Reunited

“Maybe. Maybe I should have told you, too.”

“You loved me?”

“In my way, yes I did.” She still did.

“Well, we were from two different worlds. You had a scholarship to Stanford, I was the son of a laborer. I guess it was never meant to be.”

She nodded, and her lips trembled. “Maybe not. But maybe, if things had been different…”

“Things couldn’t have been different, Kath, or we wouldn’t have been who we were.”

Damn. He was right. How did he get to be so intuitive? Then, he always had been. She had learned so much about him in the short time they’d shared. So much she hadn’t expected, so much she hadn’t imagined. Brett Falcone was more than a jock, more than the punk kid who liked to make fun of people in middle school. He was intelligent, driven in his own way, highly passionate.

Oh, to be eighteen again.

But she wasn’t eighteen. She was thirty-eight. And a mother. A single mother. A single mother who should get her daughter home to bed.

She checked her watch. “It’s almost eight. I need to get Maya home.”

“Yeah,” he agreed. “Zoe needs to get to bed, too. Kath, it was great seeing you. Talking to you. I wish…”

“Yeah, me too,” she said.

“Can we get together? Talk some more?”

“Maybe over the weekend. Danny picks Maya up at three on Friday.”

“Great. I’ll drop Zoe at Michelle’s around five, then pick you up for dinner. Sound good?”

She nodded. “Dinner would be wonderful. You need my address?”

“I’ve got it.” He winked. “It’s on the soccer paperwork for Maya.”

She nodded. “Of course.” She called to Maya. “It’s time to go, sweetie.”

Maya started to complain, but let out an ear-splitting yawn.

“I know a little girl who needs to get to bed.”

“I know another one,” Brett said.

“It was great seeing you,” Kathryn said.

“You too.” He bent closer and whispered in her ear. “I’ll be counting the minutes until Friday.”

“Really?” she couldn’t help asking.

“Oh yes,” he said. “I’m positive.”

Positive. God, he remembered. Lightning flashed between her legs.

Twenty years earlier

Kathryn had just put little Terry to bed. She checked her watch. Seven-thirty on a Friday evening and she was babysitting. The story of her life. She hadn’t dated, had never been kissed, had never even danced with a guy.

But all that would change in a few months when she went to Stanford. Stanford, where everyone was as smart as she was. Stanford, where no one knew her. No one remembered the awkwardness of her middle school years. To the incoming Stanford class, she’d simply be Kathryn Zurakowsky, the girl with pretty brown hair and eyes, a great figure, and legs that wouldn’t quit. Yes, she’d grown into a pretty woman.

Heck, even the Italian Stallion had said she was a fox. She still couldn’t quite wrap her mind around that one.