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And then Chase had come along, spoiling everything with a stupid lie.
Annie chomped down on her lip.
Who was she kidding? Her life had started slipping off the tracks hours before Chase had told that dumb lie and the truth was, she understood that he’d done it not out of stupidity but out of love for their daughter.
The lie hadn’t put her on this collision course with disaster.
The dance had. That silly dance at the wedding.
Annie tried not to remember. The warmth of Chase’s arms encircling her. The beat of his heart against hers. The feel of his lips against her hair, against her skin. The feeling that she bad come home, that she was where she’d always belonged.
Oh God.
She took a long, shuddering breath.
Stop it, she told herself fiercely, and she put her head back, shut her eyes and willed herself to sleep.
* * *
A change of pitch in the jet’s engines woke Chase hours later.
He yawned, tried to remember where he was—and went completely still.
Annie was asleep, with her head on his shoulder. She was tucked close against him, her face against his neck, just the way she used to back in the long-ago days when they’d cuddle up together on the sofa to watch Sunday football.
“You watch,” she’d say, “I don’t mind. I’ll read.”
But after a little while, she’d sigh. The book would slip from her hands. She’d put her head on his shoulder and sigh again, and he’d sit there with her asleep beside him, unwilling to move or to give up these sweet moments even if every muscle in his body ached.
A feeling of almost unbearable tenderness swept over him. She was dreaming, too. Looking down, into her face, he could see the little smile on her lips.
Was she dreaming about him?
“Annie?”
Annie sighed. “Mmm,” she said.
“Babe, it’s time to wake up.”
She smiled and cuddled closer. “Mmm,” she whispered, “Milton?”
Milton?
Milton Hoffman? That was the man in his wife’s dream? That was why she was smiling and cuddling up so close to him?
Chase felt his heart turn to ice.
Hoffman. That poor excuse for a man. That effete jerk. That was who Annie wanted. That was the kind of man she’d always wanted.
Why hadn’t he seen it before?
Milton Hoffman, Professor of English, Shakespearean Authority and All-round Chrome Dome, never had mud on his wing tips. He never had to leave the house before dawn and come home, dragging his tail, long after dark. He never had to wonder if anybody noticed the shadow of dirt under his fingernails because ol’ Milton had never had dirt under his fingernails, not in this lifetime.
Chase sat up straight. Annie’s head bobbed; she made a little purring sound and nuzzled closer.
“Annie,” he said coldly. “Wake up.”
“Mom.”
Annie sighed. She was at that point where you know you’re dreaming, but you’re not quite ready to give up the dream. Not this dream. She was too interested in seeing how it would end.
She had been sitting in a classroom, with Milton on his knees beside her. He’d just proposed, and she was earnestly explaining why she had to turn him down.
I like you very much, Milton, she said, and I respect you and admire you.
But he wasn’t Chase. His kisses had never stirred her the way Chase’s did. His touch didn’t set her on fire.
“Annie? Wake up.”
“Milton,” she said, and then she opened her eyes and saw Chase glaring at her from two inches away.
Annie jerked back, her face coloring. How long had she been asleep? How long had she been lying snuggled up against Chase as if she were a teenager in a drive-in theater—if there still were such places?
No wonder Chase was looking at her that way. God, she’d probably drooled all over him.
“Sorry.” She put her hands to her hair and smoothed it back from her face. “I, ah, I guess I dozed off.”
“And dreamed of Prince Charming,” Chase said, with a tight little smile.
“Prince...?”
“Good old Milty. Your fiancé.”
Annie stared at Chase and remembered her dream. “Did I—did I say anything?”
“What’s the matter, Annie? Afraid I might have heard the dialogue that went with an X-rated dream?”
“It wasn’t X-rated! I was just dreaming that—that...”
“Don’t waste your breath.” Chase’s voice was chill. “I’m not interested.”
Annie stiffened. “Sorry. I almost forgot. Nothing I ever had to say was of much interest to you, was it?”
“Mr. Cooper? Mrs. Cooper?” The flight attendant smiled down at them both. “We’ll be landing in just a few minutes. Would you put your seat-backs up, please?”
