No Surrender by Sara Arden

was an expert rider.
    He watched the speedometer as it kept climbing, and the higher it got, the faster they flew, the less it mattered to him that he wasn’t in control.
    Sean was flying, defying gravity while still cruising the ground. The sky loomed ever larger, brighter, calling him.
    He couldn’t imagine ever doing this with Lynnie.
    He felt guilty for the thought, but then it was gone. He had no reason to feel guilty, at least not for this. There were things she’d enjoyed and things she hadn’t. She and Kentucky were two different people.
    Lynnie was gone.
    He and Kentucky had been left behind.
    So now they were living the life that had been given to them. What was so wrong with that? It wasn’t as if they were pretending she’d never been. Or they hadn’t both loved her.
    He tightened his arm around her waist and inhaled the sweet apple scent of her hair.
    It wasn’t long before they pulled into the parking lot for the tiny coffee shop out in the middle of the countryside called The Ruby Slipper.
    It was an odd place to open a coffeehouse and it had been expected to fail. But the kids from Lawrence who didn’t want anything so mainstream as a coffee shop in town would come hang out and read poetry late into the night. They’d drive out to where there was no internet and barely any cell service and have poetry slams and study nights and drink their own weight in coffee.
    He held the door open for her and she ordered them two coffees and two apple fritters. Sean certainly wasn’t going to complain.
    The fritter was warm and flaky, the apples inside sweet with just a bit of cinnamon. It practically melted on his tongue and it was good. Not just that the fritter tasted good, but everything about this moment was good.
    The burn of the coffee, the scent in the air and the woman sitting across from him with the sun shining down on her like a halo.
    It was a lovely image, but he wasn’t trying to make her into a saint or a maiden in distress. He was pretty sure Kentucky Lee was the dragon in that story.
    Sean wasn’t sure who he was, but he was okay with that for now.
    “This is the best morning I’ve had in a long time,” she said while taking a sip of her coffee out of the fat red cappuccino mug.
    “Me, too.” He took another sip of his own coffee.
    For a second, just that single instant, he wondered what it would be like to wake up to her—to this—every day. He’d never wanted to stay in Winchester, but it suddenly wasn’t about the geography.
    It was about the players.
    It was about looking at a beautiful woman who was everything he wished he could be. It was about the taste of the coffee and the tightness in his chest when he thought about leaving.
    It was about how when he was with her, he wasn’t drowning. How he could breathe.
    Hell, he could even float.
    Maybe even fly.
    How had he missed it? There was nothing about Kentucky that was a shackle, an anchor or a weight. Not the way he’d felt with Lynnie.
    Guilt surged again.
    “I hate to ask that basic girl question, but what are you thinking about?”
    He arched a brow.
    She laughed. “It’s just, there was this look of joy on your face and then it was like a storm cloud blotted out your sun.”
    “I was thinking about Lynnie.”
    “What were you thinking about her? Tell me?” She reached out and squeezed his hand.
    He searched her eyes. No, he didn’t want to tell her those things. He didn’t know what good they would do. “I was thinking about the last time we came here.”
    “Did she read one of her poems?”
    “She did. It was about beginnings. Endings. And how they don’t mean what we think they do.”
    “I’m sorry I missed that.”
    “Me, too.” He exhaled. “I miss her, Kentucky.”
    “I know.”
    “I think I’ll always miss her, but it’s different somehow, you know?”
    She didn’t speak but instead took another drink of her coffee.
    “But this isn’t about Lynnie today.”
    “No? What’s it