The next morning the phone rang bright and early. Ginny grabbed the landline from where it was attached to the wall. “Hello?”
“This is Mrs. Travis. We met yesterday.”
“Good morning, Mrs. Travis. What can I do for you at”—her gaze darted to the clock, and she blanched—“at seven o’clock on a Saturday?”
“I was going to have my assistant call you,” the old woman spat, “but she had to visit some family, so I’m calling myself. I would like to meet at ten a.m. Monday morning to discuss the details of you catering the Teal Scarf event.”
“Our first dining service is at eleven. That’s cutting it a bit close for me to return in time to help with lunch.”
“Do you want the business or don’t you?”
Of course she did. “Can we meet at the café?”
“You will come to where I am staying.”
So much for meeting at the lighthouse. “Yes, ma’am. And where is that?”
Mrs. Travis gave her the address and they said goodbye. When Ginny hung up, she wasn’t sure if catering for the woman’s event would be such a good idea after all.
* * *
Aiden picked her up an hour before sunset in his truck. It wasn’t brand-new, which suited him—worn and comfortable but still rugged.
“Where are we going?” she asked shyly as he opened the door for her.
He quirked a brow. “It’s a surprise.”
She giggled. “A surprise?”
“That’s right.”
She turned toward him, the backs of her legs bumping into the truck’s frame. “Are you going to blindfold me?”
“Do you want me to?”
Her cheeks warmed. “No, but that would make sure I’m never able to retrace my footsteps and find the place again.”
He took a step closer. Unsure of what to do with her hands, she gripped the door handle. Aiden took another step and her breath hitched. The air between them filled with tension—the good kind, the kind that occurred right before a kiss.
She licked her lips, and his gaze flickered to her mouth. He dropped his voice. “What if I want you to be able to find where I’m taking you? So that you can return anytime you want?”
“Well…then…” What should she say? Her mind had gone blank. Thoughts weren’t coming. All she could think about were his lips and how they would feel against hers, and what his kiss would taste like. “Well, then, I suppose I would like that.”
Her response was so terrible that Ginny felt like her brain had betrayed her.
But Aiden didn’t seem to notice the lack of witty banter. He only smiled, which was like looking into the sun, blinding and happy. “Let’s get going. We don’t want to be late.”
She slid onto the seat. “For what?”
“The sunset.”
* * *
They drove to a marina, where Aiden parked, and from there they got into his boat.
Being nosy, she peeked into the built-in cooler. “You’ve brought food.”
He glanced over his shoulder, chuckling. “I wasn’t going to take you to see the most perfect sunset and let you starve.”
“You are quite thoughtful.”
He laughed harder. “And you are quite funny.”
Their gazes locked and tension charged the air again until Ginny, who felt like an electrical bolt was spider-crawling down her spine, cleared her throat and took a seat by Aiden.
“Now will you tell me where we’re going?”
“Not until we get there.”
“Does your radio work in case you run out of gas?”
He frowned. “You really aren’t sure how to have fun, are you?”
She shook her head and leaned back on the white leather seat. “I guess I’m still figuring that out. Being married for a long time, especially to a man as staunch as Jack was, still clings to me. It’s hard to let loose.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault.”
They were silent while he steered the boat from the marina and into the emerald waters of the Gulf. “For what it’s worth, I know what it is to have some of the fun sucked from your life.”
“You? The treasure hunter? How is that possible?” she joked.
He only scowled at her playfully. “I was married too, you know. Not that I’m saying marriage can be bad. We were very happy in the beginning.”
“I remember that you’re divorced,” she replied, feeling like a jerk for suggesting he didn’t feel as deeply as she did. “I didn’t mean to offend you.”
“You didn’t. Come here and let me show you how to steer.”
“Are you serious?”
“Do I look like I’m joking?” He frowned, which made her laugh. “Come.”
She reluctantly slid from the seat and made her way over. Aiden released his left hand and stepped away, giving her room to station herself behind the wheel. He kept his right hand where it was until she had taken her spot. Then he released his hand and she placed hers on the warm metal, where his had been.
