ZACH FINISHED LOADING life jackets and canoes on to the trailer.

One of the camp directors would be driving the gear up to Heron Pond so that it would be waiting for them when they arrived. Each of the children would carry a small backpack with waterproof clothing, lunch and a drink.

Excitement hummed in the air and the children were talking, swapping stories of their camp adventures so far. All except Travis, who lurked close by, slightly apart from the other children, making no connection with anyone.

One look told Zach that for Travis, Starlight Adventure was more torture than treat and he didn’t need to read the boy’s file to know what was going on. It was all there, written on Travis’s face and the way he responded to the world.

He cloaked himself in desperate layers of “I don’t care” and Zach knew all about that. He’d worn the same layers. He knew that caring made you hurt more and that withdrawing was the only way to protect yourself. He’d done the same thing.

As a barrier against cruelty he’d learned to shut off his feelings. He’d been so good at it that he no longer knew how to access that part of himself. When he’d been with Brittany the first time he’d tried to force himself to feel, but the only emotion that rose to the surface had been panic.

It seemed that the techniques he’d used to survive were irreversible and he’d long since given up trying.

He wondered if it would be the same way for Travis or whether he was still young enough to be prepared to give trust one last go.

Careful to keep his distance, he kept his voice casual as he talked to the boy. “Hey, did you remember your bug dope?”

Travis gave a brief nod. His gaze skidded warily to Zach and then away again as if he was checking the exits.

Zach recognized the gesture and it made him feel sick.

“I could use some help here. This stuff weighs a ton.” He could have lifted it one-handed, but he wanted to pull the boy in from the margins. He wanted him to know there were people he could trust. That the world wasn’t a black pit waiting to suck you in and swallow you whole.

Travis hesitated, then stepped forward and loaded the oars onto the trailer.

He didn’t look at Zach, as if not making eye contact somehow reduced the risk.

“Heron Pond is a cool place.” Zach talked as if the conversation wasn’t all on one side, keeping the topic easy and neutral. “First thing in the morning it’s so still it’s like looking at glass. Throw a stone in there and you can see the ripples spread halfway across the water. But you’re going to need that bug dope. There are insects so big they could swallow you whole without chewing.”

There was a spark of something in the boy’s eyes. Interest?

“Did I hear someone say bug dope?” Brittany strolled up to them, a baseball cap embroidered with Camp Puffin jammed onto her head. “You haven’t seen bugs until you’ve dug in Egypt. First thing you do when you wake up in the morning is check your boots for scorpions.”

Travis sent her a cautious look. “No shit.”

She ignored the language. “At night we used ultraviolet torches to check for them. There’s a compound in the exoskeleton of scorpions that causes them to glow in UV light. It means we can see where they are. They show up as a ghostly green color. Fluorescent. Remind me to show you a picture.”

“Gross.” But he looked fascinated.

“Truly gross.” She tightened the straps of her backpack. “And you don’t want to be bitten by one of those suckers.”

“Would you die?”

“No, but it would hurt like a—” She broke off and grinned. “It would hurt a lot.”

Travis was about to ask something else when a few of the children hovering nearby decided they wanted to hear more about scorpions, too.

As they drew closer, Travis retreated.

Zach saw it happen.

Brittany saw it, too. “Hey, more scorpion tales later, folks. Right now we have a hike ahead of us.” She walked over to Travis. “I hate to admit this in front of Zach, but this backpack is too heavy for me to manage with my wrist in a cast. You look pretty strong—” she eyed Travis’s skinny frame “—would you carry a couple of things for me? You’d be my hero.”

The boy stared at her. The idea of being anyone’s hero was clearly an alien concept. “I guess. If you can’t manage.”

“I don’t want to load you down.”

“I can handle it.” He swung his backpack off his back and as he did so his T shirt rode up, exposing a livid scar on his stomach.

