“IT’S LIKE TRYING to cage a lion,” Brittany said to Skylar a few days later while they were chatting on the phone.

“You still haven’t heard from him?”

“Not a word in three days.”

“You could go over there in black underwear.”

“No. I don’t want to pressure him again. That’s what I did last time. This time he has to make the next move.”

“What if he doesn’t?”

“I die of sexual frustration.” Brittany sat in her favorite spot on the rocks above Shell Bay, watching the sea roll in. She’d gone for a run right after waking and was still dressed in sweats and her favorite sports top. “Are you going to visit this weekend?”

“I don’t think I can. Richard needs me to be somewhere.” Sky was evasive. “What are your plans?”

Brittany stared out to sea. “I thought I’d clear out some of Grams’s things. I haven’t been up into the attic since she died. It’s full of boxes I’ve never opened.”

“You should wait until one of us is there and we can do it with you,” Sky said immediately. “You shouldn’t be on your own for that.”

“I’ll be all right. I’ve put it off too long already.” She glanced back towards the cottage, all familiar lines and welcoming warmth as it nestled on the edge of the bay. “I don’t feel ready to leave here.”

“So don’t leave.”

“Staying was never part of my plans.”

“Plans change, Brit.”

“Do you remember what she used to say to us?”

“Kathleen? Yes. ‘Change is part of life, girls.’ Then she’d slap down some of her apple-topped ginger cake and I always wondered if the change she was talking about was gaining a hundred pounds in one meal.”

Laughter eased the ache in her chest. “She wouldn’t be impressed that I haven’t even started to sort through her things. I’ve been a wimp.”

“You’ve been busy. Traveling. Working. Living your life. She would have approved.”

“I’m wondering what she would have said about Zach being back. Those first few weeks after he left, I remember her sitting on the edge of my bed trying to feed me chicken soup. She kept saying, ‘He’s a good man, Brittany, but he doesn’t even know it himself.’ I had no idea how she could think he was a good man when he’d walked out on me. She said that one day, when time had passed, I’d see it more clearly.”

“And do you?”

“I think so, but it’s taken me ten years. This is one of those occasions where I’d like to be able to rewind time.” She stood up, tucked the phone between her ear and her shoulder and used her good hand to help scramble down from the rocks. “I’d better go. I want to make a start.”

“Are you sure I can’t call Em? I don’t like to think of you being sad and having no one to hug you.”

“I’ll be fine. Maybe I’ll go up to the shelter to walk Jaws first. He needs the exercise and he likes the company.”

“ZACH IS A BIT like you,” she told Jaws later as they ambled through the fields that led along the edge of the Warrens’ farm. “He doesn’t trust easily. I guess deep down he thinks that every human he meets is capable of putting a wire round his neck.”

Jaws grunted and stopped to thrust his nose in the grass, apparently unsympathetic to the traumas of humans.

He’d put on a little weight and Sara was delighted with his progress.

“He’s going to make a wonderful companion for someone,” she told Brittany as she put him back in his kennel along with a bowl of food. “We just need to work out who that someone is. Right now we don’t know what will happen to him next.”

She and Jaws had something in common, Brittany thought. Neither of them knew what was going to happen next.

For the first time she was grateful for her damaged wrist because she didn’t want to admit, even to herself, that Zach was the reason she didn’t want to leave.

That would be stupid, wouldn’t it?

No matter how much she sympathized with him, it didn’t change the fact that it would be stupid to make plans around a man who had already hurt her once.

BACK IN THE COTTAGE Brittany climbed the ladder to the attic and flicked on the light, a single bare bulb in the center of the room.

Deciding that one of the best cures for sexual frustration was hard physical labor, she hauled box after box into the center of the room. Realizing she couldn’t get them downstairs with only one hand, she sat cross-legged in the dusty attic and sorted through her grandmother’s life.

It was in the third box, buried under paintings of the seashore and a collage of pressed leaves and flowers that bore her grandmother’s signature, that she found the diaries.

