“Who are you?” Leah demanded, the look in her eyes stopping him short.

Fear. She was afraid—of what? Him? Roman felt cold all over.

What had happened that night she went over that bridge? Why had she been there? He’d never understood that. She’d been on a highway she didn’t normally travel, on a trip she’d told no one about, carrying divorce papers he would never have signed.

It had just been one of the many strange, horrible things about her death. But…

But Leah wasn’t dead.

Her Man To Remember
Suzanne McMinn

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Suzanne McMinn

Suzanne McMinn lives on a lake in North Carolina with a bunch of dogs, cats, ducks and kids. Visit her Web site at www.SuzanneMcMinn.com to learn more about her books.

With appreciation to Julie Barrett, Susan Litman,

Leslie Wainger and especially Shannon Godwin.

And of course, to MLFF—you know who you are.

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Epilogue

Chapter 1

He’d been in Thunder Key exactly four hours and thirty-two minutes when he first saw her.

On that first day at the Shark and Fin, Roman Bradshaw hadn’t believed his eyes. He’d left the beachside bar and grill without touching his drink. He’d gone back to the bungalow he’d rented—the same bungalow where they’d spent their honeymoon more than two years ago—and almost convinced himself he’d gone crazy.

The second day he made eye contact with her. She was behind the bar. Her blond hair was short, the same as always. Chin length, sexy, sassy, it swished forward onto her high cheekbones. She looked up at him from beneath the wispy bangs and met his eyes. No flicker of recognition. Nothing. Just…wide-open eyes.

A scar along her hairline, above one temple, thin, pale, was barely visible but familiar. The same silver bracelet encircled her wrist. It was a bracelet she’d worn ever since he’d given it to her on their honeymoon. And he knew it was etched with the name Leah.

He was in the back of the bar, near the door. There was a part of him that feared if he moved closer, too close, she’d disappear.

So he watched her.

She wasn’t his server. But when he caught her eyes across the bar, she stared at him for a very long moment. Then she turned to the girl approaching the bar, said something to her and pointed to him.

The girl came back to his table. “Can I help you? Do you need another beer?”

He shook his head. He couldn’t speak right away. Leah was still watching him but not as though she knew him. Her look was concerned, as if she was worried something was wrong.

“I’m fine, everything’s fine,” he had said finally, then left soon after.

He didn’t know what to think. How could she not recognize him? There was nothing different about him. He wore khaki shorts and a loose, untucked tropical-print shirt he’d picked up at one of the touristy shops in Thunder Key, but other than that, he was the same Roman on the outside. The same man she’d married. It was inside where he’d changed.

Was it really Leah? He was afraid to find out, afraid to lose her all over again. He spent hours walking the blustery beach, his mind filled with questions he was afraid to ask. Was he losing his mind? Was the woman a figment of his imagination, a ghost walking through the nightmare his life had become since the stormy night his wife’s car had gone over a bridge?

If it was Leah, how had she come to be here? Why had she disappeared? How could she have done this to him, to her own friends?

He dreamed of her that second night. In his dream they were driving through an autumn forest in upstate New York, enjoying the fall leaves. It was something they’d actually done on their six-month anniversary—before everything had gone wrong.

Except, in his dream, when he glanced from the road to look at his beautiful, vibrant, laughing wife and reached out to touch her, the seat beside him was suddenly empty. She’d vanished right before his eyes.

He woke, gasping for air, sweating.

The next day he arrived at the Shark and Fin earlier than usual. She wasn’t there. The bar was almost empty. It was early afternoon, and outside the August sun bore down on the blazing-white beach. Vacationers straggled along the shore, carrying towels and bottles of lotion and sun umbrellas. Thunder Key was a small, offbeat island, one of the least-visited of the Florida Keys, overshadowed by its more trendy cousins—Key Largo and Key West. It boasted a quaint dot of a town off Route 1, the Overseas Highway linking the chain of coral islands to the mainland. The relative quiet, compared to more fashionable destinations, was what had appealed to Leah for their honeymoon.

Thunder Key was small, artsy, homey. There was only one hotel, and it was one of the few islands that actually maintained more permanent residents in the summer than tourists. The Shark and Fin was an outpost of local color, down a nameless road at the far end of the island. Over a humpback bridge, the Bahamian-style building suddenly appeared on the beach, as if it had emerged from the sea. Colorful fish and bright moons and carefree slogans—like, This Is As Dressed Up As I Get!—were painted on the walls. People walked in barefoot.

Leah had discovered the bar the last day of their honeymoon and she’d loved it instantly. This is what the Keys are all about, she’d told him. Let’s throw it all away and open a bar of our own. We could be happy here, you’ll see. No stress, no smog, no cell phones or computers or fax machines. Just you and me.

Now here he was. No cell phone. No computer. And unbelievably, Leah was here, too.

“Can I get you anything?”

Jarred from his memories, Roman looked up at the owner of the voice.

He was a young guy. He had longish blond hair, a scruffy chin and an apron around his waist. Roman had seen him come back and forth from the kitchen the past few nights. He figured he was the cook.

Although the Shark and Fin had a typical Keys menu of fried fish sandwiches, hand-cut fries, conch fritters and chowder, Roman ordered a beer. When the guy came back, he stopped him.

“I was just wondering,” he began, “who owns this place?”

“Morrie Sanders.” The guy gave him a look. “Is there a problem? You need to talk to Morrie? He’s out west, with his daughter. Leah’s in charge while he’s gone, but she’s not downstairs yet.”

“She lives over the bar?” Roman guessed. He hadn’t realized there was an apartment over the bar. Then it hit him. “Leah? Her name is Leah?”

He heard a rushing sound in his head, realized it was his pulse pounding. He hadn’t imagined it. It was Leah, with her scar and her bracelet and her crooked Leah smile….

The cook’s brow furrowed, and when he spoke Roman heard him as if he was very far away. “That’s right.” He crossed his arms. “Is something wrong?”

“No, nothing’s wrong.” Everything was wrong. Roman’s mind reeled. Leah. “Leah. Is she— How long has she been here? Do you know where she’s from? Do you know—”

The guy cut him off.