Zach saw Brittany’s eyes narrow and then she was delving into her own backpack, carrying on as if nothing had happened. “If you could carry my sweater and raincoat that would be great,” she said casually. “You better walk up front with me. I’m going to need that sweater if it gets cool.”

She could just as easily have hollered for it, but she obviously wanted to keep the boy close and Zach approved of that decision.

After the brief interest triggered by the scorpion talk, Travis had reverted to his usual blank self. He showed no emotion. Not relief, not excitement, not even boredom.

It was as if someone had switched him off.

Jason, one of the camp directors, was in charge of leading the trip and Steph, one of the counselors, was the one designated to drive the gear up to Heron Pond and prepare for their arrival.

Three other counselors joined the trip, including Rachel, Ryan’s sister who taught at the local school and helped at the camp during her summers.

While Rachel took a group of the younger children and played games as they walked, identifying trees and plants, Zach noticed that Travis stayed close to Brittany.

She chatted to him about the various expeditions she’d been on over the years, knowing instinctively which stories were likely to hold the attentions of a teenage boy. Listening to the conversation, Zach started to form a picture of the life she’d led in the decade they’d been apart. It was a three-hour trek through the woods to Heron Pond and by the time they approached their camp he’d learned that she preferred Cambridge to Oxford, that her favorite food in Greece had been baklava and that she’d once fallen off a camel in Egypt.

“The worst thing about camels?” She smacked an insect from her arm with her palm. “The smell. Ever seen that scene in Indiana Jones where the girl sprays the elephant with her perfume? I wanted to do that with the camel but having already fallen off when the stupid thing stood up, I needed both hands to hold on.”

Travis almost smiled. “You said real archaeology was nothing like that movie.”

“It isn’t, but that part made perfect sense to me.”

“Did you see the pyramids?”

“Yeah. They’re cool if you can dodge the tourists. Because we were working with the university, we had a private tour.” She talked about the thrill of watching a sunset over the desert and of almost collapsing on the walk up to Machu Picchu. “Eight thousand feet above sea level. Breathing is a challenge and a couple of people in my group had altitude sickness, but it was stunning. I’ll never forget it.”

But most of the time she talked about Greece. About blue skies and transparent water and how the whole place was an archaeological nirvana. To pass the time she taught Travis a few words of Greek.

Zach couldn’t stop watching her. He loved the way she used her hands when she talked, and sensed her frustration when her movements were restricted by the cast on her wrist. She told every story with energy and enthusiasm, until he almost felt like flying over the Atlantic just to visit some of the places she described.

The smart girl had grown into a strong, independent woman and if anything the attraction was even greater than it had been when they’d been together in the past.

Her anecdotes made a long trek through the forest feel like five minutes.

When they finally arrived, they ate lunch and then took the canoes out on the pond. There was much squealing as they waited for the boats to leak or sink and even greater satisfaction when they didn’t. They raced in teams, then dragged the canoes onto the banks and swam in the clear sparkling water, jumping in from the dock.

It was lighthearted, innocent fun and by the time they gathered around the campfire, everyone was tired.

This part Zach would happily have avoided, but two of the younger children had decided he was the key to staying alive in the big scary woods and had latched themselves on to him like ticks. As he settled down for campfire, they sat next to him, so close that their legs pressed against his.

Suffocated, he’d glanced across at Brittany but she simply grinned at him and carried on handing out marshmallows.

He turned to the little girl on his right who had welded herself like superglue to his side. “You all right?”

“I want to go home. I’m scared of the forest.”

In his experience, there was a range of things in life worth being scared of, but the forest wasn’t one of them. He racked his brains for her name. “Which part scares you, Grace?”

“The dark.” It was a nervous whisper. “And not knowing whether what’s out there is going to come and get you.”

Zach felt a twinge of sympathy. He’d felt that fear himself, although never related to the forest. “The dark isn’t going to hurt you. And you know what’s out there. Trees, plants, and the birds and animals that live in them. This is their home and they’re not too interested in you as long as you treat their home with respect. And you’re going to be tucked up cozy and warm in your cabin tonight.”

