“But you were there,” he murmured. “You went to meet me.”

“Yes,” she whispered. “And you went to meet me.”

Joy swallowed thickly. She’d been more affected by that heated encounter with a stranger than she cared to admit. Her behavior on that afternoon had bothered her deeply, as had being stood up in the aftermath. But in the weeks and months that followed, she’d been too caught up with treatment, too focused on survival to dwell on an uncharacteristic moment of sexual promiscuity for long.

Now all of it came back to her in a rush. Her embarrassment. Her attraction. The mesmerizing quality of Everett Hughes’s eyes.

“It was...