“Hey, do you know her or something?” He sounded protective, fierce. His whole face turned cold.

Roman backtracked. “I was just curious.” He had to think fast. Leah hadn’t recognized him—or at least she’d seemed not to have recognized him. He should play it casual, but he was still having a hard time thinking. “I was— She’s a very attractive woman. I’m here on vacation. I thought—”

“You thought wrong.”

“Can you tell me her last name?” He still couldn’t believe it. Leah. Alive. Here.

“I don’t give out personal information about Leah.” The cook gave him a look, then turned around and walked away.

Realizing that the staff of the Shark and Fin were going to be a dead end in terms of learning about Leah, Roman went into the town. Blocks of crisscrossing, narrow, palm-shaded residential streets surrounded the backbone of the tiny Key, the main road that led to the Overseas Highway. He asked careful questions at the small grocery, the bank, the post office, the tourist office, the library and the Cuban coffeehouse. He learned she went by the name Leah Wells, that Morrie Sanders was trying to sell the Shark and Fin so he could move to New Mexico and be with his grandkids and that Leah Wells had been working for him for more than a year. It was apparent she had quickly become well liked on Thunder Key, and personal questions about her were not welcome.

He pretended he was interested in the Shark and Fin. He was a businessman from New York, he told them, and he was looking to invest in a business in the Keys.

Talk to Leah, they said. She could put him in touch with Morrie.

He wasn’t ready to talk to her yet. He was afraid to talk to her, still afraid he would break the spell and she would disappear. But he had to know more about her, so he followed her. He found that in the mornings she ran on the beach. Like most residents she walked—or sometimes in her case, ran—everywhere she went on the two-mile-wide island. Then she went into town and purchased a café con leche at the Cuban coffeehouse. One morning she went into a boardwalk boutique, part of a circle of shops surrounding a shady courtyard. He discovered she sold some of her designs there. She was still making one-of-a-kind clothes—sexy dresses, barely-there tops, wild-print shorts and pants. He found she made jewelry now, too. Shell necklaces and beaded bracelets. According to the locals, her work was popular with tourists.

She spent the rest of her time at the Shark and Fin.

This was her new life, the one she’d taken up after disappearing over a bridge eighteen months ago. This was Leah Wells, who didn’t recognize him.

He left town and went back to the Shark and Fin. They were busy, but Roman wasn’t going to sit in the back this time. He took the last open place at the bar.

When the cook came out of the kitchen, he wiped his hands on his apron and said something to Leah that Roman couldn’t hear. It was then that Leah looked down the bar toward Roman.

Tonight she wore a sleeveless blouse and loose-fitting cotton pants. They were colorful—blue-and-yellow patterned. It was like Leah to wear loud clothes. They were probably her own design. They were cut to show off her slender, shapely form.

She walked toward him. “Can I help you?”

Roman’s mouth went dry, his heart constricted. Her voice. Husky, low, sweet. Leah. He had to force himself to speak, to risk breaking the magic spell or dream or fantasy—whatever it was that had brought her back into his life. He had to find out if she was real.

“Hello, Leah.” He managed to speak in a steady voice.

She didn’t vanish. But her face held no expression as she stared at him. “Would you like a beer?”

Her eyes were wide open, the same as before. No recognition.

He had to know.

“Do you remember—” His heart was in his throat.

“Remember what?” She looked confused.

“—me?” he finished quietly.

“Um, I saw you here the other night.” Her voice wavered into wariness. “A couple of nights, actually.”

Either she was the best actress he’d ever seen, or she really didn’t know who he was. He felt as if he’d been kicked in the stomach and at the same time as if the world was opening up all over again.

“You want a beer?” she asked again.

“No.”

She started to turn away.

“Wait.”

Her shoulders tensed. She turned back. The noise of people talking, glasses clinking, seemed to fade into the background.

“I just…want to talk to you,” he said.

“I don’t have time to talk.” She gave a pointed glance around the bar.

“Then maybe we can talk after you close. What time is that?”

“I can’t,” she said. “I go to bed then.”

“Then, in the morning,” he countered. “I’ll run with you.”

Her eyes narrowed. “How do you know that I run in the morning?”

“I’ve seen you.”

“Look,” she said, her eyes cool, “I don’t know what you’re thinking, but I’m not interested.”

“If you don’t know what I’m thinking, how do you know you’re not interested?”

“Joey told me— He said you were asking questions about me. That you said I was—”

“Attractive,” he supplied.

She shrugged.

He had to speak to her.

“Give me a few minutes, that’s all. I need to talk to you,” he persisted.

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

In Manhattan, he would have walked away a long time ago. He never asked a woman out twice if she rebuffed him. He wasn’t a pursuer. But he couldn’t walk away from Leah.

He knew little—actually, nothing—about memory loss. He’d called his sister Gen’s husband, Mark Davison, the day before. Mark was a physician. He’d been surprised by Roman’s questions but had answered them in a general way.

Memory loss could be physical or psychological. Short-or long-term. Permanent or temporary. Forcing too much information too soon on the patient could be dangerous. But Mark was a pain specialist, not a psychiatrist, he reminded Roman. He didn’t have all the answers.

Why the questions? Mark had asked. But Roman had hung up without answering. He’d asked Mark not to tell Gen about the phone call. He wasn’t ready to tell anyone about Leah.

“I don’t date,” Leah said finally.

“Why not?” He kept his tone light. She tucked her hair behind her ear. He recognized the familiar gesture. He was making her nervous.

“I’m a lesbian, all right?”

Roman almost burst out laughing. “I don’t think so,” he said. His mind rushed with images. Leah playing footsie with him in front of the fire—wearing nothing but socks. Leah pulling him behind a barn for a roll in the hay—at a farm where they had stopped for a wagon ride. Leah crying out during sex—at his parents’ home. She was the most uninhibited, passionate sex partner he’d ever had.

“Who are you?” she demanded now, and the look in her eyes stopped him short.