“Will you be there?” Her head turned towards him and he noticed that one of the red ribbons in her hair had worked its way loose.

It made him think of all the times he’d hung out at Ryan’s house, teasing him mercilessly every time Rachel had plopped herself onto his lap to have her hair braided.

Observing Ryan had made him relieved he didn’t have a little sister.

There was no way he would have wanted the responsibility of caring for another person in the home he’d inhabited. It would have been like dropping a dormouse into a nest of vipers.

“You’re losing your ribbon. Let me fix that for you.” Leaning towards her, he retied the ribbon. “You don’t need to worry, Grace. I’m not in your cabin, but you have Rachel and Stephanie. And I’ll be close by.”

The camp up at the pond consisted of a yurt and several basic cabins. The children slept six to a cabin with two counselors and the yurt was used as a staff room and indoor camp if the weather changed. Because technically he was “extra” on this trip, Zach got to sleep in the yurt.

Judging from the expression on her face, Grace wished he was going to be sleeping in the cabin with her. “Do you believe in monsters?”

Zach stared at the fire and wondered how the hell he was supposed to answer that. He believed in the sort of monster who tried to break through a barricaded door, fueled by rage and alcohol. He’d come face-to-face with that one. Memories darkened his thoughts and then he felt Grace press closer.

“Zach?”

Sucked back into the present he reminded himself that this was about her, not him. “You mean the sort of monster that hides under the bed and comes out in the night? No. There are no monsters in this forest, Grace. Just animals that think of this place as their home. As long we leave them to get on with their lives, it will be fine.”

“What if something comes when it’s dark and we’re all asleep?”

“Then you holler and I’ll be right there.”

“Do you promise?”

Responsibility pressed down on him. He knew all about broken promises, but he also knew how it felt to be scared. “I promise.” His mouth was dry. “And now you need to try and relax and have fun because this is your last night at camp.” Most of the children would be heading home the next day. For them, this final campfire was the perfect end to an idyllic summer.

Zach glanced across at Brittany, who was laughing at something Rachel had said. Her laughter was so infectious he found himself smiling, too, even though he had no idea what she’d found so amusing.

How did it feel to be that trusting? To leave that door unlocked and believe that the person entering would do you no harm?

She held nothing back. Her emotions were open and accessible to everyone. Including him. She opened the door wide and let everyone in whereas he kept the door between him and the rest of the world closed and firmly bolted.

And that lock inside him was the only one he’d never been able to break.

BRITTANY LAY IN her cabin, wide-awake.

Around her the children were all sleeping peacefully, even little Grace Green who’d been stuck to Zach like a Band-Aid during campfire.

He’d been so patient with her.

Thinking about it made her feel hot and bothered, and Brittany turned over in her bunk, unable to settle. Animals and vulnerable children. The two things he always had time for. Which proved that the seemingly impenetrable steel surface protected a soft inner layer rich with kindness and humanity.

She lay there, staring up at the ceiling, thinking about the contrasts. He gave the impression of being remote and inaccessible, and yet there hadn’t been a single moment of the trek through the forest when he’d lost sight of Travis. Nor had there been a single moment at the campfire when he hadn’t been watching out for little Grace.

The thought turned her insides to marshmallow.

Giving up on sleep, Brittany slipped out of her bunk, pushed her feet into her hiking boots, pulled a sweater over her pajamas and picked up a flashlight.

Closing the door carefully behind her, she walked a little way into the forest, breathing in the scent of pine and the cool night air.

She’d traveled the world, but there was nowhere like Puffin Island.

Unlike Grace, the forest didn’t scare her and never had. She’d walked here with her grandmother as a child. In the summer they’d hunted for berries and in the winter they’d collected armfuls of pinecones and taken then back to the warmth of the cottage and used them as decorations. They’d piled them in bowls and hung them from the Christmas tree.

The forest had been standing for hundreds of years and she closed her eyes and let the sounds of the night settle her, trying not to think about Zach. Instead she thought about the people who had walked the trails before her.

