Hooked

this kind of commitment. It’s too much responsibility right now. You deserve a whole, healthy, loving partner, and I don’t know that I can be that for you.”
    “You underestimate yourself, Steph. We can work it out—”
    “Don’t you get it?” She turned fully away, back rigid. “I don’t know what I am anymore. I don’t know what I’m capable of. I make it through, day to day, but I don’t see a future before me. I don’t see anything at all.”
    There was a long silence. She could feel his gaze on her back, could feel the care he had for her reaching into her core, searching for a response.
    “I know cancer has knocked you for a loop,” he said, edging closer, “but you’re still you. You’re still the Stephanie Steele I fell in love with—that and a whole lot more. I believe we’ve been brought together a second time for a reason. And the reason is not that you’re going to die. Look, I’m not asking for guarantees. Nobody is promised tomorrow. None of us have a lock on a painless, trouble-free life. All I want is you beside me, loving me, for as long as you can. Is that too much to ask?”
    She didn’t know how to answer him. It would be so easy to say yes to what he was asking—to turn and open her arms and let him sweep her into his heart and his life. To borrow his certainty and courage and faith. But everything in Steph said it would be taking the easy way, that sooner or later she would have to pay for not doing the hard work of recovery herself.
    Escape was not an option.
    She wanted to love him, but something kept holding her back, and for the first time, she faced it squarely. It wasn’t body shame. It wasn’t worry that he’d leave her if things got bad. It was her damaged faith in life itself. It would hurt too much to open herself up and find happiness, only to have cancer bring her life crashing down around her again.
    Her ability to live fully, to have faith in the possibilities that life and love could hold, had been shaken to the core. It was hope that she’d lost.
    “Steph, look at me. Just look at me and tell me you can’t love me.”
    The silence as she grappled with his demand and her chaotic emotions stretched too long, and became an answer in itself.
    “Maybe you’re right—it is just about you.” Bitterness tinged the frustration that crept into his voice. Old memories, old pain stirred beneath his words. “Maybe you’re really using the cancer to keep from getting involved again with a man who doesn’t live up to your fashionable image.”
    She sagged against the counter, so struck by that razor-edged statement that she had to brace herself before answering. Caught up in her own inner turmoil, she hadn’t considered just how much of himself he was risking in reaching out to her, or how much he might be hurt by her rejection. He’d offered his heart, his life…
    The soft pad of footsteps on the marble entry floor registered, and she whirled. By the time she reached the hall, the front door was closing behind him. She froze, staring at the door for a long time. He’d left again. The way her life was going, there wouldn’t be a third chance.
    Mickey quit sniffing the door and came running back to her with a where-did-he-go look. She sank to her knees, pressed her face into his furry ruff and began to sob. “Oh, Mick, I really messed it up this time.”
    * * *
    Steph dragged herself through the next several weeks. Work and family filled her days, but did nothing to fill the hole left in her heart by Finn’s absence. In two short days, he’d managed to turn her fragile world upside down. Now everything seemed to be moving on automatic pilot…everything except that pile of fishing equipment still sitting on the bench by the garage door.
    She finally told the people on her management team about her cancer, and was surprised to find that several of them had suspected something was going on. Her assistant hugged her and cried, saying that she had intercepted messages from a doctor and figured it out. With the air cleared, the team pledged to take the company into new territory—even featuring “pinks” in their stores that fall, during breast cancer awareness month.
    In late June came the long-awaited PET scan and the results.
    “You’re clear, Stephanie.” There was a big smile on the oncologist’s face. “No sign of hypermetabolic uptake anywhere in your body. That means we got it all, and you’re clear, my dear.” She paused, then