Fear. She was afraid—of what? Him? He felt cold all over. What the hell had happened that night she’d gone over that bridge? Why had she been there? He’d never understood that. She’d been on a highway she didn’t normally travel, on a trip she’d told no one about, carrying divorce papers he would never have signed. It had just been one of the many strange, horrible things about her death.

Finding the car had taken them two harrowing days. Inside, they’d discovered her purse, with her wedding ring tucked into a side pocket, and divorce papers inside a briefcase—but no body. They said her body had been washed away in the rain-swollen river. The search had gone on for interminable days, but divers had found nothing.

Leah had no family. The people from her design studio, already devastated by the recent loss of another artist in the co-op, had held a small memorial service.

Roman had told no one about the divorce papers. His family’s relationship with Leah had been difficult enough while she had been alive. There was no point in making it worse after her death.

But she wasn’t dead.

“I’m Roman,” he said, watching her. Nothing. Still not a flicker. “Roman Bradshaw.”

“Well, nice to meet you, Roman Bradshaw,” she said, “but if you don’t mind, we’re busy tonight.” She turned away.

He let her go because he had no choice. He couldn’t tell her the truth yet. She wasn’t ready. She didn’t know him, and she didn’t want to know him. He couldn’t just waltz in here and claim her like a caveman throwing his woman over his shoulder.

But he wasn’t leaving, either.

Leah laced up her running shoes on the stoop outside the back door of the Shark and Fin. Dawn was breaking over the Atlantic. The sun shone a muted blue-gold glow through the morning clouds. It was chilly this early, but soon it would be hot.

The beach was quiet, empty. She loved this time of day, loved this beach, loved her life on Thunder Key.

She never wanted to leave, and she could only wonder, if she dared, what had taken her so long to get here. But she didn’t dare. She just lived her life, one day at a time. Thunder Key was her heart and soul—the endless water, sun, sand, the laidback lifestyle and friendly people.

Thunder Key was her home, and the people here her family. It was all she knew. And as if she had come desperate, thirsting, straight from the desert, she drank in what the quaint island offered. There was not a second of the past eighteen months on Thunder Key that was not stored precisely, vividly, in her memory.

Which made the fact that she could remember nothing before then that much more startling.

Do you remember me?

The man’s face leaped into her mind. Did she remember him? How could she forget him? Square jaw, intense blue eyes, planed cheeks, thick dark hair and a gorgeous, sexy dimple she’d glimpsed when he’d laughed. He was tall, wide-shouldered. Wealthy, too, she guessed. He had the bearing of a man accustomed to ordering the world to do his bidding. She’d asked around and learned he was staying in a bungalow at the White Seas Hotel, indefinitely.

The attraction had been instant, like being hit by a tidal wave. She had looked across the bar and her heart had gone wild, thumping and pounding. She’d had the insane urge to leap over the bar, throw herself into his arms, and—

What? The same way she’d known instant attraction, she had known instant fear, though she had no idea why.

But if she had learned anything in the past eighteen months, it had been to go with her instincts. Her instincts were all she had.

For example, she didn’t like peas. Cats made her sneeze. And the heart-stoppingly sexy man from the White Seas was dangerous. So she had schooled her features to reflect nothing of her thoughts, and she had stayed as far away from him as possible.

Quickly she looked around now and was relieved to see no one. He knew she ran in the mornings, he’d told her that. I need to talk to you.

She didn’t want to talk to him. She shouldn’t talk to him.

She stood, shoes laced tightly, images flashing through her mind. The man from the night before—smiling, watching, mixed with other, stranger images of the same man, another time, another place—then he was gone and there were no more images, only sensations, sounds. They were the markers of her panic attacks.

She’d had attacks like this before—both sleeping and waking—but not for a while. They had been so painful, so terrifying, that at first she’d thrown up after them.

Then she’d learned to block them. She had stopped trying to remember the past. And the panic attacks had vanished.

But they were back.

Rushing wind. Cold. Darkness. Screaming—her own.

Pain streaked through her temples, almost bending her double. She couldn’t give in to it. She forced herself to straighten, to walk. Then run, run. Breathe. Run.

She had been a runner in her life before Thunder Key; she knew that. She could run for miles. It was her salvation from the pain, from the past. She reached the packed wet sand and she immediately found the contact soothing. She loved to run right along the shoreline. The faster she ran, the faster she could shut down the haunting bits of the past that never came together, only remained in shards that stabbed at her mind.

Somehow the man from the bar had brought the past crashing down on her again. Was that why he was dangerous? Did he remind her of someone from her past?

Or was he someone from her past?

Birds wheeled overhead, their calls breaking the still morning air. She was alone, all alone, but in her head the haunting wind and screams played on. Sometimes she was afraid she was going crazy.

I know who you are, the voice said. Who was she?

Run, run, run. Before her head exploded.

I know what you’ve done. What terrible thing had she done? Why? What kind of person was she? Did she even want to know?

Leah ran faster, faster. Running was the first thing she remembered.

Pitch-black night, lights flashing past, air, just air, and she was dropping, dropping, dropping. Water. Pain. But not so terrible. No, she could move. She could run.

The trucker who had picked her up from the side of the highway had worn a green-checkered shirt and faded blue jeans with a hole over one knee. He had a round, easy face, and kind eyes.

“I’m going south,” he’d said.

“Me, too,” she’d answered. “Thunder Key.”

Where had that come from? She hadn’t even known where Thunder Key was located. It had come out of nowhere, and it had actually scared her, but everything had scared her that night, so she hadn’t let that stop her.

She’d been damp, bruised, shaken. Barely dawn, and she hadn’t known how long she’d been running.

“You got a name?” the trucker had asked.

She hadn’t known what to say. The trucker had reached over, and in the glow of the rig’s dash, had touched the bracelet on her arm.

“Leah.” He’d read the engraved letters. “You got a last name?”

They’d passed an interstate sign: Wells, 1 Mile.

“Leah…Wells.” She’d shivered in the heated cab.

He’d had a road atlas. In the index, she’d found Thunder Key, part of the chain of islands that appeared like an afterthought on the tip of the Florida coast.

