Page 1 of Supernova

prologue

DECEMBER 1959

Ed Maxwell stepped backwith a look of shock and surprise. He was holding Francesca, the woman he was trying to make his fiancee, by her elbows, looking deep into her brown eyes. He’d never known a woman so beautiful, so full of life. Her lips were soft and red, her body warm and curvy, and when Ed looked at her, he saw a future full of laughter and children and happiness.

And she had just dumped him.

“What?” Ed asked, unsure of whether he had heard her correctly. There had to be some misunderstanding. Perhaps she’d thought he wanted something else—that maybe he’d asked if she wanted dessert, or if she felt like ice skating with all the other people there in Rockefeller Center, people who were now glancing their way, and looking at their serious faces.

Francesca—Frankie—dipped her chin, effectively burying the lower half of her face in the mink collar of her wool winter coat. Her hands were covered with black leather gloves to keep her fingers from turning to ice cubes, and Ed was dressed in a suit that he treated like his Air Force dress uniform, having pressed it and put on each piece with precision. His shoes were shined and his hair combed neatly. Ed was hope personified.

Frankie’s dark lashes collected tears that looked like little chips of diamonds sparkling against her black mascara. She refused to lift her face to look directly at Ed, who was watching her expectantly, because if she did, she knew what he’d see there: fear.

“Frankie, did you just say what I think you said?”

Frankie turned her head now, looking at the people passing by on the sidewalk. It was almost Christmas, and they were standing in front of Rockefeller Center with its frozen skating rink. Happy skaters shouted with joy as they looped around and around beneath the golden statue of Prometheus that loomed over the rink, and their laughter was like silver bells to the ears of everyone who passed by.

“I can’t say it again,” Frankie whispered, putting her gloved hands on Ed’s arms and squeezing his elbows tightly. “Please don’t make me.”

Ed’s eyebrows knitted together while he processed her words: Francesca Lombardi, the gorgeous woman he’d been dating for nearly six months, had just whispered in his ear that she wanted to break up with him. Things had been going so well—so well, in fact, that Ed was trying to propose. He had a velvet box that held a gold band with a round-cut diamond solitaire nestled in his palm, and he was just waiting to open the box and slip the ring onto Frankie’s left hand following her excited acceptance of his proposal.

At least, that’s how he’d envisioned this going. No part of Ed had expected Frankie to put her lips to his ear, her breath warm as she whispered, “I can’t be with you, Ed. I can’t do this.”

This all seemed so out of the blue.

Ed stepped back, still holding onto Frankie’s narrow upper arms as he glanced around at the overly interested bystanders. “Baby…is this about last night?” he asked quietly.

Frankie’s cheeks flushed bright pink as she looked around to see if anyone was near enough to overhear. She shot Ed a panicked look, which, in Ed’s mind, at least meant that she was making eye contact. That was something.

“Ed…I can’t,” she said. “I can’t be the woman you want me to be. The woman you need me to be.”

Ed’s frustration began to boil in his belly like a fire behind a grate. He lowered his voice. “I’ll ask you again, is this about last night? Because that’s not an issue, Frankie. It’s just not.”

The tears that had been caught on the fringe of Frankie’s lashes began to fall in earnest. “Itisan issue,” she argued vehemently. “When a woman can’t…when a girl isn’t able to?—“

Ed cut her off with a shake of the head. “Frankie, we aren’t even married. I never fully expected us to…you know,” he said, looking around. It was his turn to see if anyone was in earshot. “Of course, a guy alwayshopes, but I understand that it wasn’t in the cards.” He shrugged a shoulder, eyes searching her face.

Ed was such a nice guy that Frankie felt a sharp stab in her chest to know that she was hurting him.

“Ed,” Frankie said. She leveled her gaze at him. “It’s not just that. I don’t think I can give you the things that a man really needs.”

Ed looked flabbergasted. He finally let go of Frankie’s arms and took a full step back, looking her up and down. “I think you’re crazy,” he said, shaking his head. “You have literally every single thing that a man could want. Everything.”

Frankie was starting to look perturbed. She took a long, deep breath as she counted a few beats in her head, waiting for her pulse to slow. “Ed,” she said evenly. “There are things you don’t know about me. Things that, if you knew, well, they would make you not love me.”

It was Ed’s turn to get ruffled. “Listen, Frankie. I’m not trying to upset you, but every time I touch you—every time Ikiss you lately—you push me away. You turn your head. You find an excuse to leave or distract me. How do you think I feel?”

Frankie searched his face as he grew increasingly agitated. “You just said that you weren’t expecting us to—“ Frankie dropped her voice even lower as she looked around furtively, “go all the way.”

“Well, no, but I expect that the woman I love will, at least on some level,wantto go all the way—at some point. I mean, Frank,” he said, using the shortest version of her name as he ran his hands through his neatly combed hair. “Do you even want me at all? Do you even love me?”

Frankie’s heart stilled. Ed stood before her, as vulnerable and full of desire as any man had ever been in her presence. She didn’t want to hurt him. She had no desire to break his heart, or to leave him feeling unloved and unwanted. She just had things that she couldn’t let go of. There were things he didn’t know about her, but watching him standing before her, wearing his heart all over his face, was killing her.

“Ed,” she whispered, reaching out both gloved hands for his. He hesitated, then took them in his hands as he looked into her eyes with hope. Frankie pulled him closer as she stood on tiptoe, putting her lips to his ears once more. Ed went still as she spoke softly, his breath held in his chest as if any movement might scare her away.

When Frankie was done talking, she stepped back, still holding his hands. She couldn't look at Ed directly, and she was certain that to do so would be to see the disgust and rejection that she’d so feared. She swallowed hard, waiting for him to walk away. There was no way he wouldn't.

Ed let go of Frankie’s hands and he did indeed take a step back. But rather than turning to run away like he was escaping a house on fire, he dropped to one knee, still holding the perfect,sparkling diamond ring in the open box. The lights from the skating rink snagged on the stone, sending off a spark of light.

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