Zeke spent most of the next day avoiding Cecily.

It was harder than he’d expected.

This wasn’t just because he and Cecily worked together, and it was natural for their paths to cross at least a couple of times a day. It was also because he kept wanting to see her.

He’d gone to bed last night with his mind whirling and his heart racing. He didn’t know why Cecily seemed to have sought him out yesterday or why she’d asked him about his wife, told him about her own experiences with men. Neither one of them were prone to personal conversations or intimate confessions.

Cecily had always been a paradox. Honest and open about her feelings in an emotionally healthy way but still managing to maintain a professional boundary.

From almost everyone.

And definitely from Zeke.

That boundary had slipped last night, and it excited Zeke more than anything had since…

Since he could remember.

But that wasn’t smart and it wasn’t safe, and it wasn’t in keeping with the man he had become, so Zeke gave himself a series of lectures throughout the day, every time his eyes started to rove, searching for a slim, upright body and gleam of blond hair.

He wasn’t going to do this to himself. He wasn’t going to get his hopes up.

He wasn’t going to be stupid or young or naïve or foolishly optimistic.

That was the road that led to heartbreak. He knew it better than most.

But when dinnertime came, he was obliged to make an appearance in the dining room. Cecily liked for him to be around for the evening meal since that was when the most guests gathered at one time and when it was most likely for problems to arise.

They almost never did, but Zeke was occasionally needed for crowd control or to intimidate a loudmouth. He wasn’t going to shirk his duties because he was entertaining wrong feelings for his boss, so he forced himself to show up, get a cup of coffee, and sit in the corner to keep his eye on things.

Cecily came in at six forty-five, looking as pretty and polished as she usually did in a slate-gray dress and pink heels. Her eyes searched the room and came to rest unerringly on where he was sitting.

She gave him a little smile.

He tried to scowl, but he found himself smiling instead.

To his relief, she didn’t come over to talk to him. If she had, he probably would have acted like a besotted idiot. But he watched as she made a circuit around the room, chatting with guests, introducing people who were sitting alone, and generally being a good host.

She wasn’t one of those extraverts who were always the center of attention. Her mingling was quiet, contained, perfectly executed to keep the attention on other people and not on herself. She was doing her job, caring about her guests. She didn’t seem to care at all whether all these people thought she was special, entertaining, attractive.

He liked to watch her and not just because she was so tantalizingly beautiful with her prim outfits and contained manner—making the warm spirit her appearance hid even more desirable. He also liked that she was so good at what she did, so incredibly competent.

She’d helped so many people and never once expected to be admired for it.

Sometimes this fact rankled inside Zeke. She’d spent her life taking care of other people.

Someone needed to take care of her.

He wanted to take care of her.

As soon as he admitted this to himself, he forced the thought out of his mind. He couldn’t deny he was feeling this way more and more, but he didn’t have to let the thought fester.

He might have tried to cut ties with the world over the past eight years, but he was still a human being with the same wants and needs he’d always had.

He could admit what he was feeling. Acknowledge it.

And then move it aside because he could never act on it.

When Cecily had made her way around the room, he thought she would leave as she normally did.

Instead, she walked over to him.

He saw her approaching. Made sure not to stare at her. Tried to convince his heart not to beat quite so quickly.

She sat down in the empty chair at his table, a little smile at the corners of her full lips.

“What?” he asked when she didn’t say anything.

“Nothing. I was just sitting down if that’s all right.” She arched her eyebrows as if he were being unreasonable.

He grunted.

She didn’t normally just come to sit with him. She didn’t normally seek out his company.

She had last night though. And here she was, sitting beside him for no reason except she’d wanted to.

He should be trying to dissuade her from this.

He shouldn’t be feeling so… good about it.

“I think the Andersons snuck in a phone,” she said in a light, conversational tone. “They hid something in her purse when I went over to them.”

“I’ll take care of it.”

Her eyes had been resting on the middle-aged couple who were just here for the weekend, but they now returned to Zeke’s face. Her expression softened slightly. “I know you will.”

Shit.

Shit.

Damn.

Fuck.

Damn.

Shit.

He swallowed over every curse he could think of as his heart gave an embarrassing flip-flop at the look in her eyes.

Her eyebrows lowered as if she’d noticed some of his reaction. “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing.”

“Zeke?”