The trucker had taken her as far as South Carolina. He’d given her money for a bus ticket from Charleston. He’d insisted.

“A pretty lady like you shouldn’t be hitching,” he’d said.

She’d made him give her his home address, and promised to send him the money. And she’d sent it, a month later, after she’d gotten her first paycheck from the Shark and Fin.

She’d met Morrie on the beach the day she’d arrived on Thunder Key. She’d been sitting on a bench, just staring out at the vast ocean of clear water.

“Are you lost?” he’d asked her.

“No. I think I’m found.” She was where she’d meant to go. That was all she knew.

Then he’d asked her if she needed a job and a place to live. He didn’t ask any more questions after that. He didn’t care where she came from. At a trim and vigorous sixty, the slightly balding bar owner didn’t like to talk about his own past, but she knew he’d been in prison. He was reformed, he told her. He’d started life over in Thunder Key.

She knew he must have still had connections. He’d offered to help her dig into her past after she confided in him that she’d lost her memory. And one day he’d shown up with an array of identification for Leah Wells.

“In case you ever need it,” he’d told her.

She hadn’t liked taking the false ID, but she hadn’t wanted to hurt his feelings. He’d done so much for her. So she had put the documents away in a drawer.

Recently he’d reconciled with the family from which he’d been long estranged. Leah missed him, and she wondered what the future held for her.

For eighteen months she’d been happy here. Now Morrie was selling the bar, and a stranger was watching her.

And the panic attacks were back.

She stopped running when she came to the public beach and the parking lot outside the community center. From there she walked up Thunder Key’s main street, letting her breathing slow as she headed for the coffeehouse.

The town was quiet in the early mornings. In the distance she could see a car or two on the Overseas Highway. Most drivers kept right on going, heading for the hot spots of the other islands where they could find more exciting attractions and hipper nightlife.

Thunder Key suited Leah just fine. Just as she’d known it would.

She had her breathing and her nerves under control by the time she reached the counter inside the just-opened-for-the-day coffeehouse.

“Hi, Viv,” she said. “Got my café con leche ready?”

“Of course,” Vivien Ramon said, her rough smoker’s voice softened by her smile and the youthful sparkle in her eyes that belied the silver threading through her swing of rich black hair. Her husband was a sail maker, and Viv ran La Greca, the island’s only coffeehouse. If Morrie was like a father to Leah, then Viv was like a mother.

Her real parents were dead. She just knew that, without question.

Like Morrie, Viv didn’t ask too many questions. But Leah knew Viv worried about her.

Viv had wanted her to see a doctor. Like Morrie, she’d offered to help Leah find out about her past. So far, Leah had held back. She was afraid—of what, she didn’t know. But she knew her past held pain, and that was enough to stop her from seeking answers. She wasn’t ready, she’d told them both.

Maybe she’d never be ready.

“Here you go, honey,” Viv said, handing the sweet, hot espresso across the counter. Then she was looking beyond Leah.

“I’ll have what she’s having.”

Leah nearly leaped out of her skin, but she managed to stay very still. Then, slowly, very slowly, she forced herself to turn.

“Good morning,” he said, and his smile suggested he didn’t have a care in the world.

He must have come in behind her, but she hadn’t seen him outside. How had she missed him? How had she missed, for even a second, those intense, dangerous blue eyes of his? He was so devastatingly present, so vivid, just as he had been in the bar the night before.

She wanted to hate him. The reaction was strong, visceral. She couldn’t explain it. She wanted to say something horrible and rude. She wanted to shout at him. Go away!

But it was hard to think—much less speak—with her throat blocked by her heart.

“Fancy meeting you here. Roman. Roman Bradshaw. From the bar,” he clarified unnecessarily.

Leah finally found her tongue. “Yes, of course. Roman.” His name came across her lips smoothly, and she felt very strange, shivery, as she said it. She picked up her coffee and avoided meeting Viv’s eyes, though she didn’t miss the curious look on her friend’s face.

When Viv wasn’t offering to set her up with a physician, she was offering to set her up with a date.

But Leah wasn’t ready for that, either. She had rebuffed Viv’s every well-intentioned attempt. And she’d had no regrets.

Her heart had felt so dead all this time.

But right now, her heart was hammering like mad.

“I need to talk to you,” the man named Roman said. Then, “Thank you,” to Viv, taking the second cup she handed across the counter.

“I don’t see what we have to talk—” Leah began, then stopped short.

As she watched him, he paid for his and hers, she realized suddenly.

“No,” she said sharply, pulling herself together. “I don’t want you to—”

“It’s no problem,” he said. “Forget it.”

Leah pulled out the exact change she carried with her in the pocket of her windbreaker every morning and placed it on the counter.

She barged past him toward the door.

A woman came through the door, a small black poodle on a leash at her side. Leah, limbs trembling for no good reason, strode blindly, wanting—needing—to get out of the suddenly too-small coffeehouse. And tripped right over the dog.

The poodle yelped, Leah went down and coffee flew everywhere. She swore and apologized, and pretended the coffee hadn’t burned the hell out of her fingers.

“Are you all right?” Roman was instantly at her side.

Viv handed him towels. She already had a mop. The woman with the poodle was wiping her sleeve where some coffee had splattered her. The poodle yipped and danced, its perfectly painted toenails clattering on the tile floor.

“I’m fine. I’m sorry,” Leah said to Viv. “I’ll pay your cleaning bill,” she told the woman. “Send it to me at the Shark and Fin. I’m sorry,” she said again, in general.

Then she was on her feet and hit the door without another word. She was on the sidewalk before she knew it.

“Wait.”

Not a chance.

“You should take care of those hands,” he said. “They’ll blister.”

Roman caught up with her, his long, lean strides no match for her somewhat shorter legs. She could run, but she’d just bet he would keep up with her.

“They’re fine. I’m fine.” She refused to look at him, but she was aware of him just the same.

He even smelled good, damn him. Soapy, musky, all male.

Danger, danger. Red lights, stop signs, railroad crossing bars. She had to get away from him.

