Hidden Summit

near an “iffy” guy.
    “You’ve had your eye on him,” Conner said.
    “Every second. Every. Second. I swear, I won’t stop watching, but he just plain loves kids. He wants to have some of his own. He feels like he put it off too long, and he hopes it’s not too late.”
    “Don’t get into this for the wrong reasons, Katie,” Conner said. “I can respect safe, but he also has to ring all your bells.” He ran a knuckle down her jawline. “I saw how you were with Charlie. Just try to get lit up by the right guy because, seriously, I’m getting old!”
    “Isn’t Leslie kind of safe?”
    He burst out laughing. “No!” he said. “No-ho-ho!” he emphasized. “She’s got some of her own crap. Not quite as dramatic as mine. She has a weird ex who wants to be her best friend even though he’s remarried and has a pregnant wife. And her parents, who are actually awesome people, are pretty eccentric. But safe? Oh, man—so not safe. She blows my mind. Falling in love with her is huge.” He tilted Katie’s face up to his. “If she dumps me or otherwise hurts me, I’m a guaranteed wreck. Leslie is a big risk for me. That make you feel better?”
    She looked at him and shook her head. “No. I don’t want to do that. I don’t feel like taking chances.”
    “Then tell me, honey. Tell me what he does for you....”
    She took a breath. “He makes me feel comfortable. Cherished in an everyday way. Seriously. There are times at the office or over lunch away from the office when he talks about simple things like riding bikes with the boys through the park, and he’ll remark on how they will absolutely stop at the end of the sidewalk and wait for me before crossing the street. He’ll tell me how much he admires the job I’ve done with them, a mother alone without a husband. He sees that Mitch and Andy are secure, that they don’t act out like a lot of little kids.... He has said, a number of times, that I’m exactly the kind of woman he’d want to raise his children, and he says, ‘If you take that to mean hope relationship grows, you’re right.’ Sometimes he’ll ask my opinion about something minor to me but major to him—like whether to seed or sod that new yard of his, like whether to texture and paint walls or look at wallpaper.... I know, that doesn’t seem like anything, but it just feels so normal. And God, Conner…I just want to feel normal.”
    Conner patted her arm affectionately. “We’ve always been able to talk very openly, very honestly, haven’t we, Katie?” She nodded. “Then let me say something that’s kind of hard to say to my little sister. It sounds like you’re choosing a roommate, not a husband. You like him more for what he doesn’t do for you than for what he does. He doesn’t make you feel too much.”
    “Oh, you’re wrong,” she insisted. “I could really tear his clothes off. The big question is—does he want to tear my clothes off? Because if he can be the gentleman in the light of day and a wild man when the lights go out, he’s absolutely what I want. I’m not stupid—I’m not going to get hooked up with a guy who doesn’t have any passion.”
    “You have to promise me that,” Conner said.
    “I promise, of course. But if he has all the traits I mentioned—the kindness and the gentleness and also passion, then he’s exactly what I want. Exactly. This isn’t the frontier—I don’t need some macho man who’s going to protect me from the grizzly. I need a dependable, loving, caring man who will come home from work every night.”
    Conner heard it, but he didn’t believe it. That might be what Katie thought she needed—the comfortable old shoe. But it would leave her hungry and a little empty.
    His baby sister was afraid to fall in love, love like she’d had with Charlie—hot, irrepressible, sizzling love that left her flushed and breathless. Because when you had that kind of love and lost it, the pain was just terrible.
    But he said, “You’ll do the right thing, Katie. Just be sure to ask all the right questions of yourself before you get in too deep.”
    “Of myself?”
    “Yes,” Conner said. “Questions like, can you be happy with almost everything, or do you have to have it all? Because it’s hard to be honest about that.”
    Leslie found the warm weather and lengthening of the days to be such a comfort, especially as she was missing Conner. When she got home from work, there was still enough daylight for her to enjoy the