There were four of them, each one sturdy and thick, bound in dark red leather and smelling slightly of dust. Opening them, she saw pages and pages of her grandmother’s even handwriting.

She found the first diary and started reading. By the end of the first page she realized two things. One, that Kathleen had been a fine writer, and two, that she was holding in her hands a chronicle of her grandmother’s life on the island from the day she first arrived.

It was a love story, and one with plenty of bumps along the way.

Brittany’s grandfather had been a lobsterman, born and raised on the island at a time when the population was less than three figures and the entire community was focused on fishing. He was one of generations of Mainers who relied on the sea for income.

Her grandmother, raised in Boston, had struggled to adapt to a place where most of the land was national park. She’d found the winters long and brutal, and wrote eloquently about the ways in which the community had helped each other.

Emotion shone through the words, bringing light and color to the descriptions of life on a rural island. There was fear, exhaustion, exhilaration and hope, but underpinning it all was love. It was clear her grandmother would have lived anywhere, learned to adapt to any lifestyle, as long as she was with her husband. It was also clear that none of it had been easy.

Brittany let the diary fall into her lap.

She’d always known her grandmother was a fighter, but she’d never known any of the detail. Her grandmother was the sort who either solved a problem or accepted it. She never complained.

But she hadn’t allowed a single hurdle to derail her relationship.

Brittany thought back to those first horrible weeks after Zach had left, when she’d alternated between pounding cliff paths in an attempt to run off her misery and lying in the bed with the covers over her head.

She remembered her grandmother stroking her hair.

Sometimes the timing just isn’t right, honey.

Tears scalded her throat and because she was on her own, she let them fall. What the hell was the matter with her? She never cried, and suddenly it was all she seemed to be doing.

She closed the book carefully so that she didn’t damage the pages, scrubbed at her face with a dusty hand and then stilled as she heard someone at the door.

Emily.

Sky had obviously called her and Brittany felt a rush of warmth because if she’d ever needed a hug from a friend, it was now.

Cradling the book under her arm, she scrambled down from the attic, guarding her arm.

Wondering why Emily hadn’t just used her key, she opened the door and was confronted by Zach.

“Oh—”

His eyes raked her face and his expression darkened. “What the hell is wrong?”

Crap.

He was the last person she’d expected to see. She hadn’t heard from him in three days, and here she was standing in her dusty sweats with windblown hair that hadn’t seen a brush or a straightener all day. “Nothing.”

“You don’t cry about nothing. If something upsets you, you’re more likely to shoot it in the butt than cry over it. So I’m asking you again—what’s happened?” He used that same firm, patient tone he used when he spoke to nervous children and frightened animals. The tone that told her he wasn’t going to give up until she answered him.

He’s a good man, Brittany, but he doesn’t even know it himself.

“Honestly, I’m fine.”

His gaze shifted to the book under her arm. “What’s that?”

“It’s one of my grandmother’s diaries. I found it when I was clearing out her things in the attic.”

“You were doing that alone? Why didn’t you call Emily or Skylar?”

“Because I was fine doing it on my own.”

“Bullshit.” Without waiting for her to respond, he nudged her gently back into the cottage and closed the door behind them. “You’re not fine. You’re feeling sad and lonely and you miss the hell out of your grandmother.”

She didn’t know whether it was his words or an overload of emotions but her vision blurred, she felt the salty sting of tears build in her eyes and the next thing she knew the diary was being gently tugged from under her arm and she was hauled against Zach’s chest and hugged tightly.

Enclosed by the tensile strength of hard male muscle, it was impossible to keep the emotion in. She closed her eyes and let herself sob.

Through the storm of emotion she felt him holding her, felt the gentle stroke of his fingers on her hair and heard the rough tone of his voice as he told her everything was fine, that she should let it out.

And she did. She buried her face against his chest and cried, her tears soaking his shirt. She breathed in the warm male smell of him, felt the secure circle of his arms and wondered how a man who claimed to feel no emotion should be so attuned to the emotions of others.

“Sorry.” The word was muffled against his shoulder. She knew she should pull away but she felt safe and warm.