How had they endured the winters? Had they loved, laughed and cried for their children?

A hand closed over her shoulder and she almost died of fright.

Heart pounding, she turned. “Zach? Are you trying to kill me?”

His fingers were warm and strong through the fabric of her sweater. “What are you doing out here in the middle of the night?”

“I couldn’t sleep.”

“Why?”

I was thinking about you. “I had stuff on my mind. And it’s not the middle of the night. Just past midnight. And now it’s my turn to ask you the same question. What are you doing out here?”

“Walking.” The fact that he was wearing his jeans and boots told her that, unlike her, he hadn’t yet gone to bed.

She remembered on several of the occasions they’d spent the whole night together, waking to find him wide-awake and staring into the darkness. And another occasion, more vivid in her memory, when he’d had a nightmare.

“Do you still have bad dreams?” The question left her lips before she could stop it and he released his grip on her shoulder.

“You should go back to bed.”

Which meant that he did, but didn’t want to talk about it. Which came as no surprise of course. He never talked about any of it.

At the time she’d thought that was fine. That a person had a right to their own privacy. She’d been too young to understand how privacy was connected to intimacy.

Would it have been different if they’d met for the first time now?

Sadness settled over her like mist.

“I’m not ready to sleep. I’m going to sit by the pond for a while. Good night, Zach.” She walked away, and heard him curse softly and follow her, his feet crunching on the forest path.

“I don’t suppose there’s any point in telling you not to walk in the forest on your own?”

“None at all.” Part of her wanted him to walk away and another part of her was pleased that he hadn’t, all of which she took as evidence that her brain was as mixed up as her insides. “I’ve slept under the stars plenty of times, Zach. I can handle the woods on my own island.”

“Wearing pajamas?”

“They cover my legs so I’m not going to get bitten. And I don’t need a guard dog so feel free to do whatever it was you were planning on doing when you started your evening stroll.”

“I was taking a walk.” And he continued that walk alongside her, keeping pace with her until they reached the dock.

She felt a rush of frustration. “I’ve told you, I don’t need protecting.”

“Who says I’m here to protect you? Maybe I just like spending time with you.”

Her heart lurched in her chest and her legs went so weak she plopped down on the cool planks of the dock, wondering what it was about him that turned her insides to mush. “Oh. I— Well, okay, then.”

Because he didn’t often say things like that, when he did it had enormous impact.

She was overwhelmed by an almost uncontrollable urge to abandon caution and kiss him.

Would he push her away?

It wasn’t as if they hadn’t already taken a step down that path.

It wasn’t as if—

Unsettled by the complexity of her feelings, she gave a little shiver and because he missed nothing, he noticed.

“You’re cold.”

She waited for him to suggest going back to the cabin, but instead he shrugged out of his jacket and draped it around her shoulders. She was cocooned by warmth, enveloped by Zach. The jacket smelled good. It smelled like him and after five seconds of inhaling his subtle masculine scent she was heated like bread in a toaster.

“Now you’ll be cold.”

“I won’t. Compared to Alaska, this is balmy.” He sat down next to her, his arm brushing against hers. “You always did love the outdoors. Did you sleep under the stars on digs?”

She tried to forget the coat, his nearness and the ridiculous hammering of her heart.

“Sometimes. Usually under canvas. This summer in Crete, Lily and I shared an apartment, which sounds like luxury until I tell you I’ve eaten burgers that were bigger than our bedroom.” She snuggled deeper inside the jacket, listening to the rush of the wind through the trees and trying not to think about the fact that Zach was sitting right there, right next to her, within touching distance. “Summer is almost over. I can never decide which is my favorite season. I love the fall colors, but I look forward to winter because there’s no better feeling than crunching through fresh white snow or dragging your sled to the top of East Crag and sliding down into the soft snow at the bottom. Then after a few weeks of bitter cold and ice and maybe a couple of power outages, the novelty wears off and I remember how endless winter seems. Then I long for spring when the snow melts and the rivers swell and the air is filled with the promise of summer. Then summer comes and the sun shines and for a while I think summer is my favorite season, until I’m stuck in Harbor Stores behind a line of tourists being poked in the back with a fishing net. Which is your favorite season?” Surely he’d tell her that? It wasn’t a personal question. Just a simple exchange of likes and dislikes.

