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mistake is whenyou show up for an appointment on the wrong day or when you put the wrong check in an envelope–not when you destroy the reason another person gets up in the morning.”
    “I thought I was doing you a favor. At the time it was something I believed with all my heart.”
    “How could you have had cancer? You were so young.”
    Finally, he understood. He’d had eighteen years to come to terms with what had happened to him, she’d had less than a minute. “Testicular cancer happens to young men.”
    She started to cry, angry, frightened, accusing tears. “Make me understand why you didn’t tell me.”
    “I couldn’t.”
    “But we told each other everything.”
    He led her to a log that had washed up on the beach during the last storm, brushed the sand from its smooth, gray surface, sat down, and brought her down next to him. She tried to pull her hand free, but he hung on. “The cancer was happening to
me,
Cheryl, not to us,” he said as he gently wiped tears from her cheeks. “No matter how hard you tried, you couldn’t have understood what I was going through, and I didn’t want you to have to try. It was my problem.” He looked down at their clasped hands, and then up to meet her eyes. “And to be honest, it was easier for me not to talk about it. Not even to you.”
    “I might not have understood exactly what youwere feeling, but I could have helped. How could you have excluded me? You didn’t even give me a chance. You didn’t give
us
a chance.” She turned her face to the sea.
    “As I started to say before, if I had it to do over again, I would do it differently.”
    “But you don’t,” she said with finality. “What might have been is gone.”
    Fear traveled his spine like a sharp-clawed cat. He’d barely found her. He couldn’t lose her a second time. “The years we would have had together are gone, but there are a lot of years left.”
    “I have a good life, Andrew. I like my friends, my job, where I live. It took me a long time to get over you the first time. Why would I want to take a chance on being hurt again?”
    He reached over and took one of the suspender straps between his thumb and forefinger and slowly moved from her shoulder to her waist, feeling her tense when the backs of his fingers lightly brushed her breast, hearing the quick intake of air. “Because you’re not over me,” he said. “Any more than I’m over you.”

3
      C HERYL ROLLED TO HER SIDE AND STARED at the narrow line of light coming through the drapes in her motel room. She’d planned to drive home this morning, taking the coast route and stopping in Half Moon Bay to have lunch with her cousin and do some shopping. That was before Andrew talked her into staying another day. She still wasn’t sure staying was wise. Too much had happened. Too fast. She’d come for closure and had been broadsided by openings she hadn’t dreamed existed.
    She was scared. She’d expected to feel a mix of emotions if she saw him again, but had been unprepared for the raw power. Thank God for the fear. Without it she would have been in his arms and in his bed and ready to start over.
    He was the man she remembered, the man shehad loved, the man she would have followed to the ends of the earth. Being with him again was as easy as if they’d been together the day before.
    Nothing real was that easy.
    If only he’d told her about the cancer. How different their lives would have been. Even if, in the end, he’d still chosen to leave, she would have understood and could have gone on with her life.
    Or so she wanted to believe in hindsight. But could she have gone on as easily as she imagined? No matter how they parted, she would still have loved him, would still have dreamed about him, would still ache for what might have been. Her heart would always be heavy with thoughts of their lost years. Nothing could change it or make it go away.
    She glanced at the clock. Ten after six. She was to meet Andrew back at his