“Why are you sorry? You loved her. You miss her. You don’t have to apologize for that.” He eased away slightly and dragged the backs of his fingers over her damp cheek. “She was a special woman. Kind and wise.”

“Yes, she was.” She sniffed. “She always liked you, did you know that?”

He gave a short laugh. “Then maybe she wasn’t as wise as I thought.” He smoothed her tangled hair back from her damp face with gentle hands. “You need coffee.”

“I can’t be bothered to make it.”

“I’ll make it.” He urged her into the kitchen and pulled out a chair. Then he fetched a box of tissues from the shelf and placed them next to her. “Sit there and don’t move.”

She wondered what he was doing at her door.

She was about to ask him when her eyes strayed to the photo of her grandmother, taken on a windy day on the beach.

She’d thought she’d cried herself out, but her eyes filled again and she shook her head, embarrassed. “What the hell is wrong with me? I need a plumber.”

“There’s nothing wrong with you.” Zach reached into the cupboard and pulled out two mugs. “You’re grieving, that’s all. It’s natural.”

“It’s been three years.”

“I don’t think there’s a time limit on these things and anyway, I bet you kept yourself so busy you barely had time to stop and breathe.”

“Maybe.” She blew her nose. “I was in Greece. I’d been home just the month before and she was fine. Then I had a call from Agnes Cooper in the middle of the night.” Her eyes filled again. “I wasn’t even here.”

He put the mugs down and sat down next to her. “You were living your life. That’s what she wanted.” He took her hand between his and she looked down, noticing the contrast between her slim fingers and his rough, calloused palm.

“You don’t think I’m going crazy?”

“What I think,” he said slowly, rubbing her palm with his thumb, “is that you loved a person enough that losing them left a big hole in your life. That’s going to hurt.”

“It does. I miss her so damn much.” She tugged her hand away from his, grabbed another tissue and blew her nose. “Sorry. Wow. This is attractive. Hysterical woman drenches you. Great way to start your day.”

“I’ve known worse ways to start a day.” He stood up and made the coffee. “You shouldn’t have cleared the attic on your own.”

“That’s what Sky said.”

“So why did you?”

She sniffed and wiped her eyes on her sleeve. “I guess I was being stubborn and pigheaded.”

He smiled and poured the coffee into the mugs with the same smooth economy of movement he showed in everything he did. Then he placed one on the table in front of her. “Drink.”

“Do you think I was wrong to read her diaries? I felt like an intruder. I keep thinking that if she’d wanted me to read them, she would have given them to me when she was alive.”

“Or maybe she wrote them, put them in the attic and forgot about them. When was the last entry?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t look.” She sipped the coffee gratefully. “I wish I’d asked her more about her past. It wasn’t really something we talked about. I never realized how hard she found it when she first came here. It was my grandfather who wanted to make a life here and she loved him so much, she agreed. From what I’ve read so far, it seemed as if all that mattered to her to begin with was being with him. She thought the rest would figure itself out. And then she fell in love.”

“She wasn’t in love when she married him?”

“I meant, she fell in love with the island. This place.” She warmed her hands on the mug and looked across the kitchen to the sun-filled garden. “They bought this place together.”

Zach stared at her for a long moment and then stood up. “Go and fetch a sweater.”

“Why? I’m not cold.”

“Not here, but you might be where we’re going.”

“Where are we going?”

“I’m taking you flying.”

“Flying?” Her head ached from crying and her heart felt like a lead weight in her chest. She hadn’t heard from him in days and she still hadn’t asked why he was here. “Why?”

“Because the weather is perfect and that’s as good a reason to be up in the air as any I can think of. Because you asked me what I love about flying and the simplest way to explain that is to show you. Better than sitting here digging yourself deeper into misery.”

Even though she knew it was dangerous to read anything into it, her spirits lifted. “Give me five minutes to wash off the dust.”

TWENTY MINUTES LATER they were at the airstrip.

“Do I sit up front with you?”

“As long as you promise not to touch anything.”