“Would you slow down?”

She whirled. “Would you stop following me?” she demanded. “Didn’t I make it clear last night that I don’t want to talk to you?”

“If you don’t talk to me, then how is Morrie going to sell me his bar?” he answered matter-of-factly.

For a minute she could only stare at him. “You’re interested in the bar?” Could she be a bigger idiot?

She thought of how she’d behaved in the coffeehouse, how she’d raced out of there. She’d been practically in a frenzy.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s just—” How did she explain? He was a stranger. She didn’t even tell her—brief—life story to people she saw every day. Viv and Morrie were the only ones who knew the whole story. Even Joey, the cook at the Shark and Fin, only knew part of it.

“Just what?” he prompted.

“You remind me of someone,” she said finally. “I don’t…” This question terrified her. What if he didn’t just remind her of someone? What if he was someone she’d known? Unable to avoid it any longer, she finally asked, “I don’t know you, do I?”

She felt as if her stomach had fallen to her feet while she waited.

Chapter 2

“No,” he said very quietly, watching her. “You don’t know me.”

Leah swallowed thickly. “I’m sorry,” she said for about the tenth time in the past ten minutes. “I guess I was just… I don’t know.”

“Nothing to be sorry about,” he said briskly. “Why don’t we start over?” He held out his hand.

God, could he be more cool, more self-possessed, more hellaciously good-looking? Danger, danger.

“Start over?” she asked, trying to get her thoughts under control.

“I’m Roman Bradshaw,” he said again. He still had his hand out. “I’m from New York. I’m looking to invest in a business in the Keys. I’m interested in Morrie’s bar.”

She took his hand. Electricity shot all the way up her arm, and it was all she could do not to yank her hand back.

“I’m Leah. Leah Wells.” She sounded almost normal, thank God. “I’m taking care of the bar for Morrie. I’d be happy to provide you with any information—”

He hadn’t let go of her hand. The electrical pulses hadn’t stopped coming, either. And simply being this close to him was making her knees shake.

“Good,” he said. “I’m free this morning, if you have time for me.”

There was something unguarded in his expression. His burningly intense eyes seared her still, but she realized there was a vulnerability there, too.

“The bar opens at ten,” she said, quaking inside with unnamed emotions. “Meet me then.” She withdrew her hand and walked away, but she knew he didn’t move, that he watched her all the way down the street to the beach.

The water glittered in a kaleidoscope of blues and greens, light reflecting up from the bottom of the ocean. Graceful sea birds glided and dipped. It was a sight she loved, craved to drink in each morning. But for the first time, she was in a rush to get back to the bar.

She felt his gaze long after she knew she was out of sight. She took the stairs in the back hall of the bar by twos and went straight to the shower. With water pouring down over her face, she cried for no reason at all.

“Darling, I just pray that you will find the same kind of happiness that Genevieve and Mark have. You know that’s all I care about. All I think about. Your happiness. You simply must come home.”

Roman held the bungalow phone in his tense, impatient hand, listening to his mother try to convince him to return to New York. He’d come back to the White Seas after seeing Leah at the coffeehouse, biding his time till their scheduled meeting at the Shark and Fin. He needed a few moments to collect his thoughts, calm his pounding heart.

He didn’t need this conversation with his mother.

“We miss you,” Barbara Bradshaw continued. “You need us.”

“I need Thunder Key,” Roman said plainly. “This is where I want to be, where I need to be right now.”

“What good can come of wallowing in that girl’s death?” his mother demanded, her voice breaking.

“‘That girl’ was my wife, Mother. Leah. She had a name.” Is my wife, he corrected to himself. Has a name.

He hadn’t told his mother about seeing Leah. Even after eighteen months of thinking Leah was dead, his family hadn’t softened their attitude toward her. They wouldn’t gladly accept her back, and his gut instincts told him they would attempt to convince him that her memory loss was some kind of fraud. Hadn’t they tried, over and over, to find a way to tear him and Leah apart? They never had.

He’d destroyed their marriage all by himself.

After she’d been declared dead, he’d gone back to work. His work had always been so important to him. His grandfather had been the founder of Bradshaw Securities, a professional trading firm. It was a family business—his father, his uncles, his cousins, his sister. It had always been assumed that Roman would take his father’s place as the CEO and chairman of the board someday. But now it was all so empty. Stocks, bonds, trading options. Who cared?

His apartment with a view of Central Park was empty, too. No Leah, lacing up her running shoes, daring him to keep up with her.

No Leah, cooking another awful meal and sneaking in takeout at the last minute.

No Leah, dancing in her underwear in front of the couch until he turned off his laptop and paid attention to her instead.

At least, that was how things had started out. Gradually she’d realized he wasn’t going to change, and that the very thing that had drawn them together—their utter dissimilarity—could also pull them apart. He didn’t know how it had happened. It was as if he’d looked up one day from his eighty-hour workweek and he’d lost her, and he didn’t know how to get her back.

Then there was no getting her back because she was dead.

He’d spent the first three months afterward pretending nothing had happened. Then he spent another year pretending he could deal with it.

The last three months, he’d given up the farce. He’d stopped going in to the office. His family had gone into shock. His father had raised Roman to take over the firm from the time he was born. Roman’s first memory was of his father bringing him to Wall Street to hear the opening bell rung when he was four years old. He earned a business degree from Yale and an MBA from Harvard.

He’d walked away from a multimillion-dollar legacy, and he still wasn’t sure why. He’d closed up his Central Park apartment. He’d put dustcovers on the furniture, protective bags over his business suits. He’d cleared every commitment from his always-full date-book.

It had taken three months for him to undo the life in New York he’d thought was more important to him than anything, even his wife.

His family thought they were watching their golden boy lose it.

“Mother, I have to go,” he said, bringing his thoughts back to the present.

“But when will you be back in New York?”

“I don’t know when I’m coming back. In fact, I’m thinking about making an investment here, a bar called the Shark and Fin. So don’t expect me back right away and don’t worry about me. I’m fine. I’m doing business.” If anything would convince his family he was fine, it was the idea that he was making an investment—though they probably wouldn’t be thrilled it was in Thunder Key. He said goodbye and hung up before his mother could get in another word.

