Heartbreaker Bay short by Jill Shalvis

        Hannah stood in line at the candy shop, nerves jangling through her stomach like a swarm of butterflies gone wild. “What are you doing?” she murmured to herself.

        “I don’t know, honey,” said the old man behind her. “But if you can’t figure it out, some of us are jonesing for a buttercream chocolate, so do ya mind? It’s not like I’ve got a lot of time left.”

        The old woman with him smacked him on the arm. “Stop scaring perfect strangers into thinking you’re on your death bed. I get to die before you, remember? But it won’t be today, not on our fiftieth anniversary.”

        The old man leaned in and kissed her cheek. “Whatever you say, boss. Always.”

        The woman snorted and moved out of line to study the display cases filled with mouth-watering chocolaty goodness.

        “Wow, fifty years,” Hannah said to the man. “Congratulations.” She hadn’t managed any years. She’d blown her marriage to Gavin before it’d even happened, while they’d still been engaged.

        I can’t do this, she’d said to him. He hand crafted wood furniture for Reclaimed Woods, an upscale shop in the Cow Hollow district of San Francisco. Amazing furniture, if she said so herself. He’d made a name for himself and was one of the city’s Artists on the Rise this year. She was proud of him, so proud. And she loved him. That had never gone away. But it didn’t change anything. “What’s your secret to fifty years of bliss?” she asked the man.

        “It’s easy.” He winked at her. “She’s always right.”

        Hannah stared down at the tan line on her left ring finger, where her engagement ring had sat for one month before she’d let old insecurities sabotage the best thing that had ever happened to her.

        “Next,” the woman behind the counter called out, gesturing to Hannah, who was still in her nurse scrubs, fresh off a twelve hour shift in the ER. She pointed to the one pound box of chocolates. “One of those, please.” Her mom, a maternity nurse at the same hospital, always said Hanna craved chocolate more than air. And her mom, who’d raised Hannah on her own after being dumped by man after man, all while working her ass off to keep a roof over their heads and food in their bellies, rarely spent a penny on herself.

        So now that Hannah was actually keeping her head above water, she tried to spoil her mom whenever possible.

        Gavin had often done the same for Hannah. He loved fudge and as she stood there staring at the displays, she remembered some of the ways they’d shared it, a few of them extremely, erotically naughty.

        She’d met him when he’d come into the ER two years ago after nearly slicing his thumb off at work. She’d stitched him up and he’d asked her out. And unlike any other man in her life, he’d stuck. Through thick and thin and thick again. Through anything she threw at him, like trying to push him away just to prove she wasn’t meant for love.

        He’d called bullshit on that. It hadn’t been until she’d actually left him, returned the ring and walked away, that he’d let her go. His last words as he’d cupped her face and looked deeply into her eyes had been, “you’re not ready, I get that. You’ll let me know when.”

        That had been three weeks ago. Three long, heart-breaking weeks during which she’d done nothing but think about him; his smile, his laugh, his callused hands, so strong yet so tender on her skin.

        She’d been such an idiot.

        “Anything else?” the clerk asked, making her jump.

        She pointed to the fudge. “A pound of that, please,” she said, voice a little trembly. “Thanks.” And while the woman rang her up, she sent a one word text to Gavin.

        When.

        Outside, she put on her shades against the bright and gorgeous San Francisco sun and slid into her car. She drove to the Pacific Heights Building where Reclaimed Woods had a ground floor space. She walked through the wrought iron gate and across the cobblestone courtyard but didn’t go into his shop. Instead, she sat on the bench in front of the hundred year old fountain where Gavin had once asked her to marry him.

        The old man’s words about his wife reverberated in her head.

        She’s always right.

        Not in her own case, Hannah thought. She’d been wrong, wrong, wrong. Because she and Gavin belonged together. She’d fought it. Fought it hard. But she hadn’t realized that having your own life is great, but it’s also pretty great to have someone to share that life with. And the truth was, she missed Gavin so much that she ached at night alone in her big bed where they’d spent so many nights laughing, making love…

        The bench rocked a little as an unbearably familiar built body dressed in jeans and a black t-shirt, both covered in sawdust, sat next to her.