Brittany’s tears had dried and she couldn’t resist teasing him. “I can’t touch anything? Nothing?”

His gaze settled on her mouth. “Not unless you want me to crash.”

She sat next to him and took the headset he handed her. “Can I talk to air traffic control? Blue Bird, this is Johnny Boy, come in please.”

Zach reached for the controls, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “For the record, this plane is not Johnny Boy. It’s female.”

“Why?”

“Because that’s how I think of her.”

“If you’re about to say it’s because she’s temperamental and needs careful handling, think twice. I can do a lot of damage with this cast.” She watched as he flicked a switch on the instrument panel. This was his territory. His area of expertise. “So this is an amphibious plane? You can land anywhere?”

“Anywhere from a grass runway in the Vineyard to a frozen lake in Alaska.”

She blinked at the array of lights, dials and switches on the instrument panel. “It’s pretty. And complicated.”

“Not really. Everything has a purpose and it’s an easy plane to fly. It helps having the engine instruments on the MFD.”

“The MFD?”

“Multifunction display. Shows real-time flight-critical data, including traffic, digital attitude, heading, engine, airframe indication and CrewAlert. You’ve got three 10.4-inch LCDs, backup instruments, switches and the flight guidance panel.” He showed her. “The layout is clean and logical.”

It didn’t look logical to her. It looked complex and perplexing, but although she didn’t understand the mechanics of flight, she understood how it felt to have a passion for something.

“As long as one of us knows what it’s all for. Seems like a lot of dials and switches for a small plane.”

“Small plane—advanced avionics.”

Flying wasn’t something she’d ever thought about much. To her, it was a mode of transport and usually not a particularly comfortable one. She was used to being crammed into a small space with her knees bumping the seat in front.

This was different.

She watched as Zach’s hands moved over the instruments with quiet confidence. Stealing a glance, she realized how much he’d changed. He had a quiet self-belief that had been absent when she’d first known him.

He must have felt her gaze because he turned his head and raised his eyebrows. “Is this the part where you tell me you really are scared of flying?”

“Spiders, Flynn. It’s just spiders.” She licked her lips. “Is it going to put you off if I tell you you’re hot when you fly a plane?”

For a brief moment his gaze held hers and then he turned his head and focused his attention on the flight deck. “I’m not hot the rest of the time?”

“Maybe it’s to do with all the thrust and power that’s going on around here.”

“If you’re having filthy thoughts, you might want to save them until we land. That’s unless you want to ditch in the ocean.”

There was an increase in engine noise and then they were speeding along the runway and into the air.

As she watched Puffin Island recede beneath them, she realized she was holding her breath.

To the right she saw the Captain Hook leaving the harbor on its way to the mainland, the yachts moored in the Ocean Club and the rocky shoreline and inlets that formed the west coast of the island.

Then they turned and flew over the forest. Far beneath her she caught a glimpse of Heron Pond where they’d camped with the children, and then saw Shell Bay and Castaway Cottage. There were people on the beach, tiny figures with no face or form, enjoying the last days of summer. They’d be wearing sweaters, she thought. Reaching for another layer, commenting on how the weather was turning.

And then the figures vanished and there was only the rippling expanse of the ocean, yachts cutting through the white chop of the water.

They flew over Puffin Rock and then headed north over islands, some inhabited, some not, and she looked down on beaches, lighthouses and mountains. Seated in the cockpit, she had an uninterrupted view of her little corner of the world and that world was breathtaking.

I’ve never seen it like this.

The thought flew into her head and out again because now they were over Acadia National Park and far below she could see spectacular summer cottages dotted around Bar Harbor. She looked down on Frenchman’s Bay, bound by Mount Desert Island and the rocky granite shoreline of the Schoodic Peninsula. Here the shoreline was red granite, the forest dominated by pine, birch and varieties of spruce, cedar and maple.

In the summer the roads were crowded but in the winter the visitor numbers dwindled.