She expected him to move away, but he didn’t. He remained behind her, his mouth beside her ear, his breath tickling the fine hairs around it. If she’d wanted to, Ginny could have leaned back to sink onto his chest.
“Keep your hands steady like that. Good.”
His breath in her ear made a tingle shimmy down her spine all the way to her toes. Her heart slammed against her chest, and she knew that her face was a glorious shade of embarrassed crimson.
“Now what do I do?” she asked.
“Just what you are. I’ll tell you when to turn.”
His right arm reached around her, and his fingers brushed her hand. A bolt of energy sizzled up her arm. “Keep your grip strong. Good.”
“I’m so nervous.”
“There’s no need to be. I’ve got you.”
It felt like he meant more than just steering. He was there to support her if she wanted it. All she had to do was let him in.
“Tell me what happened with your ex-wife. I’ve told you about Jack, what he did to my family. I’d like to hear about her.”
“Well,” he started slowly, his breath sending shudders down her spine, “we were young when we married. I’d known her a long time before that, though, so no big deal. But after we’d been married a few years, we discovered that she couldn’t have children.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. I wanted to adopt, and she didn’t, and she was sad for a long time. I helped her through it as much as I could. She went to a therapist, and I thought she was getting better, but that sorrow turned into a spending habit.”
That was surprising. “She spent money as grieving.”
“Yeah, but it was more than that. It was like she had thrown herself entirely into having a baby, and when she couldn’t have one, she had to throw herself into something else—and that was shopping. Ginny”—the sound of her name on his lips made her heart leap into her throat—“she would spend thousands in a month on decorations for the house, or new clothes for me and for her. As soon as I made the money, she was spending it. So I talked to her about it. We went to counseling together, but I couldn’t let her destroy our lives with her habits. We started fighting—a lot, and that fighting led her into the arms of another man.”
“Oh, Aiden.”
“It’s okay. I’ve dealt with it.”
“But still, that’s so hard. I can’t imagine. Well, I can actually.”
He squeezed her left arm. “We’ve both been hurt by our ex-spouses.”
She expected him to pull his hand away, but he didn’t. Instead Aiden made small circles with his thumb, warming her exposed flesh. His other hand rested on her right shoulder, and Ginny didn’t dare breathe. She hadn’t been this close to a man in months, and she hadn’t been close like this to anyone expect Jack in over twenty years.
“We’re here,” he said suddenly, and her heart dropped.
She hadn’t known what she expected or wanted from Aiden. His closeness made her squirm, but it also felt right, which surely had to be wrong. She needed time to adjust to the idea of a new man.
He pointed, and before them stretched a long finger of land with a sandy beach. Behind the beach lay a long strip of grassy land. There wasn’t a house or a person in sight.
“What is this place?”
“St. Vincent Island,” he said, taking a step back.
A breath loosened inside her chest and Ginny exhaled. “I’ve never heard of it.”
“It’s an uninhabited island. People can come shelling and for picnics, but not to live.”
“No one will be around?”
He moved to where she could see him, and he smiled. “No one.”
“You’re not going to take advantage of me, are you?”
He barked a laugh. “I could ask you the same thing.”
“Don’t worry,” she replied with a giggle. “You’re safe with me.”
“As are you with me.”
He said it quietly, and their gazes latched onto one another again. That tension loomed and Ginny glanced back down at her hands.
“Are you going to tell me how to park this thing?”
He grinned. “I sure will.”
After they had pulled up to a swath of grassy land where they were able to drop anchor, Aiden helped her and a huge wicker basket from the boat.
“What all do you have in that thing?”
“You’ll see,” he teased. “And no peeking.”
She lifted her hands in surrender. “You can count on me. I won’t sneak one peek.”
They walked down a grassy path until they were on the beach proper. Sand stretched for hundreds of yards to the left, and waves gently lapped at the shore.
Behind them, small grassy dunes jutted up from the earth, and crab holes pockmarked the sand.
“This is beautiful,” she told him, sucking in a breath.
“Just wait. It’s about to get even more beautiful.” The way he looked at her, with his eyes shining, made her think that Aiden wasn’t only talking about the beach or the sunset that was to come. “Here. Let me get this blanket out.”
