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see his side of things.  He didn’ t seem upset anymore about our conversation and was now sliding his hands down my back and over my bikini bottom as he pulled me closer, showing me just how much he still wanted our romantic evening to continue.
    “Maybe I should sleep in Hannah’s room tonight,” I said, breaking away.
    “What?” he asked, finally looking as confused as I was feeling.  “Look, we don’t have to have a baby right now .  I just want to be with you, Meghan.”
    “But you do want a baby.  Someday.”
    “Well, yeah.”
    “Let’s just talk more tomorrow.  I’m going to bed.”
    “Meghan,” he said, reaching for me again as I turned away.
    I pulled my arm free and glanced back over my shoulder.  “Goodnight.”
    The hurt in his eyes was unmistakable this time, but maybe now he would realize how I was feeling.   Hurt.  Trent hadn’t even asked how I felt about our conversation or why I didn’t want another baby.  He just assumed I would be happy.  I felt a knot in my stomach as tears filled my eyes.  This was not how I planned to spend our first night in the cabin—a semi-argument about something huge that didn’t bode well for our future together, us in separate bedrooms.  I couldn’t sleep in the same bed with Trent and let him make love to me though, pretending everything was all right, when I was feeling so uncertain.  I didn’t see how we could have a future together with us each wanting such different things.  My heart already had been broken once, years ago, when my ex-boyfriend disappeared from Hannah’s and my life.  I wasn’t about to let myself fall so hard that I’d end up completely brokenhearted again.

 
     
     
     
     
     
     
    FOUR MONTHS LATER

Chapter 7
     
    That summer found Hannah and me spending long days outside, relaxing at the town pool with friends during the day and riding bicycles and chasing fireflies each night.  The endless days were slipping away as we neared the end of August, and I knew the fall would bring a new beginning for both of us.  Hannah would be starting first grade, and with her in school all day long, I’d be returning to work full-time.  I hadn’t worked a full-time schedule since Hannah was born, and I was both excited and nervous to be in that place again.  I was ready for a change, and the start of the school year seemed the perfect time for a change in both Hannah’s and my lives.
    I hadn’t heard from Trent since our ill-fated trip to the cabin last spring.   I knew much of it was my fault, for closing him out, but at the time it had seemed like the right thing for both of us.  By the time we’d returned home a couple of days later, we were barely speaking to one another.  Trent had left before his leave was over to stay with some old friends but had told me to contact him when I was ready for an actual conversation.  Our last words to one another had not been kind, and I’d felt a heaviness in my heart every day since he’d left.  I was surprised at how much it had hurt, since I was sure I’d been saving myself from even more pain in the future if we continued in a relationship where we each wanted different things.  It turned out that I had already fallen for him though—hard.  Telling myself that I wasn’t in love with him didn’t mean that it was actually true.
    “Mommy, are you ready?” Hannah asked.
    She was standing by a pile of bags in the foyer, digging through her own little backpack to make sure she had all of her toys.  We took a trip up to the lake every summer with my sister and her family, and this year was no exception.  It was slightly bittersweet for me since the last time Hannah and I had been there was with Trent, but I certainly didn’t want Hannah to miss out on a fun week with her cousins just because of my heartache.  I felt like I should have known better than to let Trent so far into our lives that there was no forgetting him or our time together.  I seemed to always end