“It’s perfect. I understand why you love it.” She glanced from Zach’s hands to the strong, masculine lines of his face and realized that when she looked at him now, she saw him differently. The past had vanished. There was no sign of the angry boy, the loner who had been suspicious of everyone around him. In his place was a man who had built a life from the rubble of his childhood. “Where are we going?”

“It’s a surprise.”

For a moment she allowed herself to admire the hard lines of his jaw highlighted by the hint of masculine shadow.

Then she turned her eyes back to the view. To the right she could see a small island, one of many, with a spectacular summer house overlooking a beach and a dock.

When she realized he was intending to land on the water her heart bumped a little faster. “We’re landing? I thought this was a flight over the bay.”

“It’s a flight over the bay, with a scenic stopover.” He reached towards the control panel. “Gear up for water landing.”

“You’re sure about this?” As the ocean grew closer, she felt a flicker of nerves. “You know for sure the plane floats? Because I ate a bagel yesterday and I’m not at my thinnest.”

His response was simply to smile and moments later they skimmed the water and came to a halt by the dock.

Brittany breathed again. “Okay, well, that was impressive.” She knew nothing about flying but she could see the skill with which he’d handled the plane. “Landing on water must be tricky.”

“You want to keep the nose slightly high. If you try to land with zero degrees of pitch as you would when you’re cruising, the water could catch the front of your float pontoons and flip the plane.” He removed his headset and stood up. “Ready to explore?”

“I don’t even know where we are. Or are you about to tell me you’ve bought an island as well as a plane?”

“It’s owned by a guy called Frederick Richardson. He runs a hedge fund. Drags himself out of the madness of Manhattan once a month and comes here for the fishing. I’m his transport.” He walked to the back of the plane. “Aren’t you going to ask me if we’re trespassing?”

“No. You respect other people’s property.”

He reached for a cooler and a basket. “I didn’t always.”

Brittany’s heart skipped in her chest. Another revelation, but one so small he didn’t even seem to realize he’d made it. Warmed by the knowledge that he’d dropped his guard a little, she resisted the temptation to push further.

“Do you have something to drink in there?”

“And something to eat.”

“You planned this? I thought it was a spontaneous suggestion.” She took the basket from him. “I didn’t even ask you why you dropped round this morning. I opened the door, grabbed you and cried all over you. I bet that wasn’t quite the greeting you were expecting.”

“I seem to remember I was the one who grabbed you.” He carried the food down the steps. “And I came round to take you flying. And to apologize for not being in touch for the last three days. I found out Philip was due over at the mainland for some tests. I wanted to be with him.”

“Tests?” That news drove all other thoughts from her head. “Is he worse?”

“The pain is worse. They were doing some more investigations. Playing with his medication.”

“So you took him over and stayed?”

“I wanted to hear what they said. I can’t rely on Philip to give me the whole story. He always pretends everything’s fine. A bit like you.”

She ignored that. “And?”

Zach lowered the cooler and the basket to the ground. “They’re going to try different treatment. Exercise is good, but getting tired isn’t. No way is he going to be able to be involved with the camp the way he has been. He has to scale it back.”

“That’s disappointing news and I’m guessing he’s taken it hard. So what happens now?”

“I don’t know.”

She saw the tension in his jaw and his shoulders and sensed his frustration. “Lucky he has you,” she said calmly. “That must help.”

“How the hell does it help?” His voice was raw. “I can’t fix his joints.”

“No, but you can be there for him when he needs it and that’s worth a lot. When life gets bumpy, sometimes the only thing that helps is knowing your friends and family are there to support you.”

Zach shot her a look. “I’m not his family. We’re not related.”

And yet you took time off to go with him to the hospital.

She wondered how, after all these years, he could possibly think that he wasn’t part of the Law family. She felt an ache in her chest because she knew, despite everything, he was still afraid to let anyone in. And then she thought about Zach’s real family, the one who had treated him so badly he’d been afraid to sleep at night. Maybe when you’d grown up with the bad, you didn’t ever dare trust the good not to disappear. “Celia and Philip think of you as a son. They’re there for you. They’ve had your back since that first day you arrived here. In fact I think you’d be surprised by how many people have your back.” Having planted that thought, she picked up the basket. “I hope you packed plenty of food, because I’m starving.”

