The next four days passed much the same way as the first one together. Donovan and Gus mostly stayed at Carly’s cottage. They spent their days on the beach and their evenings either grilling on the deck or visiting expensive restaurants. He bought her a few new dresses so she didn’t have to wear the one she’d brought along every time.

On Friday, Carly began to dread the end of vacation. She needed to be out of the cottage by two in the afternoon on Saturday to give the owner time to get the place cleaned for the next week’s renters. Plus, she had a four-hour drive to get back to her parents’ house, and she needed to spend the whole day on Sunday getting ready for her first day at the new job on Monday.

“What’s wrong?” Donovan asked while they sipped coffee on the deck.

Carly smiled brightly. “Nothing.”

He grinned. “Are you sad our fling is almost over?”

She looked down at her coffee cup, not wanting to meet his eyes. Carly knew the rule: they weren’t supposed to talk about their lives outside of this week—this cottage. She was pretty sure that included feelings of loss over a relationship she knew she could never have with Donovan. Still, something about his eyes made her feel safe. Like he wanted to know how she really felt. “A little,” she admitted.

“Yeah, me too.”

Carly’s head jerked up, and she studied his face in surprise.

“What? I’m not a monster or something.” He chuckled and came over to kneel beside her chair, grabbing her hand. “I’ve had the perfect vacation here with you. I don’t want it to end either.”

Carly sighed. “But it has to,” she said grudgingly. “Back to the real world.” She knew there would be way too much work to do getting used to her new job and proving herself as a kick-ass reporter to be dealing with some kind of long-distance relationship. It wasn’t practical, and she wasn’t going to derail her career over a beach fling.

“Yeah.” Donovan kissed her hand, stood up, and carried his coffee to the deck railing to gaze at the ocean. “But who knows. Maybe we’ll see each other again.”

Carly’s pulse quickened. What was he saying?

He glanced over his shoulder at her, a gentle smile playing on his lips. “If we’re meant to be together for more than just this week, then we’ll run into each other somehow. It’ll be . . . serendipitous.”

Carly relaxed back into her seat, nodded, and took a sip of coffee. She liked that idea. A tiny bit of hope that someday, somehow, she’d be standing on a busy sidewalk and catch a glimpse of Donovan on the other side of the street. She’d speed up, call his name, and try to find a spot to cross. He’d hear her, and a look of wonder would appear on his face as he searched the crowd for her face. When their eyes met, they’d fall immediately and hopelessly in love, knowing the universe had arranged for them to find each other again. It would be magical.

And it would never really happen. But maybe the lovely idea of its possibility would help Carly get through the next day.

“Want to take a walk?”

Carly nodded and hopped out of her chair, following him off the deck. Gus trailed behind them.

The partiers in the cottage two doors over were already out on the beach, drinking and being loud. It was probably their last full day of vacation too. Normally, Donovan and Carly walked the other way along the beach to avoid interacting with them, but this time, Donovan turned that direction. “Let’s see what’s down this way,” he said. “We’ll get past the rowdy crowd quickly.”

Carly nodded and followed him, her feet sinking in the sand as she walked. She was going to miss their strolls along the ocean so much. It was hard to think about how, soon enough, she’d find herself in an office every morning instead of on the beach.

As they passed the crowd of college students partying, Gus suddenly let out a loud yelp. Carly and Donovan spun around to find him lying on his side on the beach. They both darted back to him, Donovan sliding to his knees in the sand. “What’s wrong, boy?” His eyes scanned the dog’s body.

“It’s his paw.” Carly saw drips of blood on the sand under the lab’s front paw.

Donovan grabbed the dog’s foot and examined it. “There’s a piece of glass in it.” His face contorted in a grimace.

“Oh no!” Carly dropped to her knees beside Donovan to get a better look at Gus’s paw. Sure enough, she could see a large piece of glass sticking out of the webbing between his toes. She dropped her eyes to the ground a few feet behind where the dog lay and then crawled over. “It’s a broken beer bottle,” she said.

