“Here you go.” The driver parked next to a cabin-sized building. A red vacancy sign blinked in the waited. He waited for me to pay him the five dollars it cost to drive two minutes from the Wave Oasis.

“This is the Dune Scape?” Nothing about the place looked open. I already missed the bright hibiscus flowers and the nice girl from the front desk.

“Yep. You’re here.” The driver strummed his fingers along the steering wheel

I handed him a five-dollar bill and pushed open the car door. Before I could climb back in, he had made a full U-turn and was back on the highway. I pivoted on my heels to face the Dune Scape. This was it—my only option.

I smoothed out my shirt and took a deep breath. I reached for the handle on the office door, but it was stuck. I jiggled it a few times, trying to move it left or right until it broke off in my hand. Great, I already had damage charges and didn’t even have a room yet. I knocked on the door.

The door whipped open. A towering figure stood in front of me. The light behind his head made it difficult to make out the features of his face, but I could see the outline of a chiseled jaw and broad shoulders.

“I—uh—I broke your doorknob.” I offered the part to the shadowed guy.

“Damn it,” he mumbled.

“It was an accident. I didn’t mean to break it.” I followed him into the dim-lit office. In the side, a window-unit hummed and blasted cool air into the small space. “Sorry.”

“Yeah, I know. I’ve been meaning to fix that door.” He placed the doorknob next to the phone. “What do you need?” He exhaled through his teeth and glared at the broken piece of metal.

“Maybe if you took better care of this place it wouldn’t break when your customers walked through the door.”

My spine tingled. My breath caught. Holy shit. I would know that voice anywhere. I should have recognized it sooner, but everything was out of context.

“Cole?” I eked.

He rubbed his palm along the side of his face that I guessed hadn’t seen a razor in a week. His stubble was dark, like the rest of his brown hair. For the first time since I had walked in the office, he looked up.

It’s not every day you see eyes like that. Eyes that held depth and soul. Eyes that made me forget why I was so annoyed. Eyes that kept me locked in place. I stared a little too long, remembering what those eyes used to do to me.

“Kaitlyn?”

I nodded.

“What are—why are you in Padre?”

I bit my bottom lip. Cole Thomas had been the man of my dreams once. Although, he never knew that my crush for him was as big as the state of Texas. And it didn’t help he was seven years older than me, which meant when I was in high school, I was a considered a baby.

“Vacation,” I answered.

“With?” He looked around me.

“Myself.” He had always thrown me off balance and it was happening all over again. It didn’t matter that I hadn’t seen him in years. I could only spit out one word at a time.

He folded his arms. “I doubt Ryan knows.”

“He’s my older brother, not my dad.” I matched Cole’s tone with one just as confident.

My heart beat wildly. Holy shit my mouth was going dry. How did Cole Thomas always do this to me? I wasn’t a teenager anymore.

“I haven’t talked to him in months. Have you heard from him?” he asked.

“Yeah. He’s still in Afghanistan. He keeps getting assignments. You’re lucky you got out, Cole.”

I saw instant darkness in his eyes and I regretted I had said it. I tried to cover up my mistake. “I mean because Ryan told me you have a son now, right?”

He nodded. “Yeah.”

My stomach rolled. I didn’t know what was the worst part about this scenario: knowing Cole Thomas was taken off the market, or the fact that I had screwed this up. Either way, I immediately felt like I was sixteen again.

The smell of fresh paint permeated the office. The corner of a paint can was exposed on the floor behind the desk. I watched as he nudged it out of view with his foot.

“I wasn’t expecting anyone tonight. Do you have a reservation?”

“No, but I need one for the week. Apparently, this is the only place that has open rooms. Now I know why,” I teased pointing at the doorknob.

“Well, if it’s not up to your standards, don’t let me keep you.” He huffed.

“No, it’s—” I searched for a word that wouldn’t insult him further. “—quaint. I didn’t mean it like that. I’m sorry. I’m saying all kinds of stupid things. I’m exhausted.”

“Did you say you needed a room for the entire week? Where’s your luggage?”

“The airline lost it. You wouldn’t have those fluffy robes here, would you?”

“Darlin’, look around you. Does this look like the kind of place with fluffy robes?”

This place didn’t look like it would have running water, but a girl could dream. All I wanted was for him to swipe my credit card and point me to my room and maybe some food. My stomach growled. The pretzels I had eaten on the morning flight from Raleigh hardly counted as a meal.

“How are you here, Cole? What are you doing in South Padre?”

He sighed. “That’s a long story. One I haven’t had a chance to talk to your brother about. I want to have a beer with him when he’s back State-side.”

“So Ryan doesn’t know you’re here either?”

He shook his head. The white T-shirt that clung to his torso was speckled with paint, and he had hooked a hammer along the rim of his back pocket. When had Cole turned into a hot handy man? And why?

“I’ve had a really terrible day, and I could use a hot shower and something to eat. Do you have a room for me?”

He pulled out a notebook and flipped open the faded blue cover. He traced the lines with his finger. “Yep, there’s a room for you.”

“You keep your reservations in a notebook?” I hadn’t really noticed until now that there wasn’t a computer in the office.

He looked at me. “Do you want a room or not, Kaitlyn?”

“Sorry.” I bit my lip to keep from sparring with him further.

“It’s fifty dollars per night. Do you have a credit card?”

“Right here.”

“What happened to your hand?” He glanced at my knuckles.

With the hotel hopping, I had forgotten that it had turned red and was starting to swell. “I ran into something. It’s nothing. Really, it’s fine.”

“Something or someone?” I thought I saw the corner of his lips form a smile.

He withdrew a piece of carbon paper and a metal rectangular device. I watched as he affixed the paper, placed my card on top, and then swiped a lever across my card.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

He stared at me. “It’s a credit card machine.”

“Are you serious?” I think I had seen something like it in an eighties movie.

“Yes. I’m serious. Here you go.” He handed the card back to me and pointed to the bottom of the slip. “Sign here.”

I scribbled my name along the line, being careful not to press too hard with my knuckles. They were tender. He handed me a brass key attached to a palm tree key chain.

“You’re in room twenty-three, which is all the way down this side.” He pointed out the window. “You’re the last room on the right. Ocean side.”

Ocean side? At least there was something redeeming about the Dune Scape. The palm tree was heavy in my hand.

“Thanks. Is there somewhere around here I could get dinner and maybe some clothes?”

I was worried the airline still hadn’t called me and I would have to face the morning with my alcohol-stained jeans.

“There’s a local hang out a few blocks down and across the road on the sound side called Peabody’s. It’s not a party scene. You’ll have to head back to the resorts if you want music and dancing. About a block down is a surf shop and general store. I’m sure they’ll have something you can wear.” I caught him eyeing the dip in my shirt with his smoldering eyes. Eyes like that were hard to ignore.

“I’m not here for the party scene. Dinner sounds good.” I wanted Cole to know I was older. He didn’t know this version of me. I was more than Ryan Sinclair’s little sister.

I turned to pull the inside frame of the door. I wasn’t sure why I had told him that. “Thanks.”

“Oh, and, Rocky, there’s an ice machine on the way to your room. You might want to put some on that hand before it gets much worse.” He grinned.