He stared out the open garden doors of the bungalow. Beyond lay a perfect, picture-postcard world. White sands, blue ocean, clear sky. He closed his eyes, let the palm fronds rustling in the ocean breeze take him away….

Leah danced out the garden doors, silhouetted against the barely dawn blue-gold world. “Come on, you’re too slow!”

He told her to wait. He was shaving. She tickled him. He laughed, but kept shaving. “I can’t wait. I hope you can catch me—before someone else does!” She disappeared.

Roman dropped his razor, ran out of the bungalow wearing nothing but a towel. Leah could do that to him, make him do crazy things that didn’t come naturally to his conservative, subdued, Bradshaw personality. He raced across the empty, secluded beach, holding on to the towel and his dignity just barely, and caught up with her in the water—or maybe she caught him because somehow she was in his arms, her legs wrapped around his waist.

They fell into the shallow sea together, her sparkling green eyes his only contact with the world, and then somehow his towel disappeared and her bikini bottoms slipped away…and she had him doing things in the dawn-misted surf that were very un-Bradshaw-like indeed—

Roman opened his eyes, gasped. How could it still hurt so much? How could he still miss her so deeply? How could he still feel her in his arms?

Unable to keep his mind off her, he went straight to the Shark and Fin. He was early, but he couldn’t wait any longer. He walked, taking the boardwalk trail through a mangrove-lined lagoon that stood between the resort hotel and the town. He’d rented a car after flying in to Key West airport, but since he’d arrived on Thunder Key, he hadn’t touched it.

As he came out of the grove and into the town, he turned down the narrow, overgrown road that led to the Shark and Fin. Beyond the beachside bar and grill, he saw dolphins jumping in the brilliant blue water.

Dolphins mean good luck, Leah had told him when they’d seen dozens of them dancing up out of the waves during a seaplane tour of the Keys.

He hoped she was right. He could use some luck.

The Shark and Fin was just opening for the day. The front door was open to the fresh air and rapidly warming morning. Ceiling fans moved the lazy air as Leah sat at a scarred oak table by a large window, her fingers racing over a sketch pad. Her eyes were intensely focused on her creation.

Roman stopped in the doorway, just taking her in with his eyes, his heart. How many times had he caught her in the exact same pose, working on one of her designs in their apartment in the city? Memories washed over him and he could barely breathe for a moment. He knew he couldn’t speak yet.

She’d showered since her run—her hair was still damp on the ends. Leah had always been too impatient to get on with her day to blow-dry her hair. Her makeup was minimal—also as usual—just enough to highlight her glossy lips, outline her remarkable eyes, trace her high cheekbones. She wore a hot-pink sleeveless tank top and capri bottoms in white. She swung one sandaled foot while she worked, and he noticed that her toes were painted with little hot-pink smiley-faces.

She was oblivious to him, lost in her work.

But he wasn’t oblivious to her. His pulse had shot into overdrive as soon as he’d laid eyes on her, and the past swamped him again.

You remind me of someone. He’d been hard-pressed not to blurt out everything when she’d said those words to him. I don’t know you, do I? What was he supposed to say, to do? His heart screamed for him to pull her into his arms and tell her she belonged to him, they were husband and wife, she was his Leah, dammit.

No. You don’t know me. His words had been true—she didn’t know him. Not yet.

But she would, in time. Take it slow, that’s what he kept telling himself. Slow, slow, slow.

It was killing him. But he was scared, so scared, of losing her all over again. What if she remembered him—and didn’t want him? It was she who’d had divorce papers drawn up—not him. Had it been some kind of last-ditch attempt to shake him into changing, into noticing her, into putting her first?

“Hi,” he said quietly, coming forward into the bar now, finally recovering his voice.

Startled, she looked up at him. As their eyes met, it was as if he heard the surf roar straight into the bar and he felt himself drowning all over again.

“Oh, hi,” she said, scraping her chair back and standing to greet him. She dropped the sketch pad and pencil to hold out her hand, very businesslike, but he didn’t miss the nervous tuck she gave her hair, pushing it back behind her ear.

She gave him her all-too-familiar crooked smile, and that alone nearly made him lose it.

Then she surprised him by blushing as their hands met. She had a shy side, this new Leah. For all that was the same, there were so many differences, and he wanted to know all of them. He had to know everything about her new life.

“Thank you for meeting with me this morning,” he said smoothly, letting go of her hand despite every shouting fiber of his being that wanted him to do the opposite, to pull her all the way into his arms, hold her and never let go. But rushing Leah was probably the worst thing he could do if he didn’t want to lose her again.

He had to file his red-hot longing for her in the same place where he had kept the grief and guilt of losing her for the past eighteen months.

“I’ve been in touch with Morrie,” she said. “He suggested I give you a tour of the bar, then if you’re still interested, I’ll put through a call to him and let you two hash out the details.”

“Great,” Roman said agreeably. He’d already decided to buy the bar. He didn’t need to know the details. Hell, he’d buy the whole island if he had to.

The tour didn’t take long. The bar itself was wide-open, airy, bright with the morning light pouring in. There was the requisite back room with a pool table, and the small kitchen where the cook whipped up conch chowder and fried catch-of-the-day, along with a few other simple short-order items.

“Can I see upstairs?” he asked.

He knew it was an intimate request since she lived in the upstairs apartment, but it would be his, of course, if he purchased the bar. He had every right to see it.

He wanted to see where she lived.

She appeared to hesitate, then she said, “Sure.”

He thought he saw a hint of blush tinge her cheeks again. She led the way up the narrow, cramped back stairs.

“This is it,” she said, opening the door and standing out of the way.

He walked past her into the room. Against one wall, a counter, sink and stove made up the kitchen. A Murphy bed took up another wall, but she hadn’t put it up, and the twisted sheets and piled pillows made his chest tighten. The entire apartment was characteristically Leah-messy. He noticed she had walked to the large window. She stood there, framed by light sheers that left the ocean view uncluttered, except for a strange concoction of branches, suede lacing, beads and feathers that hung down in the center.