        She turned her head and met Gavin’s dark blue eyes. “Hey,” she whispered.

        “Hey.” The bench rocked a little as he leaned forward and worked at brushing himself off, running his fingers through his sun-kissed brown hair so that sawdust rained down. Finished, he looked at her, his eyes carefully neutral. “So what are we doing today? Fighting or …”

        “Or.” She drew a deep breath. She’d taken his heart and stomped all over it and he still said ‘we’. This is what she got from Gavin. Total support. Easy acceptance and understanding.

        She hadn’t done a very good job of returning the favor, but she intended to change that. Without a word, she handed him the fudge. He opened the box and his lips quirked.

        God, she’d missed his smile. “Not fighting,” she said quietly. “No more fighting. You look good, Gavin.” An understatement, of course. He was gorgeous and sexy, and just looking at him tugged at her poor, beleaguered heart.

        He laughed, the sound as always causing a smile to curve her mouth. “I’m filthy,” he said.

        “And?”

        He laughed again, and met her gaze. “I missed you like crazy.”

        There was a pause as his words danced in the air around them, brushing her skin, filling her heart. “I missed you too, Gav. So much.”

        “Then why did you leave?”

        She took the fudge from his lap and set it aside before leaning into him, touching his jaw. Meeting her halfway, his fingers sank into her hair as he pulled her even closer, and then onto his lap. “I hope I’m reading you right,” he said softly, “or this is going to be embarrassing.”

        “What is?”

        Using the fist he had in her hair, he tugged her face to his. He started with a small, questing kiss, but it wasn’t enough for her and she opened her mouth, touching her tongue to his, letting herself fall into the sensations of his taste, his scent, and the heat radiating off his body. She’d always loved the way he held her, like she was the very best thing that had ever happened to him.

        He was certainly the very best thing that had ever happened to her.

        She slid her hand from the nape of his neck to his chest, where she could feel his heart pounding beneath her hand. It wasn’t the first time she’d realized just how important she was to him, but it was the first time it really sank in.

        All the way to her soul.

        He moved so that his forehead rested against hers and he slid his hands back into her hair, his fingertips against her scalp, moving gently. “I’m going to ask you again, Hannah. What are we doing here -- besides giving everyone in the courtyard a show, that is.”

        She looked around, and yep, they’d caught a few eyeballs. Deciding to ignore that, she said, “it’s a little complicated.”

        He stilled for a beat and then gently set her aside and stood.

        To walk away, she realized. “Gavin, wait.”

        He turned to her, eyes dark and intense, and more than a little wary.

        She grabbed his hand. “I had some thinking to do. And some growing up to do too. The complication was my heart being at war with my brain.”

        “Who won?”

        “My heart.” She squeezed his fingers. “I’ve never loved anyone as much as I love you, and …”

        “It scared you. I scared you.” He seemed very unhappy with the idea of that being true.

        “Not you. Me. I scared me, with the depth of my feelings for you.” She tried to smile, but felt the sting of tears.

        Gavin let out a sound of regret and crouched before her, balancing easily on the balls of his feet, saying nothing -- one of the things she loved about him. He always let her come to her own decisions in her own way, in her own time.

        ““I let it mess with me,” she whispered. “Love’s never worked out for me before.”

        “It only takes one person to get it right,” he said.

        Trust him to narrow it down to one, easy sentence. “You’re my person, Gavin. Can you ever forgive me?”

        “Nothing to forgive, babe.”

        She threw herself at him.

        Catching her with no effort at all, he rose to his full height, his voice low, husky. Warm. “Hannah,” he breathed against her jaw. “I want to take you home. To stay with me.”

        “Tonight?” she asked, tracing his lips, the line of his jaw.

        He leaned down to kiss her, his hand stroking her way away from her face, smoothing down the rough curls. “Tonight. Tomorrow. The next night. Just … stay with me. Forever.”

        “Forever,” she vowed and knew he’d give her the very best forever she could have ever dreamed of.