Without looking back, she walked along the dock and took the path that curved towards a beach.

Did he really not believe his presence made a difference to Celia and Philip?

Why wasn’t he offering to help Philip with the camp given that he had the necessary skills?

The questions ran through her head until it was hard to keep them inside.

She forced herself to keep her mouth shut and instead studied the view.

Far in the distance she could see the mainland and Bar Harbor.

“This is incredible.” She sat down on a rock and anchored her hair with her hand. “So how did you meet the guy that owns this place? You said his name was Frederick something?”

Zach sat down next to her. “He was a friend of someone I worked for in Alaska. The guy owns a drilling company specializing in Alaskan oil-field construction. Divides his time between Alaska and Houston.” He opened the cooler and then the basket. “Help yourself.”

She looked down at the pretty green-and-white-spotted napkins and laughed. “No way did you put those there.”

“You’re right, I didn’t.”

Brittany reached into the basket and raised her eyebrows. “Heart-shaped chocolates?”

“Didn’t put those there, either.”

“So who packed the food?”

“It’s Ocean Club takeout.”

“I didn’t think the Ocean Club did takeout.”

“I called Ryan and pulled in a favor.” He handed her a plate and removed chicken from the cooler.

“Ryan packed heart-shaped chocolates? Doesn’t sound like him.”

“He was out sailing with Alec and Lizzy so he delegated to Kirsti.”

Brittany laughed. “Now I understand where the chocolate hearts came from.” She nibbled the chicken. “You do know Kirsti is the biggest matchmaker on the island? These chocolates are supposed to be a romantic gesture.”

“If I want to have sex with a woman, chocolate doesn’t play a part.” His gaze dropped to her mouth and her heart bumped a little harder.

“It could do. Chocolate would soften me up.” She scooped her hair back, fighting a losing battle with the breeze. “I know I look a mess. It’s your fault. You told me to grab a sweater for a flight around the bay. If I’d known we were having a fancy picnic I would have dressed up and done something with my hair.”

“You always look beautiful. Last thing at night, first thing in the morning, angry and happy.”

It was like missing a step. Her insides jumped and tumbled. “Well, that’s—” Her voice was husky. “Thank you. But I don’t look beautiful when I’ve been crying so hard my face looks like a strawberry.”

“Yes, you do.” His voice was rough. “But maybe you shouldn’t read any more of your grandmother’s diaries if they’re going to upset you.”

“I want to. I want to know everything there was to know about her. I always knew she was determined, but I never knew how much she struggled when she first came here. Now I understand why she encouraged me to work so hard. She wanted me to have options and she believed that studying gave you options. My mother hated it here and couldn’t wait to leave.”

“You don’t talk much about your mother. Are you in touch with her?”

“Occasionally. We email. We talk on the phone. But we’re not close. Never have been. I was closer to my grandmother. She raised me.” She stared out to sea. “The people who are your real family, the people who you can rely on one hundred percent, are not always your closest relations. But you already know that.”

His expression didn’t change. “What I know,” he said slowly, “is that the only person you can rely on one hundred percent is yourself.”

It felt as if someone was squeezing her heart. “Sure, if you’re in trouble, you deal with it yourself, but while you’re dealing with it, it’s nice to have the support of people who love you. It’s like crying. You can cry by yourself but it’s a whole lot better if someone hugs you while you do. I couldn’t imagine a life without my friends in it.”

He gave a half smile. “Why would you need to? You have a thousand friends.”

Her breath caught in her throat. “Grams always said that a thousand friends prepared to party with you are worth less than one friend who is willing to stay and help you clear up after everyone else has left.”

There was a brief silence. “Then I guess you’re fine, because you have friends who would do that.”

“So do you.”

He gave a soft laugh. “Honey, there are at least a dozen people who would boot me off this island if they had their way.”

