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moved her closer to him. He was so close that she could see the uncertainty in his gaze.
    He wanted to kiss her.
    And she wanted that more than anything else in the world.
    “Matt, are you still in there?” Denny sounded close, just outside the barn, an unwelcome intrusion into the ir intimacy.
    Matt reacted first. His hand drop away. His smile held as much regret as Kate felt. “Probably for the best, don’t you think?” he said softly as he bent to kiss her cheek.

Chapter Five

 
    “Lo ok at me.”
    He'd managed to keep his feelings for Kate neatly sorted out until now. But that ‘almost kiss’ had messed things up inside his head.
    Friendship was what he told her he wanted but was that the truth?
    “Forget what happened in the barn,” he said, reading her reaction easily enough. “Let’s just write that off as simple frustration at being the object of everyone’s speculation.” He grinned at her. “It won’t happen again, I promise.”
    Matt promised himself that what he’d just told Kate was the truth. He really, really wanted it to be. Of course it wasn’t. Friendship was the last thing he wanted from her. He’d unexpectedly been awakened back to life. It was like being shocked awake by the sound of a fast moving train, realizing you were sitting squarely on the tracks. It was sheer torture. The last thing on his mind right now was friendship. It was the only thing she had to offer him.
    He was sitting in the tiny living room of Kate’s one bedroom apartment and wondering exactly how he’d let things get so far out of hand.
    Friendship.
    Yeah, that was it. That was what he was after.
    “I’ll try,” The object of his tortured thoughts said softly . He had to focus to remember what she was talking about.
    “Good. It’s what I want, too.” His conscience told him he was playing with fire. “I think it would help if we talked about the pasts we’re both trying so hard to forget. Maybe if you knew something about me.” He stopped. Did he really want her knowing his ugly secrets?
    She surprised him by saying, “I already know about you. You own your own business, you prefer to work alone, and you don’t much like surprise visitors.” She was teasing him, actually teasing him.
    “That’s not exactly what I meant. I’m sure there’s lots more you know about me. About my past.”
    She didn't shy away from the question. "Yes. This is a small community, and I didn’t have to ask to find out things about you.”
    He nodded. The familiar sense of emptiness overtook him once more but this time was different. He was ready to talk about it. He didn’t believe anyone could help him though, but Denny insisted Kate needed his help.
    “You mean you know about my wife and son’s death s? Or that you know the truth?” The sympathy in her eyes gave it away.
    “Then you probably know more about the truth than I’d like.” Matt saw that she didn't believe everything she'd heard about him. “You don’t believe it?” he added, amazed at her unwarranted faith in him. A hardness crept into his tone he couldn’t begin to control. “It’s true. All of it. Every little ugly detail. My wife was leaving me on the night of the accident.”
    She recoiled from the bitterness in his voice but didn't say a word .
    “Our marriage was over long before Caroline decided to leave that night. Truthfully, around the same time Sam my was born. He was the only thing keeping us together. But after a while even he wasn’t enough. One day I woke up and decided I’d had enough of the lies, the arguments, the pretense. I told her that night that I wanted a divorce and there was no way I’d ever let her have custody of Sammy. I had no idea what she was planning until it was too late.”
    “ Matt, what happened that night wasn't your fault. Surely, you see that. You couldn’t have known what Caroline was planning. You couldn’t have stopped her...”
    His bitter l aughter cut through whatever else she'd been about