Love on a Spring Morning by Zoe York

something that triggered feelings he didn’t want to deal with.
    His poor balls. It had been a long five months.
    But this was different. As he stroked himself, it certainly brought up feelings. Frustration. Desire. Anger. But not sadness. He could feel guilt niggling on the edges, but right now, alone in the shower, he blocked that out and focused on letting himself have just this moment.
    One fantasy. He pressed away the ache and let himself imagine.
    Holly, spread out on a blanket somewhere. Not here. Outside, under a setting sun. Naked, turned on, and ready for him. He wanted to cover her body with his and lose himself in her for a night.
    He couldn’t have her. Not now, definitely, but not even before. He wasn’t ready. But he could have that fantasy. And maybe in time…
    Maybe there will be someone else . He’d thought he’d love one woman for the rest of his life, and fate had other plans. So Holly couldn’t be it for him, either. In time, there would be other crushes.
    If there was one lesson Ryan had learned over the winter, it was that whether he liked it or not, life went on.
    She’d be gone in a few months.
    Until then, he’d watch her from afar. The long swing of her hair, a dozen shades of blonde from the palest white to golden sunshine. Her expressive mouth, pouty and wanting in one moment, wry and whip-smart in the next. Her long legs, toned and taut.
    The way she ran like she was being chased by the devil. Like she was all alone in a fight against something.
    Damnit . His erection faded. Wow, he really was an asshole.
    He didn’t know why Holly pushed herself so hard, but for all that he’d liked sitting next to her and talking, had he really found out anything about her? He’d been too distracted by the softness of her skin against his fingertips and the scent of her hair, brown sugar and the beach, to really get to know her.
    He’d used her.
    For escape and fantasy.
    All because he knew she’d be leaving.
    He had to make it right. Even if it was just as a friend or because he wanted to maintain his record as a decent human being, but mostly because she’d given him a tiny bit of hope that life would eventually return to normal and he’d smashed it to pieces because he wasn’t ready.
    In the process, he’d smashed her, too.

    — —

    Faith found him in Mac’s on Tuesday morning, where he’d been sitting and drinking coffee for almost an hour. Dean Foster, a local provincial police officer and a fellow Army reservist—and the oldest of the Foster brothers, all friends of Ryan—sat with him for the first fifteen minutes before thumping him on the shoulder and making a wisecrack about Ryan talking his ear off.
    He wasn’t really in a talking mood, which meant accepting Faith’s offer of another coffee date had been silly, but somehow in their emailing back and forth, she hadn’t taken no for an answer.
    And now she was in front of him, wearing a t-shirt with the Periodic Table of Beer on it.
    “Beer?” He nodded at her chest.
    She grinned. “And I don’t really drink it.”
    “You’re interesting, Faith Davidson.”
    “And you’re grumpy. What’s up?”
    “Bad weekend.”
    “Yeah, me too. Do they have good coffee here?”
    He waved at the waitress and leaned back in the booth, crossing his arms. “You don’t look like you had a bad weekend.”
    “Well, I did. My son has figured out that I don’t know everything, and he’s translated that to doubting most of what comes out of my mouth.”
    “Ah.” Ryan knew that feeling well. “It’s just a phase.”
    She arched an eyebrow at him, as if to say really? Tell me something I don’t already know .
    “And it only gets worse,” he grumbled.
    She threw a sugar packet at him.
    “What made your weekend sucktastic?” she asked, changing the subject slightly as the waitress arrived with the coffee pot, and Ryan took the interruption to really look at this woman. Funny, pretty, and slightly geeky.
    For whom he felt nothing