When he didn’t answer she turned her head and found him looking at her with that dark, intense gaze that always made her stomach drop. It was as if he looked deep inside a person, never trusting what lay on the surface. For a man who guarded his own innermost thoughts as fiercely as a vault in a bank, he was remarkably adept at reading others.

“Winter,” he said roughly. “I guess mine is winter.”

“Which is presumably why you chose to live in Alaska?”

“Alaska is one of the least densely populated places on the planet, which made it custom designed for me.”

“Because there’s more wildlife than people and you don’t love people?”

“I judge them on a case-by-case basis, but it’s true that on the whole I find wildlife easier to understand.”

“So you picked lonely places so that it was just you and the polar bears?”

“Not many polar bears, and they’re mostly up by the Wrangel Islands and the North Slope. You’re more likely to meet a grizzly or a black bear.”

“As you can probably tell, I don’t know much about Alaska.”

“Plenty of folks don’t, even though it’s the largest state.”

She stretched out her legs. “What did you do out there? Who did you fly and where did you fly them?”

“A mix of people. Locals, businesspeople, oil folk and the school hockey team. And I took them wherever they wanted to go. The bush planes are a lifeline for many of those rural communities.”

“Sounds dangerous.”

“Not really, but when it was dangerous the danger always came from predictable sources—the wildlife and the weather. Life there has an appealing simplicity. If something is trying to eat you, you don’t let it. If the weather doesn’t want you to fly, you don’t fly.”

“But knowing you, you flew anyway.”

He gave a soft laugh. “Occasionally.”

“Do you miss it?”

“Sometimes. But even in the summer Puffin Island offers plenty of places to escape the crowds.”

“Philip is pleased you’re back. You’re like a son to him.” The moment the words left her mouth she sensed the change in him and cursed herself for carelessly wandering into the realms of personal. Swiftly, she changed the subject. “I sometimes miss Greece.”

“Have you decided what you’re going to do once that plaster cast is off your wrist?”

“No. I thought of applying for a tenure-track faculty position here in the US, or possibly returning to the UK. I don’t know.” And that was unusual for her. She always knew. She was used to having a clear goal and concentrating her efforts on going after it. “I’m not ready to leave the island yet. I think I might be having a midlife crisis.”

“In your twenties?” There was a hint of amusement in his voice and she pulled up her legs and wrapped her arms around her knees. The cast felt awkward and unyielding and she gave up and shifted her position until she was comfortable.

“You’re laughing at me, but I’ve always known exactly what I wanted to do. Every job I did, every path I took, was all part of my plan. I wanted to get my degree, then my PhD, I wanted to walk the Inca Trail and spend time in Greece because the whole place is like a museum, or maybe a Minoan theme park.” She grinned, thinking how her professors would wince at the description. “Either way, I always knew what the next goal was. Until now. For the first time in my life I don’t know what I want to do. I assumed coming back here would be a short, temporary thing. A brief visit while I recuperated and before I went off to do the next thing on my list.”

“And?”

“And I don’t have anything on my list that feels better than being here. And that’s scary. It’s the first time in my life I haven’t known what I wanted. What I need.”

Except when it came to him.

She knew she needed him.

There was a soft splash as a bird skimmed the water and Zach stirred.

“Maybe what you need is time to heal. That’s why you came home, isn’t it?”

