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You couldn’t just tell someone not to cry.

She wasn’t sure what he was trying to do right now as he kept whacking her on the back. Maybe it was meant to be soothing, but it felt like he was trying to shove the tears right out of her.

Or give her something else to cry about, because ouch.

“Maybe you could ease up on the back whacking,” she said as she tried to get her tears under control.

“Shit, sorry. Was I hurting you?”

“I’m fine,” she told him, not wanting to hurt his feelings.

He grasped hold of her chin and turned her face toward his. Thank God, she was a pretty crier, or this would be horrifying.

“Don’t lie to me,” he said. “If I’m doing something to hurt you, I want to know. Understand?”

“Sure,” she said. Another wave of tears hit her, and she started to sob again.

To his shock, he grabbed hold of her, lifting her into his lap. Then his arms wrapped around her, and she thought it might be the best feeling in the world to have this strong, gorgeous guy hug her tight.

She wasn’t certain that she’d ever had a better hug in her life. It was firm, but not too firm. And the feeling of safety in his arms was like nothing she’d experienced before.

She leaned into him, resting the side of her face against his chest.

He even smelled amazing.

She sniffled, and the tears gradually started to dry up.

Leaning back, she stared up at him. He gazed down at her, and for a moment, she thought he might kiss her.

Aimee licked her lips and tasted the saltiness of her tears. This wasn’t going to be the most ideal first kiss, but she’d take it.

Sure, it was dumb. Sure, she barely knew him. Not to mention that she’d just lost her husband, and she was kind of an emotional wreck.

But right in that moment, she didn’t care about any of that. Life was short. She knew that all too well.

All she cared about was feeling his lips against hers as he held her tight.

He opened his mouth. Here it came. The kiss to end all kisses. She just knew that this kiss was going to be utterly amazing.

“Do you have any tissues?”

8

Tissues?

He wanted tissues? For himself?

But no, he didn’t look like he needed tissues . . . nope, he wanted them for her.

Oh, hell.

Here she was, staring up at him and thinking that he was the most gorgeous, sexy man she’d ever seen in her life and hoping he would kiss her.

And he wanted her to wipe her nose and face.

This was humiliation on a whole new level. She didn’t even know how she was going to recover from this.

In fact, she was pretty sure there was no recovering from this. The only thing she could do was change her name and her appearance and disappear into the wilds of Canada.