“Maybe ten years ago that was true, but not now. You need to take another look.” She wondered how he couldn’t know that so many people cared about him. Trying to lighten the mood, she made a joke. “Mel would love to be in a room with you when the lights go out.”

“I need to make a note not to be anywhere near Harbor Stores when the power is out.”

Brittany grinned and finished the chicken. “That was delicious. You do know that if it was packed by Kirsti, the rumor mill will be working overtime?”

“I do know. I also know I’m being closely watched.”

She helped herself to more chicken. “If you made me cry in public everyone would feel sorry for me and I’d be given free food. Might be worth thinking about.” She licked her fingers. “Tell me more about flying in Alaska. I don’t understand how you can fly in all that snow and ice.”

“Sometimes you can’t. If it was light ice, I flew. Severe ice, I didn’t. Pilots in Alaska spend a lot of time hanging around checking the weather. Most of the time it was something in between and then you try and get above or below it.”

She reached into the basket and took a chunk of the olive bread Kirsti had packed. “How does that help?”

“If you encounter ice, you need to climb. The higher you go the colder it gets, so there’s less ice. You can always go back down. NASA has done research on icing and ninety percent of the time climbing or descending three thousand feet will get you out of ice. But it isn’t just the ice that’s a problem up there, it’s the wind, too.” He reached down into the sand and picked up a pebble, running his thumb over the smooth surface. “The weather is in charge, just as it is along this coastline.”

“So you either freeze or get blown out of the sky?”

He stared across to the mainland, hazy in the distance. “Worst flight I ever had was when I was taking a group to a remote village. It was a bumpy ride right from the start and as I flew over the lakes, I could see the wind shadow.”

“What’s wind shadow?”

“When you look down on the water you can see the ripples caused by the wind. Look at the shore and you’ll see a crescent where the water is calm—that’s the direction the wind is blowing. If you have white lines on the water, you don’t want to be flying. As landing strips go in Alaska, this was a good one. As I came in to land I dropped the wing into the wind—” he glanced at her “—it’s called cross controlling and it compensates for the crosswind—” he continued to talk and she listened, absorbed by the detail and his obvious love for the outdoors.

“So the wind sock was horizontal?”

“I came in sideways. It was like flying a crab. Landing like that can put a side load on the wheels and blow a tire, but luckily the runway was gravel so there was some give. If it had been a paved runway I would have been in trouble.” He drew his arm back and threw the pebble into the water. “I don’t know who was more relieved to be alive, me or the passengers.”

Finally she asked the question that had been burning inside her. “How did you come to own a plane?”

“It was a gift from the guy who owned the drilling company.” He hesitated. “I did him a favor.”

“Must have been some favor. What did you do?”

For a moment she thought he wasn’t going to answer. Then he reached into the basket and helped himself to some of the bread. “I flew his little girl to the hospital.”

“You— Oh. What was wrong with her?”

He turned the bread over in his hands, not eating. “The guy had been away on a business trip for a week. Before he’d left he’d promised her he’d bring her a pair of skates so that they could skate on the lake together. Within an hour of him returning they were out on the ice. Dani fell and banged her head. Knocked herself out and cut herself.”

Dani. Not “his child” or “this kid”—Dani.

Another connection he’d made that somehow hadn’t registered on his radar.

“That’s terrible. I bet he blamed himself for giving her those skates.”

“He was beating himself up for a long time.”

“Still, people don’t usually hand out planes when they’re grateful. That’s a hell of a tip, Flynn, so why don’t you tell me the rest of the story? And no editing.” She finished the chicken and wiped her fingers. “It was minus-stupid figures, blowing a gale and no one else would fly, right?”

He broke off a chunk of bread and ate it. “Something like that.”

Exactly like that, she thought. “So you were a hero?”

“No. I made a judgment. If I hadn’t thought I could do it, I wouldn’t have offered.”

“So you didn’t just put the autopilot on and pray?”

“I don’t use the autopilot in icy conditions, it can mask cues. I prefer to hand-fly the plane.”

And she was willing to bet those hands were as good at controlling the plane as they were at everything else. “But Dani was okay?”

