Hooked

all?”
    “So far,” she whispered.
    He seemed to understand the way fear and hope were packed closely together in those words. He nodded this time and put his arms slowly, carefully around her and pulled her against him. Her heart stopped for a moment. She couldn’t breathe. Then a flood of warmth from his big body melted her frozen responses, and she gasped and let the tears come.
    He held her as she cried and her arms slipped around him and tightened desperately. The strength and caring she had needed for months was all around her, and she absorbed it into her still-healing body and let it fill her hungry heart.
    He slipped away briefly to walk Mickey for her. Then he carried her up to bed and lay down beside her, fully clothed, just holding her.
    “I…I haven’t been with anybody…since…” she whispered.
    “I get it. Just relax, sweetheart,” he murmured against the top of her head. “You’re safe with me.”
    And he cradled her with his big body for the rest of the night.
    * * *
    Steph was the first to awaken the next morning. She’d spent half the night wondering if he would—if he should —make moves that would force her to face his disappointment, or his determination not to show that disappointment. How would she know which reaction was real? He was a man who would go to great lengths to spare her feelings. And while she loved that sensitivity, she didn’t want her feelings spared. She wanted the truth. As painful as it might be, she wanted to face facts now, before she fell even deeper in love with Finn Hartley.
    She watched his face in the early morning light. He was a good man—a wonderful man—who deserved a woman who could meet his needs fully and be his partner in life for years to come. The truth was she didn’t know if she had “years to come.” She might have decades or she might have only one or two years until the cancer recurred and cut her life short. It wasn’t fair to ask him to shoulder that burden with her.
    She slipped from the bed and took Mickey for a walk, trying to sort it all out in her head.
    * * *
    Finn awakened to an empty bed and an uneasy feeling. He called to Steph as he came down the stairs, but the house was silent. When he found Mickey was missing, too, he knew where she’d gone, and set about making coffee for them. Minutes later, she walked through the door and he could tell something was wrong. Mickey lavished him with sloppy affection, but she gave him a stiff peck on the cheek and threw herself into breakfast.
    Waffles. She was making him her perfect waffles.
    He leaned his hip against the counter near where she was working, studying the puffiness around her eyes and the set of her chin. She was so beautiful, so strong and so hurt . He wanted to pull her into his arms and thaw her back to the warmth and openness they’d shared in the night just past.
    “I care about you a great deal, Finn,” she said, her gaze riveted on the steaming waffle maker. Her voice was purged of emotion. “So I need to tell you a few things. I want you to understand—I’m still trying to make peace with what’s happened to me. The last thing I want to do is drag you into my drama and mess things up for you a second time.”
    “Steph—”
    “No, Finn—” she brought a clenched hand down on the countertop “—let me finish. You’re a wonderful man. You’re giving and caring and honest and…and I don’t want you to make decisions about being with me for noble reasons. I don’t want you to be selfless and sacrificing. I love you too much to let you do that, even for me.
    “I’m confused and I need to figure things out for myself. I have to be strong and cope on my own. That’s the way I’m built. That’s who I’ve always been. And I can’t just let somebody, even somebody as loving as you, take over. I’d lose a part of myself in the process.”
    “Steph, I know what I’m signing on for here. I’m not afraid of—”
    “Well, I am,” she said, turning her shoulder to him. “What happens if we stay together and the cancer comes back? I couldn’t handle the guilt I’d feel if you got fed up with being a cancer survivor’s long-suffering partner, but were afraid to leave me.”
    “You’re talking about stuff that may never happen.”
    “No, I’m talking about stuff that may happen,” Stephanie said, feeling the weight of it pressing down on her chest. “I want to be with you so much that it scares me. I’m just… I’m not ready for