The rest of the room was taken up by a small dinette with two chairs and a plump tan love seat with a round coffee table. She grew a pot of overflowing ivy and miniature sunflowers in the center of it. Spare sketch pads and pencils, a couple of books and magazines and a box of shells and thread for her jewelry loaded up every spare inch of space around the plants.

“You’re an artist?” he inquired casually.

She turned to face him. “I design a few things—clothes, jewelry,” she said.

Her designs had been sold in expensive boutiques in Manhattan. She had been just as self-effacing about her work then.

Leah had never taken herself seriously. She could have made a fortune, but she’d never operated that way. The demand for her work had always been much higher than her production. She wasn’t lazy—on the contrary, she worked very hard. But she hadn’t been willing to let it consume her.

It had been just one of the ways they’d approached life differently.

“You’re a very creative person,” he commented. He was all-business, conservative. Maybe we were never meant to be, she’d told him once when they were fighting. We’re too different.

“You haven’t even seen my work.”

“I’d like to see your work,” he said, covering quickly. “Is it showcased here on the island somewhere?”

Of course, he’d already seen her recent work displayed on the boardwalk. The day he’d been there, a reggae band was performing for free in the courtyard. Beyond, the public beach offered dive shops and snorkeling gear rentals. A sign in front of the marina advertised a bucket of fish for a dollar to tourists who wanted to feed the pelicans and huge tarpons swarming below the dock.

He’d fed the fish and watched Leah from the distance as she entered a boutique.

“There’s a small shopping center on Rum Beach,” she said. “It’s called Smugglers Village. You can see my work there in the Artisans Cove boutique.”

“Maybe you could show it to me,” he suggested, managing to sound blithe. “I haven’t had a chance to see much of Thunder Key, and if I’m going to be making a property investment here, I’d like to find out more about the island first. It wouldn’t be a date,” he added to defuse any argument before she made it.

Again he caught her faint blush.

“I’m sorry I made such a big deal about that,” she said. “I know that sounded stupid. I’m not ready to date, that’s all.”

“Why is that?” he asked, carefully.

She was very still, then she answered in a quiet voice, “I’m not sure. Really, I don’t know why I’m even telling you this.”

The confusion in her soft eyes hurt him.

“I know how you feel,” he said gently. “I was married, but—” he began, then waited. For a reaction, anything—

“But what?” she prompted, her eyes wide.

One heartbeat, two. “I lost her, in an accident.”

She blinked. “I’m sorry,” she said, sympathy gleaming in her eyes. He even saw moisture there. She was ready to cry—for him.

Leah had always been one to respond to others’ pain. Not long after they’d married, one of her friends from the studio had suffered an inoperable back injury in a car accident. Like Leah, Nikki Bates had no family, and it had been Leah who had sat by her hospital bed, visited her with food and helped her when she was finally sent home. And no one had been more crushed than Leah when Nikki overdosed on pain medication only weeks before Leah disappeared.

The suicide of someone so close to her had torn Leah apart—and it was for exactly that reason that when one of the crash investigators had tried broaching the possibility that Leah might have driven her car over that bridge on purpose, Roman had flatly dismissed it. There was just no way. Leah had been too hurt by Nikki’s death to ever leave anyone else with the cruel guilt of losing someone that way.

Roman changed the subject, not ready to talk more about the past yet. Not ready to risk that she would remember him before he’d had a chance to convince her that he was a different man.

“What is this?” he said, reaching out to touch the artistic creation of beads, feathers, branches and suede in the window. There wasn’t much in the apartment, so he was curious about what she would choose to display. He had to focus on getting to know this new Leah.

“It’s a dreamcatcher.”

“What’s that?” he asked. He’d never seen anything like it.

“It’s from an old Native American legend,” she explained. She touched the beaded suede laces that made up a web. “The web catches the good dreams, and the hole in the center—” She put her fingers in the opening. “The bad dreams go out through here.”

“Do you have bad dreams?” He stepped closer to her, wanting so much to hold her. He had to clench his fists at his sides to prevent himself from following through on the urge.

She nodded. “Yes. Sometimes.”

He couldn’t stop himself from asking, “About what?”

“I don’t know exactly,” she said softly, looking away. “I never remember much of them.”

Was he the bad dream she couldn’t remember?

Now it was her turn to change the subject. She took a deep breath, exhaled and looked straight at him again. “Why don’t we go downstairs to Morrie’s office and you can talk to him on the phone, then I’ll—” She gave a light shrug, smiled her crooked, heart-destroying smile. “Maybe we can go down to the boardwalk. Joey will be in, and a couple of the waitresses. I don’t have to be here till later. If you still want me to, I can show you around.”

“That sounds perfect,” Roman said. He forced a smile, feeling like a lying bastard in spite of all his good intentions. But he was fully prepared to keep on lying, as long as he had to.

He needed time. He needed to seduce her all over again—and this time he needed to do it right.

He’d lost Leah once, and he’d be damned if he was going to lose her again.

Chapter 3

What drugs had she been on when she’d decided this was a good idea?

Okay, she didn’t do drugs. Had never done drugs. That she knew of. But Leah was pretty sure she’d been high on something when the words, If you still want me to, I can show you around, had popped out of her mouth.

Morrie had asked her to get to know his potential buyer. He wanted to sell the bar, but not to just anyone. He wanted to know the bar wouldn’t be torn down or all the staff fired. But she hadn’t had to offer to take Roman around town. It had been an impulsive, stupid idea. It wasn’t even like her to be impulsive. At least, if it ever had been like her, it wasn’t like her now. She was careful, cautious, wary.

But she knew what’d had her high.

Roman Bradshaw’s dimple that—when he smiled—made her think he wasn’t scary at all. But it was an illusion. He was scary. Her strong reaction to him was proof.

And now she was stuck with him for the whole morning. Thank God they weren’t alone.