“Nothing!” The repeated word was rougher than he’d intended, but he was suddenly washed with an icy wave of terror at the way he was feeling.

He stood up abruptly and strode out of the dining room to escape from Cecily’s soft eyes, sharp mind, and hidden heart.

Dinner was almost over anyway.

***

Zeke was so out of sorts that he had to do more work after dinner. He cleaned up some trash from the beach, although there were only a few stray pieces because he always kept it immaculate. Then when it wasn’t yet dark and he wasn’t tired enough to sleep, he did some trimming and edging on the front lawn.

He’d worked on the lawn a few days ago, so it was basically perfect already, but it was more important that he have something to do.

He worked for two hours until the sun had set and he was soaked in sweat. Deciding he might finally be exhausted enough to relax, he put up his tools and headed around the building toward his cottage in the back.

He took a long, cold shower—which felt good at first but soon became miserable—but he didn’t turn the water any warmer.

He didn’t want his body feeling good at the moment. It might start to get wrong ideas again.

He was shivering when he got out of the shower, and he dried himself off quickly, listing in his mind all the tasks he needed to get done the following day.

He’d pulled on a T-shirt and his sweats when he saw something light up out the window.

The pool lights.

Cecily.

He was absolutely certain she was swimming again this evening.

He didn’t need to go and check it out tonight.

There was no intrusion, no guest doing what they shouldn’t be doing.

It was just Cecily having an evening swim.

Alone.

By herself.

In her swimsuit.

Cecily.

Instead of sitting down and turning on the television, he made a growling sound and went outside, walking the path toward the pool. He stood at the gate and saw he’d been right.

Cecily put a towel down on a chair and then pulled off a red cover-up, revealing her simple one-piece suit beneath.

He stood and watched her silently, wondering what he was even doing here.

She hadn’t yet stepped in the water when her gaze wandered over toward the gate. Her eyes widened, and she walked over to him. “Hi. Just me again.”

He nodded. He’d known it was her, but it was nice that she believed he was once again checking for misbehaving guests.

“Do you swim?” she asked, sounding casual and friendly, not like she had any real purpose to the question.

He nodded again.

“You can join me if you want.”

He opened his mouth slightly but didn’t get out any words.

He absolutely, positively couldn’t join her in the pool.

That would be the biggest of mistakes.

She just smiled again and went over to the steps to climb into the water. She obviously wasn’t waiting for an answer from him. She probably knew he wasn’t going to do it.

She’d just been acting friendly, generous, polite.

It wasn’t like she would really want him to swim with her.

He was still standing like a statue—unable to speak or to move—when she glanced back over at him, halfway into the water. “I mean it,” she said. “I don’t have any particular desire to be alone tonight.”

Then she sank into the water, submerging her face and her ponytail.

Zeke watched for a moment as she started to swim a lap, and then he turned around and returned to his cottage.

He knew better than this.

For the past eight years, he’d done so well at isolating himself, avoiding any sort of emotional turmoil or heartache.

If he returned to the pool, he’d be asking for trouble, asking for pain.

I don’t have any particular desire to be alone tonight.

As he heard her say the words again in his mind—her light voice, her perfect articulation—he understood what she’d meant, what she’d been telling him beneath the surface.

She was feeling lonely.

And he’d left her there all alone.

He made another growling sound, the only relief for his surge of feeling, and he went to find his old swim trunks and pull them on.

He left the cottage before he could reason with himself, and he was on the pool deck before he could change his mind.

Cecily was finishing a lap when he made his way over to the pool steps. She stopped at the end of the pool and blinked at him, clearly surprised by his appearance.

“I didn’t think you’d come,” she said, smiling in a way that made it obvious she was glad to see him.

He shrugged and grunted. She’d always been good at interpreting his minimal communication. He figured she’d understand what he meant.

She swam over to his side of the pool and waited until he’d gotten in. “How good do you swim?” she asked.

“I’m all right.”

Her smile was slightly teasing, absolutely delicious. “Are you as good as me?”

He’d watched her swim, and he knew she was good. Her strokes were clean, practiced, well defined, and she was in good shape.

Instead of answering, he sank into the water and then pushed off from the wall, streamlining his body as he kicked underwater and then moving into freestyle when he broke the surface.

When he returned to her side of the pool, she started off when he did, and they swam the laps together. He hadn’t swum in years, but it wasn’t something you forgot. He moved easily in the water, and she kept up with him the whole way. He probably could have beaten her in an outright race, but he had no real desire to do so.