“Mostly, but not entirely. I can only go so long without coming here. I get sort of itchy. No matter where I live, this place is still home.” She struggled to describe the feeling. “I need a fix of all the things I love about Puffin Island. I soak it up, absorb it, then take it with me somewhere else. That’s what I do. I should be applying for things now, but every time I sit down at the laptop and look at what’s out there, there’s nothing that grabs me. Nothing that feels worth leaving Castaway Cottage. I love it here. I’d forgotten how much. Listen—” She tilted her head and listened to a haunting, melodic cry from the far side of the pond. “Do you hear that?”

“Loons. They’re calling to each other. It’s an eerie sound.” His leg brushed lightly against hers. “I guess it’s their equivalent of texting. They’re good parents, did you know that? They carry their young on their backs, protecting them.”

His words brought a lump to her throat. From the little she knew, his own experience of childhood had been vastly different.

“John Harris used to bring Helen Cooper and me up here and we’d camp out by the water and watch them. I used to read with a flashlight and he’d tell me off for attracting insects. As long as it wasn’t spiders, I didn’t care. All I wanted to do was read about all these other places that existed beyond the shores of Puffin Island. It fascinated me that tourists were desperate to come here and we were all desperate to leave.”

“I guess we all want what we don’t have. That’s human nature.”

They sat in silence, listening to the soft lap of water against the dock.

“I used to dream about the world beyond Puffin Island. I read Robinson Crusoe and wanted to be shipwrecked. Then I discovered Jane Austen and wanted to live in an English country house complete with staff and to travel everywhere by horse-drawn carriage.”

“Not the most reliable mode of transport.”

“True. And in reality I would have been one of the servants, which would not have been fun. What did you dream about?” Her casual question was met with silence.

He stared into the darkness towards the call of the loons. “There wasn’t much room in my life for dreams.” The stillness of his features made her shiver.

Feeling it, he turned to her. “Still cold? Zip up the coat.”

“I should be giving it back to you.”

“I’m fine.” He rose to his feet. “Stand up.”

She did as he ordered and tried to zip the jacket herself, but with one hand it was impossible and Zach reached down and nudged her fingers out of the way. His head was lowered towards hers and she could see the rough shadow of his jaw and the molten black of his eyes. In the semidarkness his face was all hard lines and dangerous edges.

He was close. So close. If she leaned forward just a little, she’d be kissing him.

With sure fingers he eased the zip upwards, the movement drawing them closer still.

“This must be a whole new experience for you, Zachary Flynn.” Her voice sounded croaky. “Dressing a woman instead of undressing her.”

He paused for a fraction of a second, then zipped the jacket all the way up to her throat with careful hands. “I can manage it if I focus.” The backs of his fingers brushed her jaw gently and lingered. “You were good with Travis today.”

She wondered why such a simple gesture could have her nerve endings jumping. “He didn’t really talk to me.”

“But he listened. That’s a start. You’re a kind person, Brittany.”

“So are you. You were good with little Grace. Patient.”

He let his hands drop. “No reason not to be. Plenty of folk are scared of the forest.”

“Before she went to sleep I heard her telling her friend that you told her the forest is home to the animals and they just want to get on with their lives. You made more progress with her than I did with Travis.”

“He stayed close to you. Talked a bit. Listened a lot. I’d call that progress.”

“But he didn’t talk about anything personal. I was hoping he might.” Because the urge to kiss Zach was almost overwhelming, she turned her head and stared across the water. “I can’t bear that his default is not to trust anyone.”

“When you’re used to living that way, it’s hard to change.” He paused. “And sometimes it’s not wise.”

“How can it not be wise?”

There was a long pulsing silence. “Because,” he said slowly, “sometimes not trusting is what keeps you safe.”

She didn’t move. Didn’t breathe.

She knew, without even a flicker of doubt, that he was talking from experience.

He hadn’t felt safe?

She turned to look at him but his eyes were as unfathomable as the darkest depths of the ocean. “Zach—”

“Do you want to sit down a little longer or walk?”

Neither. She felt like a child, peeping through the keyhole of a door, unable to form a complete picture of what was on the other side. She wanted to know more. She needed to know more. She wanted to ask him what was behind that remark, but he’d already revealed more than he ever had before and he took a step back, his body language making it clear that he considered the conversation at an end.

