, or this or that. I told him not to worry, but I never changed anything. I kept saying I couldn’t—that photographers work weekends. But that’s not really true, they don’t have to work every weekend. Portraits for events like anniversaries and engagements can be done before the parties are held, belly shots and babies can be done on weekdays. But the important thing is that until five minutes ago, I wasn’t willing to admit our breakup had anything to do with me. And I might be admitting it to you because I’ll probably never see you again.”

“Listen—I might have been a go-along kind of guy, but I was never that spineless. Glen let it go too far. He doesn’t get off that easy.”

She gave him a weak smile. “I’m glad I met you. I didn’t want to meet a guy, get to know a guy, and I sure didn’t want to like a guy, but… Well, I’m not sorry.”

“You know what that means, don’t you?”

She shook her head.

“After you go through something like a bad breakup and you meet someone new, you check it out and you either find someone better for you, or you recognize right off that you haven’t found the right one yet. But at least you keep moving forward until the guy and the life that’s right for you comes into focus. And until that happens, we get to kiss.”

“You’re an opportunist. I could smell it on you the second I met you.”

“Now you call your uncle and tell him about the deer accident, tell him we’re safe and warm and I’ll be looking for a tow truck in the morning. If you want him to, you can ask him if he’ll come and rescue you. He can come now or later. A little later or much, much later. You could even stay the night, if you felt like it.”

“No I couldn’t,” she said with a laugh.

“Then will you ask him to wait till after midnight? It’s not that far off.”

“I think I’ll just wait a while to call,” she said. “If I know my uncle, he’ll be on the road as soon as he gets my call.”

That made Drew smile. “I know I’m probably a poor substitute for the guy you wanted to be kissing at midnight, but—”

“Actually, Dr. Foley, I think maybe you’re a big improvement. And I might’ve gone a long time without knowing that.”

SUNNY WAITED A LITTLE BIT and then called her uncle, letting him know where she was, what had happened and that she was fine. While she was on the phone, Drew quickly downloaded the pictures of the bloody deer onto his laptop and deleted them from her camera. Then, while the fire roared, they sat on the leather sofa, very close together, with their feet propped up on the ottoman. At times their legs were on top of each other’s. They kissed now and then. Other times they talked. Sunny didn’t say too much more about Glen, and she didn’t want to hear any more about Penny.

She didn’t tell him that Glen wasn’t always nice to her. Oh, it went a bit further than the comment about the wide hips. Glen was the kind of guy who stayed out too late “unwinding” after work, criticized her appearance as being not sexy enough for his tastes and when they did have time together, he was never happy with how they were going to spend it—almost as if he’d rather she be working. She had thought about snatching his phone and looking at old text messages, listening to voice mails, but she was a little afraid of what she might find so she convinced herself she was being paranoid. By the time she realized it wasn’t such a positive match, she was wearing a ring and had made deposits on wedding stuff.

It was too late.

But what she did want to ask Drew was, “What makes you think you’ll do any better the next time you have a relationship?”

He turned to her with a smile and said, “Good! I really wanted you to ask me that.” He ran the knuckle of his index finger along her cheek. “Do you have any idea what attracts men and women to each other?”

She just shook her head. “I thought it was a learned behavior….”

“Maybe, but I bet it’s more. I bet it’s a real primal mating thing that has no logical explanation. Like you see someone and right away, bam, you gotta be with that person. And I bet sometimes all the other elements fall into place, and sometimes they don’t. That kind of unexplainable thing—you see a woman on the other side of the room and your heart just about leaps out of your chest. You go brain-dead and you’re on automatic. All of a sudden you’re walking over to her and you don’t know why, you just know you have to get closer. Everything about her pulls you like a magnet. You feel kind of stupid but you just walk up to her and say, ‘Hi, my name is Drew’ and hope for the best, even though she’s looking at you like you’re an idiot.”

“Slick,” she said. “Have you actually been able to use that technique very often?”

“I’ve never even tried it before, I swear. Listen, it’s kind of embarrassing to admit this, but that never happened with Penny. It was comfortable, nice, that’s all. No fireworks, no mind-blowing passion…”

“But you said it was good with her! You said sex was good.”

“I might be kind of easy to please in that department. The worst sex I ever had was actually pretty good. I want what else there is! How did what’s his name reel you in?” he asked.

Yo. Me and you!

“He wasn’t too slick, as a matter of fact. He thought he was. I never told him his great pick-up line didn’t impress me. Thing was, he was cute. And I worked all the time. I hadn’t been out on a date in a long time and he was…” She shrugged. “Handsome and interested.” She tilted her head and smiled at him. “I think I’m telling you all these things because you’re safe.”

His large hand closed over her shoulder. “I don’t want to be safe,” he said. “And I want to see you again.”

“Want to go off, live our solitary lives and meet back here for New Year’s Eve every year…kind of like a take-off on Same Time Next Year?”

“Did you know what Jack had planned for midnight?” Drew asked. “Did you write your resolution?”

She shook her head, then nodded. “I wrote that I had to stay away from men. He put it in the fishbowl.”

“At midnight everyone was going to pull out a resolution, ending up with someone else’s. Really corny, don’t you think?” he asked her, reaching into the pocket of his jeans. “It’s going to be for laughs, not for real. Some skinny girl could get a resolution to lose twenty pounds. But I wrote this one before I knew much about you.” He presented a slip of paper. “Look, Sunny—it’s midnight.”

“No, it’s not,” she said. “It’s like three minutes till.”