“You stuffed a blanket in the basket?”
“Of course. Where else would I put it?”
She laughed as he wrestled out a blanket that had been tightly stuffed into the basket and spread it along the beach.
They sat as the sun dipped into the horizon. The sky became washed in gold, peach and magenta.
Aiden made her a plate of fried chicken, watermelon salad topped with feta cheese, and apple-cider cole slaw.
“That looks yummy. Who’s your chef?”
“I’ll never tell.”
She elbowed him. “Seriously.”
He nodded. “Seriously. I never reveal my sources. All you need to know is that you’re having dinner with a handsome man on the beach.”
She hooted with laughter. “Handsome? You think awfully highly of yourself.”
“I am having dinner with a beautiful woman, so that means I also think highly of you.”
Her heart jackhammered against her ribs again and Ginny’s cheeks flushed. There were no words on her tongue. Not one. So she focused on the food and returned to the story of his ex-wife.
“Your wife…you divorced her after you caught her cheating?”
Aiden’s eyes snapped as if he’d been thinking of something completely different. He stretched his legs out in front of him and nodded.
“Yep. She told me that she’d found someone else, so I had the papers drawn up. Since she’d cheated and admitted it, I didn’t have to pay alimony, and she took up real estate. She’s one of the most successful agents around.”
Her jaw dropped. “She still lives here?”
“Sure does. We run into each other from time to time.”
“And is she still with that man?”
“They married, then divorced. She’s been single ever since, I think.”
His shoulders tightened and Ginny frowned. “You’re hiding something.”
His gaze swiveled from the horizon to meet hers. “What makes you say that?”
“You’re tense. There’s more to the story. Aiden, if there’s one thing I’ve learned in the past months, it’s to trust my instincts.”
He studied her a moment and sighed. “Yeah, I see Jennifer every once in a while.”
“And…”
“And she keeps trying to get back together, but I’m not interested. There’s someone else I’d rather spend my time with.”
He looked at her with such intensity then that Ginny felt the world drop away. She was floating, or drowning in emotion, she didn’t know which, until something large, brown, furry and buzzing flew directly into her face.
She reared back and screamed. “Ah!”
Aiden jumped up. “What the…? It’s a carpenter bee. It won’t hurt you. Just sit still and it’ll go away.”
The gigantic bumblebee thing zoomed around Ginny as if it wanted to eat her. After a moment it flew off, only to be replaced by another, even hairier bee. She yelped again.
That one landed on her shoulder. She froze.
“Don’t move,” Aiden told her calmly. “It’ll go in a minute.”
She stayed still as a stick until the bee buzzed off.
After that one zoomed away, three more launched themselves at the couple, hovering and buzzing inches from their faces.
They were so close that Ginny cringed. She moved toward Aiden, burying her face in his shoulder.
“Please tell me when it’s gone.”
“It’s just curious. You look like a flower to it.”
“I don’t want to look like a flower.”
She could hear the smile in his voice when he replied, “You can’t help what you are.”
What did that mean? But his words weren’t what grabbed her attention. What did was his delicious scent. Aiden smelled of the briny ocean mixed with musk. The smell instantly soothed her even if the death knell of a buzzing carpenter bee was blaring in her ears.
“Is it safe?”
He was cupping her head. When had that happened?
“They’re gone,” he whispered.
She tipped her face back and stared up into his blue eyes flecked with gold, the look in them as tumultuous as the roaring ocean itself.
Her breath caught in the back of her throat. She swallowed a knot and said in a whisper, “Do you think they’ll come back?”
“I don’t know.”
Then he dipped his head and every part of Ginny screamed not to kiss him, that she wasn’t ready. But at the same time every other part of her cried out for his lips.
Just as their lips were inches from touching, a big brown bee buzzed between them.
Ginny threw up her arms and screamed. She stumbled back and Aiden caught her hand, grabbing her before she could fall onto the sand.
The bee flew off and he watched it. When he looked back at her, he said, “Want to go?”
Fear clung to her like yesterday’s underwear. “Yes.”
He nodded. “Let me just gather everything up.”
As they walked back to the boat, Ginny wondered if she’d just blown things with Aiden for good.