“She was in the hospital for a week, but she made a full recovery.”

“And her father gave you a plane.” She stretched out her legs and looked at him in awe. “Was there a catch? You had to always be on call or something?”

“No. I carried on flying him and his family while they were there. Then they moved back to Texas and I decided I was ready for a change.”

“So you set up a business, flying folk with deep pockets.” But what he did wasn’t all about the money, she knew that. He’d flown Brittany to her appointments. He’d flown Lizzy to the hospital when no one else would. “Emily thinks you’re a hero.”

“She’s biased. A sick child is a scary thing. They go downhill fast when they’re young. It was the same with Dani. You’re grateful to anyone who goes through that with you, even if it’s someone at the controls of a plane.” He rose to his feet, closing the subject down. “We should be getting back.”

“Praise makes you uncomfortable.”

“I haven’t had much practice at receiving it and I don’t see the need for praise when you’re just doing something that needs doing.” He closed the basket, reached out his hand and pulled Brittany to her feet.

“You’re not such a badass, Zachary Flynn. When it comes to the weak and the vulnerable, you’re a pushover.” On impulse, she rose onto her toes and kissed his cheek, feeling the roughness of his jaw against her lips. “Thanks.” She’d intended the kiss as a simple gesture of friendship, nothing more, but between the two of them there was always more. “Simple” had never played a part in their relationship.

His head was bent, his mouth dangerously close to hers. “What are you thanking me for?”

There was a tightening low in her pelvis, a dangerous ache that always seemed to be present when she was near him. “For giving me a hug when I was upset this morning. For bringing me here. I feel better.” Unsettled, she started to lower her heels to the ground but he slid his arm around her waist and pulled her hard against him. She rocked off balance, curving her fingers around the hard steel of his biceps to support herself.

His gaze, dark and shielded, was fixed on her mouth. “What do you think your grandmother would say if she knew you were with me now?”

The excitement was agonizing. It rushed through her like a rogue wave, threatening to swamp her. “I think—I know—she’d want me to be happy.”

There was a long, pulsing silence and then his gaze lifted from her mouth to her eyes. “And are you happy?”

“Yes.” Her heart was pounding and she curved her fingers into the unyielding bulk of muscle to support herself. They stood like that, their breath mingling, eyes locked, and then finally he slid his hand behind her head and drew her face to his.

“I promised myself that I wasn’t going to do this again.”

“Why?” Her heart was racing. “Why not?”

He didn’t answer. He simply lowered his head and took her mouth, kissing her with slow deliberation and erotic skill until she was relieved he was holding her because without the support of his arm she would have slid to the ground in a melted puddle. His kisses were intimate, searching, demanding and every bit as deep as if they were both already naked having sex.

And she wanted that.

She wanted it so badly she couldn’t think straight.

“Can we go home?” Drugged and dizzy, she eased her mouth away from his just enough to speak. “Can we—”

“Yes.” His voice was thick and he loosened his grip on her, keeping his arm around her until he was sure she was steady on her feet. “Let’s go.”

Walking on legs the consistency of jelly, Brittany helped him gather up their belongings and carry them back to the plane.

It was the first time she’d taken off from water and she might have been a little anxious had there been room for anything in her head other than sexual awareness.

She heard the powerful sound of the engine and then they were moving across the water, gaining speed.

She watched Zach’s hands, hypnotized by the skilled, quiet movements of those fingers.

And then, in the few seconds before takeoff, a lobster boat emerged from the far side of the island.

Brittany wasn’t sure whether she screamed out loud or whether the sound was trapped in her head.

Zach yanked off the power and pulled back on the wheel, stopping the plane in a shower of sea spray.

Brittany closed her eyes. “Crap, that was—”

“Yeah, we almost ingested a few hundred crustaceans.” He waited a beat. “It would have been our first dinner date. You could have had lobster for supper. Right there in your lap, already diced. Let me know if you want fries or ketchup.”

She started to laugh, grateful for his cool and even more grateful for his skill. “Take me home, Zach.”

And he did.