“Today’s the anniversary of the day I proposed.”

Her chest tightened. “Oh Lincoln.”

His smile was grim. “Guess I was hoping that coming out, getting a strong cocktail and a medium-rare ribeye would be a distraction, but my head’s just…I’m sorry.”

“Maybe…” She bit her lip and broke off, not wanting to overstep.

He turned his head and looked at her. “I’m open for advice here.”

“Maybe it’s time you let yourself think about her,” she said in a rush. “Maybe you’ve been pushing all the bad stuff aside for too long and it needs to come out.”

He took a sip of his drink before shifting and staring straight ahead, lost in thought. “Like what, a shrink?”

“Life handed you a whopper of a blow to deal with, Lincoln. Maybe start with talking to a friend.”

His broad shoulders rolled restlessly beneath the suit jacket. “You mean like you.”

“I think of myself as your friend, yes,” she said with a little smile, pulling her hand away from his arm to take a sip of her champagne. “But regardless, the whole bottled-up thing is going to explode someday.”

“It doesn’t feel right,” he muttered. “Talking about one woman while out to dinner with another.”

“If this were a date, I might agree, but that’s not what this is.”

“Hard to remember when you look like that,” he grumbled.

Daisy’s hand faltered as she put her drink back on the bar, wondering if she’d heard him correctly. “Was that a compliment?”

The corner of his mouth tilted up. “Don’t fish. You know you look hotter than hell in that dress. Platonically speaking. Of course.”

Of course.

“It is a good dress, huh?” She decided to play it coy and flirty and harmless. “I bought this on a whim a few months ago after a wine-fueled lunch with Whitney. I like the way it’s all business in front, high neck, long flowy sleeves, but then the back…”

“What back?”

Daisy laughed. “Exactly.”

“Pity to let it go to waste,” he said. “Guy on far side of the bar’s giving you the eye.”

Daisy started to look, but Lincoln made a warning sound under his breath. “Damn, woman. Not like that. Where’s your game?”

“My ex-husband killed it.”

His head whipped around, but she didn’t look at him, her cheeks flaming with color. “I’m sorry. I didn’t…you said you needed to talk about you, and here I am babbling about me, and—”

It was his turn to reach for her hand, squeezing gently. “How about we do this together, be here for each other. I’ll start. My name is Lincoln Mathis, and today is the anniversary of the day I proposed to my girlfriend Katie while at a B&B on Cape Cod. I miss the girl she was, and more than that, I regret how distant those memories are. Your turn.”

Daisy took a deep breath. What was the harm? “My name is Daisy Sinclair, and I’m deathly afraid that my jerk of an ex-husband ruined everything good about me.”

“Not possible,” he said, squeezing her hand once more before sliding his away, as though instinctively knowing that she only liked to be touched on her terms. “You’re the best person I know.”

She rolled her eyes at his hyperbole.

“I mean it,” he said quietly. “Sometimes I think…I don’t know. I think you’re the reason I’m still standing.”

“We barely know each other.”

“Liar,” he said softly.

“Do you ever wonder how you’re supposed to know when it’s time to get back on the horse?” she asked, fiddling with the cocktail napkin. “Like how do you know when you’re living in the past, versus giving yourself time to heal?”

“Damn big question, and I don’t know. I’m not the person to ask. A gut thing, I guess?”

She looked over. “What’s your gut telling you?”

He met her eyes steadily. “That I haven’t dealt with losing Katie the first time, after the accident, much less when she left me the second time. I’m not even close to being ready. I don’t know that I ever will be.”

Daisy felt a pang, sharp and melancholy in the pit of her stomach. She wanted to tell him that he was too good a man to be alone, but a part of her understood. To love like that, and then lose it…

“What about you?” he asked. “What’s your gut saying?”

Daisy slowly shifted until she could see the blond man on the other side of the bar, who did indeed seem to be checking her out between glances at Lincoln, as though trying to ascertain what they were to each other.

Just friends, she wanted to say. Definitely just friends.

But she wanted more, and that was starting to freak her out.

The blond guy was good-looking. A black dress shirt, rolled up at the elbows, just the slightest amount of dark gold scruff along the strong jaw, maybe a touch of red, although that could have been the moody lighting in the bar.

The thought of dating again was scary as hell, but Daisy was realizing she and Lincoln weren’t quite as alike as she’d let herself believe. He was cautious because of love. His love for Katie still had a hold on him.

She was holding back out of resentment and fear. Out of anger at a marriage gone horribly wrong. Katie was worthy of Lincoln’s sacrifice.