Everyday, Average Jones. Suzanne Brockmann

each other, and I know you said you didn’t want to see me again, but I can’t get you out of my head. I want to get together.”

      There. He’d said it.

      He waited for her to say something, but there was only silence.

      “I can get a weekend pass and be up in Massachusetts in five hours.”

      More silence. Then, “Jones, this weekend is really bad for me. The election’s only a few weeks away and…It’s not a good time.”

      Now the silence belonged to him.

      He had two options here. He could either accept her excuses and hang up the phone, or he could beg.

      He hadn’t begged back in March. He hadn’t dropped to his knees and pleaded with her to reconsider. He hadn’t tried to convince her that everything she’d told him about their passion being false, about their relationship being based on the adrenaline rush of her rescue, was wrong.

      He was a psych specialist. Everything she said made sense—everything but the incredible intensity of his feelings for her. If those feelings weren’t real, he didn’t know what real was.

      But his pride had kept him from saying everything he should have said. Maybe if he’d said it then, she wouldn’t have walked away.

      So maybe he should beg. It wouldn’t kill him to beg, would it? But if he was going to beg, it would have to be face-to-face. No way was he going to do it over the phone.