“And tastes even better,” he said, munching another piece of bacon.
His smile was reassuring. The gentle hand he rested on her back doubly so. She felt like she could tell him anything. She’d never experienced that kind of openness with anyone before. This man could be her best friend and confidant, her lover, her muse. This man could be her everything. She reached for the orange and cranberry juice he’d mixed for her without even asking and took a huge gulp. The boundless ocean that was Kellen Jamison had swept her up into its current, and she was drowning in him. Blissfully drowning. And she wasn’t even going to try to fight it.
After breakfast Kellen helped her slather on some SPF2000—she loved the sun, but her ultra-fair skin did not—and then drove them from the more desolate end of the island where they were staying toward the small city of Galveston. Their beachy retreat was surrounded by residential homes and vacation rentals, but there wasn’t a real grocery store for miles.
“I got a speeding ticket here the day I ran away from you,” he said as they stopped at the single traffic light in the tiny town of Jamaica Beach.
“You just couldn’t get away from me fast enough,” she said, a teasing smile on her lips.
“You terrified me. Still do to an extent.”
“What? Why?”
“Because you make me reevaluate my entire perception of what it means to love. I have always believed that there is only one true love for each person. I’d already found mine in Sara. I still believe that. But I lost her, so I was prepared to live out the rest of my life alone to be true to her. You, Miss O’Reilly, made me question that belief, made me wonder if a man could find a second true love.”
There was no way she could feel defensive when someone was as utterly romantic as this man. She struggled not to sigh like a fangirl, even though she was his biggest fan.
“Have you come to a conclusion yet?” she asked, not sure she was ready to hear if he thought what was building between them was true love, but dying to know his deepest feelings anyway.
He chuckled. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”
She stuck her tongue out at him because yes, dammit, she would. “I’m going to pretend you’re being mysterious, but I think you haven’t decided yet.”
Once the highway turned into Seawall Boulevard, the buildings all ran along one side of the road, giving Dawn an unobstructed view of the ocean as they entered the outskirts of town. The weather was warm and sunny, making the typically murky water sparkle a deep blue. The sidewalk along the seawall and the beaches below it were packed with the usual mix of locals, day visitors from the Houston area, and vacationers from home and abroad. She much preferred the less populated beaches of the east end of the island, but it was fun to people-watch here. A glare on her left side drew her attention from the ocean to the buildings they passed. Just visible near the bay side of the island stood three enormous silver and glass pyramids.
“Have you been to Moody Gardens?” Dawn asked. “I’ve been meaning to check it out.”
He chuckled. “They have a rainforest with live animals and birds roaming free inside one of those pyramids. Do you really think I could visit Galveston with Sara and not go half a dozen times? I thought she was going to rent space and pitch her tent there at one point.”
“Oh . . .”
He switched on his blinker and got behind a long line of cars turning left. “I think you’ll love it. They have an aquarium too. And beautiful gardens to walk through if you’re into that kind of thing.”
She was sure she’d love the place if it didn’t remind him of Sara the entire time, and she knew it would. “Maybe we need to find our own haunts.”
“Ones not haunted by Sara,” he added quietly.
“I don’t mean to be selfish. I just—”
“Want something special. I get it.”
She reached over and squeezed his hand, glad he understood.
“Then we’ll haunt the Strand. It’s kind of like New Orleans with an island flair.”
“I love the Strand,” she said. “I’ve shopped there a few times.” When she’d been looking for a little retail inspiration to overcome her writer’s block. She’d left with her wallet lighter, but not so much as a note had been sparked by her excursions.
“Sara wasn’t a fan—too much civilization for her tastes—but I’d love to explore the downtown area.” He took his eyes off the road long enough to smile at her. “With you.”
Once they found a place to park, they browsed through touristy T-shirt shops, art galleries, a truly wild women’s clothing store—she fast-talked Kellen out of buying her a corset—and a cluttered but fun to explore antique store. Kellen loved the architecture of the pre-1900 hurricane buildings. Dawn was far more interested in Kellen.
At a confectionery they watched a live taffy pull, and she learned of Kellen’s weakness for licorice-flavored salt water taffy—yuck. He was equally disturbed by her love of all things chocolate. As they were strolling along Post Office Street to check out a boutique that a local recommended for its merchandise and its micheladas—some fruity drink she’d never heard of—Kellen stopped short when a young couple pedaled past them on a tandem bike.
“We’re doing that next,” he said, pointing at the license plate on the back that displayed a bike rental shop’s name.
Dawn’s eyes widened. It did look sort of fun and wildly romantic, but . . . “Remember when I said I wiped out on a bike in college?”
“You’ll be fine,” he said. “It’s not that hard.”
“It is for me. I wiped out because . . .” She closed one eye to avoid seeing his reaction. “I don’t know how to ride a bike.”