Retreating, she thought desperately. Always retreating.

She wanted to dig for the truth as she did in her job, but her training had also taught her the value of patience. As an archaeologist she knew that the past had to be uncovered layer by layer, the ground persuaded to yield buried secrets to the world. Too much haste and impatience and you risked damaging what was there and losing it forever.

Zach didn’t want to talk about his past and because she didn’t want to risk saying the wrong thing and driving him away, she didn’t push.

Instead, she walked to the end of the dock.

“Be careful.” His voice vibrated through the darkness, low and deep. “Some of the planks are uneven and you only have one working wrist.”

“I’ll be fine. My wrist was a silly accident, that’s all. I was laughing at something a friend said and I wasn’t looking where I was putting my feet.”

“Was the ‘friend’ that guy you were talking to the other night?” The roughness of his tone almost made her miss her step.

“Yes. His name is Spyros. Dr. Spyros Nicolaides.” She stood at the end of the dock, trying to still the questions in her head. Who? What? Why? At what age had Zach not felt safe? How had he protected himself? “We call him Spy. He’s Greek.” She closed her eyes and breathed in the scent and sounds of the forest.

She felt his arm brush against hers as he stood next to her.

“Did you have sex with him?” The question startled her as much as his rough tone.

“Zach—”

“Sorry. Don’t answer that question.” His voice was raw and she turned her head to look at him, confused and off balance. She was still trying to work out the meaning behind his words when he curved his hand around the nape of her neck and drew her face towards his in a possessive gesture. She was locked between the strength of his hand and the desire in his eyes and in that single moment she was aware of every detail of him. The thickness of those lashes, the spectacular lines of his bone structure and the hard pressure of his thighs against hers. She felt the warmth of his breath brush against her lips and gave a low moan of anticipation.

There was a moment of exquisite torture when she thought he might pull back, but then his mouth touched hers and he kissed her, opening her mouth with his. There was none of the primal desperation of their last encounter. His kiss was skilled and gentle, a slow, deliberate exploration, a relentless pursuit of pleasure, but her response was as powerful as ever. She fell, tumbling into the whirlpool of heady excitement, lost in every breath-stealing, heart-stopping moment of that incredible kiss. Never in all her life had she felt the same wild rush of excitement that came from kissing Zach. Pleasure was thick and sweet. Need became desperation, desire an agonizing ache low in her pelvis.

And he knew.

He knew what he was doing to her.

She felt his fingers tighten on her head as his mouth moved over hers with knowing expertise and erotic purpose.

A moment before she’d been cold, but it was impossible to feel cold as each melting slide of his tongue sent heat shimmering across her skin. She lifted her hand to his face, felt the roughness of his jaw against her palm.

This, she thought. This they’d always had.

It seemed impossible that a simple kiss could make her feel so much, until you remembered that this was Zachary Flynn, who knew how to kiss a girl until the flesh melted from her bones. And because she knew his skills weren’t limited to kissing, she wanted more. So much more.

“Zach—” She tried to shift her body against his, but he eased back slowly.

“You’re cold.” His body was no longer touching hers but his hand was still locked behind her head, as if he was letting her go by degrees and couldn’t quite manage the final part.

“That’s why you kissed me?” Her voice was a whisper, lost in the rush of the breeze over the pond. “I thought you didn’t want to. I thought— I don’t understand what’s going on here.”

“Nothing is going on.”

But she wanted it to. And she knew he did, too. She could feel the tension in him. Knew that if she pressed herself close to him, she’d find him hard and ready. Once again she felt a rush of frustration that this had to be so complicated.

And still she felt the firm pressure of his hand, holding her. All it would take was a small movement on his part to bring their mouths back into contact.

“Have you wondered what would have happened if we’d met for the first time now?”

The pressure of his fingers increased. “Nothing would have happened.”

