Jenna exhaled as she plopped herself down at her small kitchen table and opened a beer. She took a long swig and allowed her thoughts to drift to how she got to this point in her life, which was rare since, being a single mother to a five-year old girl and a business owner, she hardly had the time for a few seconds of idle mind-wandering. But since her daughter was tucked away in bed and the house chores done for the night, she indulged herself in this small, quiet luxury.

Her mentally abusive ex-husband, Earl, was long gone from her life. And thank The Lord for that blessing. Though, she often wondered if she'd ever have had the courage to throw that weight off her shoulders, to climb out of that cesspool that was once her life, if he hadn't entered it.

Him. The kindly, handsome, sensitive, Dr. Jim Pomatter.

There was just one problem. He was married. And to a lovely woman, no less.

But that was then. Maybe now…

No. She put the thought out of her mind. She didn't need anyone, much less a man in her life. She'd managed the last five years without one just fine. The restaurant was doing a brisk business. Her daughter was growing up to be a little jewel with bouncy blonde curls.

Although, there were times when Father's Day would come around and the little girl would ask why she didn't have a father to talk about at school or to buy her ice cream or to help her ride her bike.

There were also other times, like in the middle of the night, when Jenna would dream of strong, gentle arms around her, light, feathery kisses on her neck, his blue eyes roaming down her body…In the dream, always she'd roll over, hoping to gaze deep into those eyes or to stroke his cheek with her hand, see him for merely a second only to have him fade away into the darkness.

It wasn't long after she'd had her daughter that he'd moved out of town. Word around town was that his wife had finished her residency and he'd relocated with her, but Jenna had her suspicions that it was her rejection of his overtures that drove him away.

She'd heard nothing from him since, nor had she attempted to contact him.

Why should she? She was doing fine on her own.

She took another pull from the beer bottle and let it drop with a thud onto the table, resolved to put such silly thoughts out of her mind. Like Earl, that chapter of her life was closed. For all she knew, the good obstetrician had rediscovered his wife, addressed whatever issues caused him to cheat on her in the first place, and had children of his own.

She finished the beer and walked to the kitchen to wash out the brown glass bottle. She dropped it in a paper bag for the recycling men to pick up and stopped suddenly. As the bottle clanked against the other glass in the bag, she'd thought she'd heard a knock on her front door.

Who could be paying a visit at this hour, she wondered. Becky? Or Dawn? Good God, maybe Earl decided to violate the restraining order? She tiptoed to the front door and quietly pulled a baseball bat out of the umbrella stand that rested nearby. She lifted it in her right hand and flung the door open with her left.

And promptly dropped the bat on the hardwood floor.

"Whoa!" The visitor startled then recovered himself. "Jenna," Dr. Jim Pomatter smiled nervously. "Hi."

Jenna's heart froze. Quickly, though she recovered her thoughts and picked the bat off the floor. She slipped outside onto the floor porch, pulling the door closed behind her so her daughter's sleep wouldn't be disturbed, at least any more disturbed than dropping a wooden bat on her tile floor would do.

"Dr. Pomatter," she gasped, trying to keep the surprise out of her voice and to remember her manners. "What a surprise."

"I know. And I'm sorry to scare you. My showing up suddenly liked this must be a real…surprise." He shrugged then sighed and regarded her. "You look wonderful. Even better than when we first met…or…than when I first started seeing you...not… I didn't mean it how it came out."

She felt a blush coming into her cheeks and couldn't suppress a smile, much like that which finds its way onto the face of a young girl who's just been invited out to a dance for the first time.

"It's alright. You look…mighty fine yourself." She looked him up and down too, just like he seemed to be doing to her, repeatedly. He still had the same warm, calm eyes, the same strong build, and the same bright smile. But there was some kind of shadow in his face. Was it fatigue? Or grief? Perhaps he'd had a bad run of luck with his deliveries. Perish the thought, Jenna said to herself. She didn't know how she would live if her little girl was suddenly taken from her even if it had been after only a few minutes of life.

"Thank you." Jim grinned and rocked back and forth on his heels. Not knowing what else to say, he threw a bit of caution to the wind and gestured towards a porch swing hanging mercifully nearby. "May I sit a spell?" He smiled, proud of having remembered the familiar southern expression that seemed corny, but that he'd always considered sweet in its simplicity.