“What?”
“No one ever taught me.”
“You were too rich to learn to ride a bike?”
“My parents were too busy to teach me.”
And thus teaching Dawn to ride a bike became Kellen’s newest mission. After dropping off their purchases in the car—her chocolate was sure to become one big sloppy mess in the heat, but he was so insistent that she couldn’t refuse to join his adventure over a bit of melted candy—they strolled toward the seawall where several bike rental shops could be found. She felt like a fool—all knees and elbows—as he started her off on a big-girl bike without any training wheels. He didn’t let her crash, but nearly did in his own shin a few times when he had to catch her until she found her balance. It wasn’t nearly as difficult as she’d thought it would be. Elation made her breathless when she finally took off without him holding on. She let out a whoop of triumph, the sea breeze blowing through her hair as she circled the parking lot.
A large curb raced toward her.
“How do I stop this thing?” she yelled.
“Use your hands. Squeeze the brakes!”
She pulled one of the levers and felt the front of the bike—but not the back—pull to a sudden halt. The rear tire left the ground as she skidded. Having long legs was an advantage. She stood and caught herself with several running steps, before letting go of the bike. The bike wasn’t so lucky. Its momentum carried it to the curb and beyond. Flipping forward, it clattered to the ground right next to a parked car. Dawn squeezed her eyes shut, praying it wasn’t too badly damaged.
“You did great,” he said—such a liar—and hugged her against him. She wasn’t sure whose heart was thudding harder, hers or his.
“That was fun,” she said, laughing, “until that dumb curb jumped out in front of me.”
“Maybe we should hold off on the tandem bike. I’ve only ridden one a few times, and being the stoker can be a bit unnerving. You have to have complete faith in your captain to not steer you both into the Gulf.”
“Did you ride one with Sara?”
“No, with Owen. Sara was too chicken to try it.”
There was no way in hell Dawn would miss an opportunity to be braver than Sara. She squeezed him tightly. “I want to do it. I have complete faith in you.” She hoped he couldn’t feel how hard her heart
was thudding and wondered if that big medical school hospital on the island was any good at setting broken bones and applying sidewalk-burn skin grafts.
The owner of the bike shop gave them both a helmet and plenty of tips, and since Dawn didn’t have any bad habits of riding solo to unlearn, they didn’t do too badly on their first few takeoffs.
“You two ride well together and have a natural rhythm,” their instructor said. “I can tell you’ve been together a long time.”
Kellen chuckled. “You can tell that, can you?”
Their short-term instructor nodded. “Totally obvious. Have fun.”
Dawn sat poised with both feet on the pedals, gripping handlebars that did not steer, no matter how much she tried to backseat drive. Kellen had been right to say she had to have complete faith in him. She could help pedal and balance, but basically she was a passenger on his long-ass bike.
He kicked off and got the bike going. They lucked out by hitting a green crossing light and crossed over Seawall Boulevard to the wide sidewalk shared by pedestrians, bikes, and surreys. They could continue along the path for miles in either direction. Once she got used to being out of control, Dawn decided she liked riding in the back. When she got tired of staring at Kellen’s gorgeous back and ass—which honestly took quite a while—she was free to take in the sights as they pedaled along the shore while he was forced to pay attention to their trajectory and speed, as well as avoid any large bumps that might unseat her.
“Ever been to the Pleasure Pier?” she asked Kellen as they slowly made their way through the crowd near the small amusement park built on a pier.
“It hadn’t opened yet when Sara was alive. We can go there if you want.”
“Do you like roller coasters?” She craned her neck to watch the small coaster on the pier zip around its track. At one point it looked as if it hurdled beyond the pier and over the water.
“They’re okay. Owen loves them.”
“What do you love?”
“Being with you.”
She traced a hoof of the rearing stallion tattoo on his back and felt his muscles tense beneath her light touch. She loved being with him too. And she was having a great time, but . . .
“I can’t stay out in the sun much longer,” she said. “Even with all that sunscreen, I’ll still burn to a crisp.”
“Are you ready to head indoors?”
“I’m ready to head for bed. Assuming you’ll be in it.”
He chuckled and looked over his shoulder to meet her eyes. “That’s a fair assumption.”
“I do want to get the most out of this bike ride, though,” she said. “The view is spectacular.” She gave his tanned, muscular back an appreciative twice-over, his perfect ass a four-times-over. He laughed again and swerved around a jogger pushing a three-wheeled baby stroller.
The breeze felt nice against her heated face and throat on their trip back up the sidewalk. The rental shop employee was proud to see them return without any broken bones or scrapes and with the tandem bike in one piece. Dawn’s legs were wobbly from using muscles she didn’t often use, but her aches would be worth it. She just hoped they didn’t make playing on Wednesday too difficult. She held Kellen’s hand on the way back to the car, and they stopped at a huge grocery store to pick up steaks, fresh-caught jumbo shrimp, and other necessities for their evening meal.