“Yes, it would. And because I’m no longer an idealistic teenager, I wouldn’t have pushed for more and scared the hell out of you.” She heard the harsh rasp of his breathing and carried on. “I wouldn’t have got so serious so fast. I’m not really interested in serious relationships anymore.”

“That’s because you married some loser who didn’t treat you well.”

“No. I married someone I didn’t understand.” Guilt stabbed at her, sliding between her ribs like the blade of a knife. “And it was over before I had a chance to figure any of it out.”

“Probably a good thing. You found a job you loved and traveled the world, none of which you would have done if you’d stayed married to me.”

“If we’d met for the first time now, all our baggage would be with other people.”

Unsmiling, he drew the pad of his thumb slowly over her cheek. “And?”

She tried to ignore the pounding of her heart. “And I’d make you an offer you couldn’t refuse. And before you freak out, I should tell you it would involve both of us naked and nothing more. Nothing deeper. No dreams and no promises. Just the moment.” She felt his fingers tighten on the back of her head and there was a fierce gleam in his eyes.

“You’d make the same mistake twice? I thought you were supposed to be smart.”

“You want the same thing, Zach. I know you do.”

“What do you want me to say? That I can’t look at you without wanting to nail you to the nearest flat surface? Of course I do.” His voice was husky, and still his thumb stroked across her cheek in a motion that fell somewhere between soothing and seductive. “You’re still the sexiest woman I’ve ever laid eyes on.”

Her stomach lurched. “Even in my pajamas with bits of the forest stuck in my hair?”

A smile played at the corners of his mouth. “Especially that way. But it makes no difference. We’re not going to do this, Brit. Last time I was selfish. I thought maybe if I pretended to be the way everyone else was, I could have the things they had. But you can’t fake it. I can’t fake it. I’ve never got close to a woman. I don’t know how. I can give physically, but emotionally I don’t feel anything. That isn’t ever going to change.”

She was the one who had been selfish, not him. She’d been so crazy about him, been so desperate for it to work, she hadn’t stopped to wonder whether what was right for her would be right for him.

“How do you know it won’t change?”

“I know.” His voice was flat. “I learned to switch my emotions off a long time ago and I can’t switch them back on.”

“Because if you don’t feel, you can’t be hurt.”

His hand dropped and his gaze held hers in the semidarkness. “I don’t spend time analyzing the reasons.”

“But you do feel, Zach. You have made connections.” It was desperately important to her that he see that. “Friendships. You have Philip and Celia, Ryan and Alec. They care about you. Even Hilda! Plenty of people care about you. I know they’re not your family and maybe it’s because I was raised on this island, but I always knew growing up that family was more than your parents. Friends are just a different type of family. Em and Sky—they’re as much family as my grandmother was. When I look back over the things I’ve done in my life, it’s the people I remember as much as the places. I love knowing that there are people who have my back, and I have theirs. I’d do anything for my friends. That’s why I gave Em and Sky a key to the cottage.”

He gave a grunt. “They don’t need a damn key. They could have just pushed extra hard on the door to gain entry.”

She ignored that. “The key was symbolic. Castaway Cottage is a special place for all of us. And they’re not just my friends, they’re your friends, too. Emily will never forget that you were the one who flew her and Lizzy to the hospital when no one else would.”

“I’m on probation. They’re ready to kill me if I hurt you again.”

“That’s not going to happen.”

“No. It’s not. And you should go to bed.”

She hesitated, the emotional side of her wanting to argue, the rational side telling her to do what he ordered.

“First I need to ask you something.” Something that she’d always wondered. “Why did you go through with the wedding? Because Ryan forced you to show up?”

“No.” There was a long pause. “Because part of me wanted to be that guy.”

“What guy?”

“The guy you thought I was.” Finally, he released her. “Now go to bed, Brittany.” And perhaps because he knew one of them needed to make the decision, he turned and strode away, leaving her staring after him, wearing his coat, her heart aching and her head full of questions.