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engine rumbled to life, racking the whole truck with a low tremor. Okay, even Nate had to admit he didn’t love the way that felt.
    All the same, he fell back on his good memories of trips like this—the ones with his friends when they were in high school, wind rushing through their hair and the world laid out, ripe for the picking. He pushed off and clambered to lie on his back in the bed, one of their bags beneath his head. As the truck lurched into motion, he held out his arm. “Come here.”
    Cassie grumbled a quiet protest, but at the first bump of the truck over the uneven pavement, she crawled over to meet him. She settled herself in against him, head on his shoulder, body tucked against his side. He swallowed hard and wrapped his arms around her, absorbing her shivering. Giving her everything he could.
    They’d put on their coats as soon as they’d fished them out of the back of the wreck, so he couldn’t feel her curves or her warmth the way he had before, but it didn’t matter. Nothing did.
    Because in that infinite moment, it was just like it had been, flying through the night over a decade ago, young and free and invincible. Back before he’d gotten tied down by what he’d wanted. By his career and by one wrong woman after another.
    This was right .
    He held Cassie closer. Because that wasn’t all it was like.
    It was like every other moment he’d had with her over the past five years—all those moments of friendship and companionship and happiness so profound he hadn’t even realized their source. All the smiles and laughter. The casual touches and the embrace of one friend wrapping around another.
    And it was more. It was so much more.
    With a shiver of his own borne of anything but cold, Nate stared up at the sky, through the lingering wisps of clouds at a darkness punched through with more stars than he could count. As he gazed at that vastness, he felt himself unfurling. Opening up to the possibility of more. Of something different and real.
    And he let it seep into him like light through the holes in the ceiling of the world.

Chapter Six
    “Your insurance man’ll call y’all once he comes in and confirms the car is totaled.” Sherry had her window down, her arm resting on the lip of it as she talked through the gap.
    Nate nodded. He stood beside the truck, his tall frame hunched over so he could peer into it as he listened. Cassie waited a few feet away, hugging herself against the cold. She was on autopilot now, just trying to get through until she could rest.
    The wind whipped her hair around her face, but the chill went so much deeper than the sting of it in the air. Deep in her bones, she could still feel the warmth of Nate’s arms. He’d touched her constantly since the accident, every moment acting as if he was trying to convince himself she was real—every moment except this one. And each time he reached for her, she didn’t have the will to stay away. All her resolve and all her mantras about being over him had crumbled in the wake of the need for comfort. He’d offered it so willingly, taking the same for himself, and she’d given and received without reservation.
    Later. She’d worry about it later. Pull back again later , when this disaster was behind them. When she wasn’t so tired.
    They’d wanted a new start. A new optimism for a brand-new year. And at every single turn, it had gone wrong, wrong, wrong.
    She wanted to laugh. She wanted to cry.
    With a little mock salute, Nate stepped back from the truck as the window rolled up and the behemoth lumbered off. Nate didn’t move until it had turned back onto the road, its taillights receding into twin trails of red in the darkness, leaving them in front of the only motel for miles. Stranded, for all intents and purposes. The sign in the window of the office said there were rooms available, at least. If there weren’t…
    “Cheer up, will you?”
    Cassie jerked her eyes from the blackness to meet Nate’s gaze. He’d