Turned out, Kellen grilled a delicious steak and even more delicious shrimp. He had insisted on dragging the grill over to her place, and her spirits were too high to push him into confronting his issues about Sara’s house. They didn’t have to tackle those problems all at once. They had plenty of time to take baby steps if he needed to do that.
Full to the gills, Dawn settled into an Adirondack chair on the deck and watched the birds skitter through the surf as they scrounged up their own meal. Kellen brought her a bowl of vanilla ice cream covered in the remnants of her melted chocolate.
“I couldn’t possibly eat another bite,” she said, but she took the bowl and couldn’t resist a small taste.
He grinned at her when less than ten minutes later she was scraping the bottom of her bowl with her spoon. Her stomach had protested every bite, but her tongue had insisted she continue to stuff her face.
They sat on the deck and talked until the sun sank below the bay behind them. She couldn’t remember ever having a more perfect day. The thought that she had to leave him tomorrow to meet with a bunch of self-important Hollywood executives was too depressing to bear, so she didn’t dwell on that painful truth when he talked her into sitting at her piano bench and playing some of her classics with a twist and even a few compositions of her own that she’d deemed not good enough for human ears.
“Every song you’ve written turns me on,” he murmured as they came together on the lid of her piano. “Why is that?”
Her toes curled as he thrust into her. Deeper. Deeper. Yes, please, deeper. “You’re a horny bastard?”
He shrugged. “Can’t deny either of those labels.”
She bit her lip, wishing she’d chosen gentler words. He never spoke of his parents, and maybe he’d be annoyed that she’d brought up more of his past, but she wanted to know about his family. She wanted to learn everything about him—how to please his body and make him laugh. The way his mind worked. What his soul yearned for. How to claim his heart as her own. Because that was what she truly wanted. All of him. And for the first time in her life she was ready to give someone all of herself in return.
Chapter Thirteen
Kellen watched Dawn exit the realtor’s office with a lump in his throat. So that was it, then. The rental house—where they’d met, where they’d first made love, where he’d developed such strong feelings for her, where she’d composed their song—was now back in the hands of strangers. Maybe he should buy that house and make sure the piano was part of the deal.
She climbed into the car beside him and after she’d buckled herself in, he took her hand and kissed her knuckles.
“Are you sure you have time to take me to the airport?” she asked. “It’s over an hour out of your way.”
“I’m sure.” He wanted to spend every possible second with her, knowing she’d soon be in L.A. and then in Prague. He’d be back on tour, pretending his life hadn’t been completely turned around in the course of days by this perfect, perfect woman.
“Not if we sit here for eons with you staring at me like that.”
She grinned at him, but he feigned ignorance. “Look at you like what?”
“Like we’re never going to see each other again.”
Didn’t she understand that it was a concern? “I was thinking,” he said, still looking at her with his heart in his throat. “Maybe I should sell Sara’s house—”
“I think you’d be much happier if you did.”
“—and buy the one next door. I hear it has a beautiful grand piano that an inspiring and famous song was composed on.”
Her eyes narrowed, and the happy smile he was expecting ended up a harsh frown. “Don’t you dare do that to yourself. To us.”
Puzzled, he squeezed her hand. “We have so many memories there.”
Her sigh of frustration was even more baffling than her scowl. She tugged her hand free of his and sat straighter in her seat. “I’m going to miss my plane.”
He backed out of the parking spot and once they were in the flow of traffic, he asked, “You don’t like that house?”
“I do,” she said, “but I already have a house. You already have a house.”
“But we don’t have a house.”
“And maybe someday we will, but it won’t be that one.”
Maybe he did understand where she was coming from. “Because it’s next door to Sara’s.”
“No, because I don’t want you to link me to a place. I don’t want to think that sometime in the future you might erect a shrine to me in some beach house and not let yourself move on. For years. I won’t have that hanging over me. Over us.”
“
So I should start preparing myself to get over you?”
She covered her forehead with both hands, curling forward, her shoulder straining against her seatbelt, and shook her head. “No, I hope you never have to get over me. I hope we live a healthy, happy life together until we’re both in our nineties and die in each other’s arms at the exact same moment. That’s what I hope.”
The hard knot in his throat loosened slightly. “I knew you were a romantic.”
“Kellen, don’t buy that house. Please don’t tie me to a place.”
“How about a bed? Can I tie you to a bed?”
She laughed, and the horrible tension that had built between them the second he’d mentioned buying the beach house lessened.
“You can tie me to all sorts of beds. Don’t limit me to just one.”
And then he truly understood where she was coming from. Maybe. “I guess we can make memories together in a lot of beds and on various pianos.”
“I sure hope so.” She shifted and laced her fingers through