Page 32 of The Bachelor's Dilemma

“Sounds to me like it’s more than being acquaintances, but I’ll wait for you to tell me if we need to come up. Is Zack around? I’d love to talk to him. Poppa wants to talk to him as well. Then your father will want to talk to you.”

Anna called Zack and stayed nearby, listening to his side of the conversation. At one point, she almost interrupted. To hear Zack talk, Myles was the center of his world.

She hoped her parents weren’t getting the wrong idea. Or getting their hopes up. She knew her mother felt a woman was incomplete without a man. Not that she couldn’t do whatever she wanted, but she loved being married and thought that should be the goal of every woman on the planet.

Anna wasn’t sure she’d ever go down that road again. She and Tom had shared something special. Could she ever find that a second time? What if she married and found she continued to miss Tom? Or compared a new husband to Tom.

Or worse, fell in love and lost him again.

“Okay.”

Zack turned and handed her the phone.

“Poppa wants to talk to you.”

“Hi, Dad.”

“How’s my best girl?”

“Mom must not be nearby,” Anna said.

He laughed.

“She’s right here, but knows you’re my best girl. Zack talked of nothing but this Myles. What do you know about the man?”

Anna spent a couple of minutes filling in her father with what limited information she had about Myles. Then she changed the subject and asked after her dad’s bingo nights.

When the conversation ended, Anna couldn’t say she was sorry. She needed to be careful about what she said in the next phone call with her parents. She didn’t want them projecting their own desires for her future on to Zack. They were fine, just the two of them.

As she got Zack ready for their picnic, she wondered if she should be so quick to accept all Myles’s invitations. She’d been happy they included Zack. Her little boy still missed his father. She ached for him and knew he was too young to fully understand his daddy was never coming home.

But he was not too young to bond with another male. She wasn’t changing one heartache for another, was she?

When Myles arrived and knocked, Zack ran to the door.

“Who is it?” he yelled, then quickly opened the door.

“Hi, Myles,” he said, smiling up at the man.

“You didn’t give me time to answer,” Myles said, reaching out to tousle the little boy’s hair. “Next time, let me tell you who is at the door before you open it, okay?”

“’Kay,” Zack said. “Mommy, Myles’s here.”

“So I see,” Anna said, coming into the tiny hall.

She felt breathless with anticipation. For one crazy moment, she wished he’d reach out and kiss her senseless. But not in front of Zack. And maybe never again. She needed to keep her head straight.

The day was lovely. A slight breeze blew from the west, keeping the temperatures down, but the sunshine more than made up for it. Zack had only been to Central Park a few times. When they arrived and he saw the vast expanse of lawn, he was awed.

“Most green I’ve seen in years,” Myles said, surveying the same expanse.

“I bet it’s really brown in the desert,” Anna said.

She was prepared to enjoy the day and not remember their kiss. And she refused to wish for more.

Or she tried to. As the morning wore on, she looked at Myles’s mouth more and more, remembering the tingling awareness that had swept through her when he’d fastened his lips against hers.

Darn it. She wanted another kiss. Just to see if the first had been a fluke.

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