A crowd of partiers had gathered around them, and Carly spat at them, “You guys need to clean this up. And check the rest of your beach area for more dangerous debris.” Several heads nodded, and the now-sober kids dispersed, scouring the beach for more hazards.

Carly crawled back over to Donovan and Gus. “I can pull the glass out,” she said gently. “Take your shirt off.”

He didn’t question her but pulled his shirt over his head and handed it to her.

“If it bleeds a lot when I pull the shard out, we can use this to apply pressure. You might have to carry him up to the house.”

Donovan nodded, and Carly saw there were tears in his eyes. His hand shook as he petted Gus’s neck. The dog wagged his tail frantically and tried to stand up. Carly put her hands on his side and kept him down. “Stay, boy,” she murmured. Quickly, she yanked the glass shard out of the dog’s paw. He whined and pulled his paw away. Carly was relieved to see that the wound only oozed. There was no spurting, so the piece of glass probably hadn’t nicked an important blood vessel.

Donovan moved around behind the dog and lifted him into his arms. Though it must have been hard to carry the large animal across the shifting beach sand, he made it look easy. Carly ran ahead and met them in her driveway, purse and keys in hand. She’d grabbed a sundress and pulled it over her swimsuit and slipped on flip-flips too.

“Put him in the back of my car,” she said, opening the door. “You can sit back there with him.” As Donovan got himself and Gus settled in the car, Carly used the voice recognition software on her phone to pull up the location of the closest vet clinic and call them. Once she’d verified they were open and could see Gus, Carly climbed in the driver’s seat, set her GPS to direct her, and backed out of the driveway.

She drove as fast as she could without knowing where she was going. She checked her rearview mirror often. Donovan was holding his shirt to Gus’s foot and murmuring to the dog. Carly’s heart surged at the sight. He wasn’t only sexy, he was kind and loving, just like she’d suspected on their first date.

When they arrived at the clinic, a small building that looked like a country cottage, Carly pulled up parallel to the door. Two staff members came out to help get Gus off Donovan’s lap and into the building. Donovan followed them, and Carly parked the car before she went in too.

Donovan sat in the waiting room, shirtless. His face was paler than usual, and it looked drawn and tense. Carly sat next to him and grabbed his hand, squeezing. He gave her a small smile and squeezed back.

“I can’t believe those jerks,” Carly said. “Leaving broken glass all over the beach like that.”

“Yeah. I hope they learned their lesson.”

They sat waiting for about fifteen minutes. A white-haired lady came through the front door with a tiny, peppy, equally white-haired dog, and Donovan and Carly chuckled as the pup jumped all over the place, yipping happily.

A white-coated woman appeared in front of them. “Hi, I’m Dr. Sails,” she said. “Gus is going to be just fine.”

Donovan’s muscles visibly relaxed at her words, and Carly squeezed his hand again.

“The glass didn’t hit any tendons or arteries,” the veterinarian continued, “and I used some local anesthesia on the area, cleaned and disinfected it, and placed four stitches. He’ll need to wear a bandage for a couple weeks until the sutures come out. You’ll want to keep him from running or jumping, and he might have to wear a cone if he wants to lick or chew the bandage.”

Donovan nodded. “Thanks, Doc,” he said.

Dr. Sails smiled. “You’re welcome. Gus is a sweetie. I’m getting together some pain meds and antibiotics for him, and then a vet tech will bring him out and discharge you.”

The doctor disappeared back into the treatment area.

Donovan turned to Carly. “Thanks for your help,” he said. “That would have been a lot trickier without you.”

“You’re welcome. I love Gus.”

She didn’t add the end of the sentence onto her words, but her heart did . . . she thought she was falling in love with Donovan too.

She bit down on the words and shook her head a little. She couldn’t fall in love with him. They were both leaving to go back to their own worlds the next day, and loving Donovan would only cause Carly heartache. She wasn’t going to have any way to contact him and would likely never see him again.

Loving him wasn’t in her cards.