"Sure." Jenna walked over and sat cautiously, making sure no part of her touched him. They'd touched plenty once before and she was determined not to let history repeat itself.

Then why was her heart pounding so much and her palms so sweaty?

And why did he no longer wear a wedding ring?

"How is your daughter doing?"

"Good," Jenna felt herself relax at the question. Jim felt his heart lift as her eyes lit up with pride. "It's not always easy, seeing as it's just the two of us since the divorce, but we're managing. And the girls at the restaurant help me out a lot. I even have her help out around the place sometimes too, mixing up batter, mashing up ingredients for the pies. And I just began teaching her how to make change. She's such a natural. It's like she was destined to either be a waitress or a bank teller."

"Yeah? That's great. I'm…I'm really happy for both of you." He responded then gave her that same look as when he'd given her that gorgeous pie plate as she sat in his lap in his office while he took phone calls from patients. A nervous tingle shot up her spine and she could barely breathe.

"What are you doing here, Dr. Pomatter?" She spat out, no longer able to contain her curiosity.

"Jim," he corrected.

"No!" She jolted up from the swing to face him head on. "No, I told you five years ago that I was fine. I don't need any help. I have Lulu, and the restaurant and my friends. I don't need anyone else. And you need to be with your wife. So, I'll ask again. What are you doing here?"

He inhaled heavily and studied his shoes for a moment. "My wife is dead, Jenna. She passed away a year ago from breast cancer. Even with the surgery, the chemo treatments, it wasn't enough. It runs in the family so her doctor told her it was bound to hit sooner or later."

Hating herself slightly, Jenna fought the urge to take his hand or just hold him, like he'd once held her after Earl had been particularly nasty. "I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have-"

"It's ok. Really. Don't worry." All of a sudden, she felt it was five years ago and the two of them were sitting on that bench at night waiting for the bus with the hum of curiosity and chemistry wavering between them. "I don't mean to be forward and I know it's been a long time, but honestly I came to see you because I never stopped loving you. It sounds awful since my heart should have been with my wife. And for the most part it was, but there was a small part, the innermost part, that was always here with you and that little girl. You remember that time I came over to your house and you said life hadn't been kind to you and I held you, just held you as you cried and let all the negativity slip away? I never forgot that day. Every day for the last five years there was little I wanted in this world except to be able to hold you like that one more time. Even if nothing else happened between us and you told me to get the hell out afterward, at least I'd always have been able to relive that moment."

Jenna's eyes welled with tears, her chest heaved as her heart pounded, and her entire body was frozen. That hug. He still thought about that hug, just as she did. She tried to speak, to tell him everything she'd wanted to say that had accumulated over the last five years without her consciously realizing it. But she was stopped when he rose and stood in front of her and gently stroked her cheek just as she had dreamed of doing to him so many times.

"I love you Jenna. I'll always love you. And whether or not you feel the same and want me again, something in me just wouldn't move forward until I told you that."

It was the most sincere, honest, amazing, thrilling thing anyone had ever said to her.

"Is there a chance we could make a new start together? I want to know you again, you and Lulu. And if she's half as beautiful and extraordinary as her mother then I'd consider myself a lucky man. So will you…will you both have me, Jenna?"

She was utterly speechless. She dropped her head and shut her eyes tight to let the first of the tears of happiness fall. When he suddenly pulled her towards him and held her once again, she let the feeling wash over her. She slipped her arms around his neck and pressed close to him and shuddered with joy. When, what felt like eons had passed and she felt she could speak, she pulled back slightly to look at him.

"Oh Jim, I've missed you so much. I thought I could get by and we're doing fine, but sometimes I'd be lying in bed and as much as I tried not to, I'd still think of you. So, yes. Let's give it a try." The shadow and weight in his face disappeared almost instantaneously and he pulled her close against him to give her a smacking kiss on the cheek. She let him nuzzle there, relishing in the tingle his warm breath brought to her skin.

"You know," she whispered in his ear, "I'm not speaking for both of us, now. Lulu has to say it's ok too. And she don't always make it easy. "

"Nothing worth having ever is. We'll take it a day at a time."

"A day at a time," Jenna agreed and touched her forehead to his.

"It's a shame this day is almost over," He observed, eager to meet her daughter and see the restaurant, just become part of her life.

"Well let's not waste what's left of it," she hummed and kissed him long and slow and deep.