They swam for several minutes until they stopped by mutual, silent agreement.

Cecily laughed as she wrung the water out of her ponytail. “You’re really good. Were you on a team?’

“Yeah. As a kid.”

“I was too. All the way through high school.” She seemed to like this random similarity in their background, and Zeke liked that she liked it.

“I stopped when I started high school,” he told her, running a hand down his wet beard.

“Why did you stop?”

“I was playing soccer, and it took all my time.”

“Were you good?”

“Not bad. I got a soccer scholarship for college.”

“Really?” She was leaning against the wall beside him, crouched like he was so they were submerged in the water to their shoulders. Her eyes were resting on his face though, and the warm interest he saw there made his heart do those completely inappropriate flip-flops. “I guess you were good.”

“It wasn’t a top-tier team,” he admitted. “But I got a full ride.”

“And did you keep playing after college?”

“Nah. For fun occasionally but not on a team. I…” He trailed off, wondering why he was going on like this, talking about things that felt personal.

He never did this.

Not anymore.

“You what?” she asked gently.

“I got married in college, and I had to support us. Soccer just didn’t feel very important anymore.”

Her brows were lowered as if she were thinking. “You’re thirty-eight now, aren’t you?”

He nodded. She didn’t follow up the question, but he somehow knew what she was thinking. He sighed and closed his eyes briefly. “If we’d had kids right away, the first one would be starting college this year.”

It was a poignant, aching thought—a lost future, a life he would never have.

Cecily touched his shoulder lightly in a wordless gesture of support.

“It’s just as well,” he muttered. “I would have been a terrible father.”

“Zeke!” Cecily gasped. “That isn’t true at all.”

He lifted his eyebrows. “Isn’t it?”

“Well, if you’d been all scowly and silent with them the way you are with people now, it might not have been ideal,” she admitted, her features softening as she took the talons out of the conversation. “But you wouldn’t have been like that if you’d had kids.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I do.” She paused before she added very softly, “You’re not like that with me. You wouldn’t have been like that with them.”

His breath caught in his throat, and he had to rein himself in to keep from grabbing her shoulders and pulling her toward him. “You’re saying I don’t scowl at you?”

She laughed. “I didn’t mean to doubt your commitment to scowling. No one scowls better than you. But you don’t mean it with me. You wouldn’t mean it with your kids either.”

He stared at her flushed, smiling face, the fondness in her eyes. She was being completely honest, not putting on a pretense or using her words to try to get something from him.

And he realized she was right.

He did grunt and scowl a lot at Cecily but just because it was second nature. He didn’t mean it. He wanted to really talk to her. He wanted to really smile at her. He wanted to connect with her in a way he hadn’t with anyone in years.

She seemed to see something in his eyes because she lowered her lashes and sank back into the water against the wall. Clearing her throat, she said, “You said you worked for a few years before you went to seminary?”

She was returning to their previous conversation—bringing them back to where it was safe.

Zeke was relieved and disappointed at exactly the same time.

“Yeah,” he muttered. “I worked with a landscaping company. I’d started working with them part-time in college and took the job they offered when I graduated because I needed the money.”

“No wonder you’re so good at all the outdoor work here. Did you like the job?”

“Yeah. I did. A lot. I wouldn’t have minded if I’d just stayed doing that. But Lara…” He cleared his throat and felt suddenly guilty, so he rephrased, “There was always this expectation that I would go to seminary. So when Lara finished graduate school, it was my turn.”

“Did you really want to be a preacher?” she asked, turning to look at him again.

He gave a half shrug. “I don’t know. Lara always told me that I should, and I… I believed her.”

She didn’t say anything for so long that he finally looked to check her expression. He couldn’t interpret the look in her eyes, and he was suddenly worried about what she was thinking.

He said, “I never lost my faith, you know.”

She sucked in a breath as if she were surprised by his unexpected admission. He was surprised too. “I know that. I never thought you did. I knew you were pulling away from people. You weren’t pulling away from God.”

He wondered how she knew him so well, how anyone knew him so well. “You’d have been reasonable to assume I was. It’s not my faith in God that was… was changed. It was my faith in the world.”

She sat thinking for a full minute, and he realized she wasn’t sure she should risk the question she finally asked. “You don’t think the two are connected?”

“Why would they be?”

