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to him, her heart doing a crazy little rat-a-tat-tat number.

“Evening.” Jack stood on the porch, the overhead lamp turning his light hair to burnished gold.

“You’re stopping by sort of late, aren’t you?” Dear God, Cathy, was that the only thing you could think of to say?

He looked her up and down, taking in her damp hair and her sleeping attire. “I guess I should have called first.”

“No, it’s all right. Really.” She eased back a couple of feet and invited him in with a sweeping hand gesture.

“I could have phoned you with the news, but…well, I thought it best to tell you in person.” He stepped over the threshold.

Cathy’s heart stopped for a millisecond. “What’s wrong?”

He closed the door behind him, then looked her square in the eye. “Mike called me about ten minutes ago. Reverend Kelley died tonight, less than an hour ago.”

“Oh God, no.” Emotion welled up inside her. How foolish of her to believe that a prayer vigil attended by hundreds of people could actually keep Bruce Kelley alive.

“It’s probably better this way,” Jack said. “The guy was in horrible shape. He couldn’t have made it much longer, and he was suffering in the worst way.”

Cathy swallowed. “Mark suffered.”

“Ah, honey, don’t.”

When Jack reached out and pulled her into his arms, she went without protest, gladly letting him hold her close. Encompassed within his strong embrace, she felt safe. Her every instinct told her that this was where she belonged. With Jack, the man she had once loved more than life itself.

Chapter Twenty-two

Jack wasn’t sure if his motives for coming here tonight to tell Cathy about Bruce Kelley’s death were totally unselfish. Maybe somewhere deep inside him, he had believed that she’d need a shoulder to lean on; maybe he’d hoped she would turn to him for comfort. Hell, he wasn’t sure of anything except at this precise moment, there was nothing more important to him than the woman he held in his arms. Cathy. His Cathy.

Damn it, man, she hasn’t been your Cathy in nearly seventeen years, if she ever was, even back then.

She’s mourning the man who replaced you in her bed and in her heart. She’s crying for Mark Cantrell. She’s hurting because she’s remembering how much he suffered before he died.

Jack couldn’t move, could barely breathe. All he could do was hold her and let her cry it out. While she trembled, sobs racking her body, he rubbed her back soothingly and pressed his cheek against the top of her head.

God damn it, he hated seeing her like this.

He wasn’t sure how long they stood there, just a few feet from the front door, Cathy secure in his arms. Finally, she lifted her head from his chest and gazed up into his eyes. His body tightened. His gut clenched painfully.

“You loved him a lot, didn’t you?” Jack didn’t know why the hell he’d asked her such a stupid question. Wasn’t the answer obvious?

“No.” The one word erupted in a hoarse gasp. She shook her head gently and lowered her gaze.

He cupped her chin between his forefinger and thumb and tilted her face so that she couldn’t avoid looking right at him. “Want to tell me about it? Why you married him, why you had a nervous breakdown six months after he died, why you’re still mourning him?”

“Does any of that really matter?”

“Apparently it does, at least to you.”

“I don’t want to talk about any of that. Not tonight. And I don’t want to discuss Mark with you. It’s not fair to you or to his memory. He was a good husband, a good father, a fine human being. It wasn’t his fault that…” She turned her head and pulled away from Jack.

He followed her as she fled, catching up with her when she stopped abruptly in the middle of the living room. He came up behind her, mere inches separating their bodies, but he didn’t touch her.

“You’ve got to know that I don’t want to hurt you,” he told her, his voice low and husky. “I heard somebody say once that when a man wants to fuck a woman and wants to protect her at the same time, then he’s in love. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but it sure is how I feel.”

She whipped around and faced him, her eyes wide, her expression filled with longing. “I haven’t been with anyone. Not since Mark died.”

“If you’re still not ready…if the time isn’t right, I’ll understand. But I swear, honey, I’m