“God wants what’s good for us. He calls us to be in community with each other for a reason. Other people are good for us.”

He nodded. She was right. Of course she was right. He knew it was true with his head, although he still wasn’t feeling it in his heart.

She glanced away, looking suddenly uncomfortable. “Anyway, I just wonder if they’re not connected.”

He let out a long breath. “Maybe they are.” He paused for a moment before he went back to their previous topic of conversation. “I guess you can’t even imagine me as a preacher.”

“It doesn’t really fit with who you’ve been for the past eight years, but that doesn’t mean it never did. I knew you in seminary, remember? I recall the man you used to be.”

He knew he shouldn’t ask the question, but it came out before he could stop himself. “Did you like that man better?”

She shook her head, her eyes soft and fond the way they’d been earlier. “No. I didn’t. I think he was happier, but the man you are now is the one I really know, the one I really like.”

Her voice broke on the last word, and she grew very still, her eyes still fixed on his face.

He was gazing at her too, and he couldn’t possibly look away. What she’d just said filled him with pleasure, with excitement, with affection. It made him feel better than he’d felt in years.

He hadn’t believed he was even capable of feeling this way again.

He reached out instinctively and cupped the back of her head with one of his hands. His body was almost shaking with what he knew was about to happen.

She’d shifted so she was facing him, and she leaned closer to him in the water. Her eyes were deep and warm and filled with the same feeling that was throbbing inside him.

He slid his free hand down her spine to rest on the small of her back. She was soft and small and seemed like she’d fit perfectly against him.

He wanted to feel her.

He wanted it so much that arousal tightened at his groin, and an even more powerful feeling tightened in his chest.

He breathed in the scent of chlorine and the ocean as he tilted his head toward her.

She wanted this too.

He knew it for sure.

He was about to kiss her—finally take what he’d wanted unconsciously for so long.

And everything would change.

Everything would change.

He jerked away from her abruptly, causing her to gasp.

He turned around clumsily, taking a deep breath before he forced himself to climb out of the pool.

“Zeke?” Cecily said, her voice raspy and uneven. “Zeke, wait.”

He didn’t wait. He grabbed the towel he’d brought with him but didn’t take the time to dry himself off. He headed to the gate that led to the path that led to his cottage.

“Zeke, don’t go,” Cecily called after him, sounding like she was getting out of the pool too. “We need to talk about this.”

He couldn’t talk about this.

He just had to get away.

His body and heart both wanted her so much that, if he even looked at her right now, he wouldn’t be able to hold himself back.

It took only a minute to reach his front door, and then he was inside, locking the door, wrapping the towel around him as he leaned back against it, trying to get his breath.

He knew he must have hurt Cecily’s feelings, and he felt terrible about it.

But this was his only option.

If he were Cecily, he would have gone back home and tried to pretend this whole evening hadn’t happened. He would have salvaged his pride and been nothing but cool from now on.

But Cecily wasn’t him.

Cecily was better than him.

And she always tried to practice the advice she gave to others.

In a couple of minutes, she was knocking on the door to his cottage.

He was still leaning against it, and he jerked in surprise at the knock.

When he didn’t respond, she knocked again. “Zeke,” she called out, her voice concerned, slightly wobbly. “Please open the door.”

“Go away, Cecily,” he growled.

“I’m not going to go away. We need to talk about this.”

Of course she wanted to talk. That was the emotionally healthy thing to do.

But Zeke didn’t care about emotional health. He cared about self-preservation.

After a minute, Cecily tried again. “Zeke, we can’t leave things like this. We work together. Please open the door.”

“Go away,” he muttered again.

He could almost hear her sigh and lean against the door.

He’d hurt her.

He’d disappointed her.

And he was hurting her more even now.

He couldn’t stand it.

But things would only get worse if he opened the door.

He knew what would happen. All these feelings he was trying to contain in his heart would simply overflow. He’d take her into his arms. He’d kiss her the way he’d been about to back at the pool.

He wasn’t sure what the road would look like after that, but he knew without doubt where it would ultimately lead.

Things would eventually fall apart.

He’d have to quit a job he loved, leave the only home he had, and never see Cecily again.

That wasn’t a future he could ever allow to happen.

So he stayed where he was, holding himself perfectly still and not saying a word until Cecily gave up and left.

She wouldn’t stop trying to talk to him, but he would worry about that tomorrow.