Smugglers Village teemed with activity. The boardwalk included a bookstore, a sandal shop, a sportsman’s paradise, the standard touristy T-shirt booth and a cozy little restaurant offering a menu of Keysy food. The Artisans Cove was full of New Age samplings like incense, candles, oils, yoga guides, along with jewelry and clothing. A number of artists showcased their work on consignment, taking turns to work in the shop. Leah manned the counter one morning a week.

“So these are yours.” Roman touched a display of beaded bracelets. He’d dressed in jeans today, with a white T-shirt that clung to his shoulders and pecs. He was an eye-catching man, and she wasn’t the only one who’d noticed.

The artist working the cash register had lifted her brows when they’d come in, but Marian had been helping another customer, thankfully. Leah felt uncomfortable coming into the shop with Roman. She’d made it clear to everyone she knew that she wasn’t interested in dating, and she didn’t want anyone to get the wrong idea now.

“Yes, those are mine,” she said, then realized he’d pointed them out before she’d told him. “How did you know?”

“Just guessed,” he answered easily. “They remind me of the work I saw in your apartment.”

“These are mine, too.” Leah pointed at another rack holding crystal and ethnic stone necklaces. “And the designs in that window.” She indicated a clothing nook near the door. “I use all hand-printed fabrics from a studio in Key West.”

“They’re beautiful,” Roman said. “I’m impressed.”

His fingers were long, strong-looking, and she found herself staring at them. Wanting to touch them.

“Don’t be,” she said. “It’s nothing. It’s just something I do for fun.” She forced herself to look away from his hands, unnerved by how everything about him fascinated her, drew her and repulsed her all at once.

He turned from the jewelry counter, an intense look suddenly crossing his face. “You always do that.”

“Always do what?” A dizzy sensation crawled up her spine. Do I know you? And he’d told her no. Had he lied? How would she ever know?

“You put yourself down. You never—”

“You don’t even know me. How can you say that?”

Now he was the one who looked off-kilter, and his gaze on her was odd.

“You’re right.” He looked away. “I don’t know why I said that. These are great, that’s all. I gave you a compliment. Just say thank you.” There was something suddenly sad in his face.

“Thank you,” she said, and had a strange urge to add… What? She didn’t even know.

The bell on the door clanged. The customer had left the shop. Marian hurried over. Her gaze on Roman was clearly appreciative.

Leah felt a weird twist in her chest.

“Hi, Leah.” She was still looking at Roman.

“Marian, this is Roman Bradshaw. From New York. He’s thinking of buying the Shark and Fin. I’m showing him around the Key a bit. Marian’s another artist,” she explained to Roman. “She’s a potter.”

“I see. Well, welcome to Thunder Key, Roman Bradshaw.” Marian stuck her hand out and smiled flirtatiously.

Roman took her hand briefly. Marian was tall, blond, self-assured. Everything Leah was not. Dammit, was she jealous? She had never felt this way before, and she didn’t like it. Marian was a sweetie, and truly, she’d been a good friend. She was the one who’d invited Leah to join the Artisans Cove group. She was single and manhunting—as Marian herself put it—and Leah had made a huge point of the fact that she wasn’t.

But she hated how Marian was looking at Roman. It made her feel possessive and childish and ridiculous.

“Thank you,” Roman said to Marian. Marian smiled.

Leah pointed out some of Marian’s work, and Roman made some appreciative comments.

After a few minutes Roman said to Leah, “I noticed they sell buckets of fish at the marina. How about taking a walk out there? I’d like to discuss a few things Morrie brought up with me on the phone.”

A mix of feelings tangled inside her. She was stupidly flattered that he was showing no interest in Marian whatsoever. Instead, his heavy, cloaked gaze arrowed intensely on Leah. Which was exactly why, at the same time, she felt so horribly uneasy.

“All right.” What else could she say, do? As long as they were discussing business, everything would be fine.

But it didn’t feel like business when he opened the door of the shop, placed a gentle hand beneath her elbow as they walked out onto the boardwalk. Leah walked faster, moving away from his touch.

“Bye,” Marian called. The bell above the shop door clanged as it shut behind them.

“She liked you,” Leah forced herself to slow down enough to comment. “She’s a really sweet person. If you…you know, if you’re interested in having some fun, seeing the nightlife, Marian is really the person to show you around. She’s a lot of fun and—”

She realized he’d stopped. She turned, looked back at him.

“Are you trying to set me up?” He seemed amused.

The reggae band was warming up. The sun beat down on the boardwalk, alive with tourists in the still-cool morning air. The underlying heat brushed her skin. Soon it would be another blazing-hot Keys day.

“No, I—” She didn’t know what to say. She felt like an idiot every time she opened her mouth around this man. “You’re here on vacation. I guess it’s kind of a working vacation, but still… I’m sure you want to have some fun, and Marian—”

“Look, I’m not interested in Marian. And I’m not trying to come on to you, either. But if I buy the bar, we’re going to be working together. You’re not interested in me. You’re a lesbian. I got it. You don’t have to keep telling me. Maybe you should date Marian.”

Stupider and stupider. That’s how she felt. But she couldn’t help laughing. “I don’t think so.”

“You’re really starting to damage my self-esteem,” he said, a teasing note entering his deep voice. “I’m going to need therapy if you keep telling me how much you don’t want to date me.”

He stuck his hand out.

“Friends?” he said.

She met his now-serious gaze. “Friends.” She put her hand in his. There went the twist in her chest again, but what choice did she have? Morrie had been thrilled someone was interested in the bar, even if somewhat wary yet. Things were going well in New Mexico, and selling the Shark and Fin would mean he could make his move out there permanent. She owed Morrie so much.

And if I buy the bar, we’re going to be working together.

How had that thought not even entered her head till now? Somehow she had just assumed—

“Wouldn’t you be going back to New York? I thought this was just an investment for you?”

They left Smugglers Village, taking the boardwalk path that led to the marina. The sound of the reggae music filtered through the air.

“I plan to move here,” he said.

“Oh.”

“You sound disappointed. Wow, I am going to need therapy.”

He smiled, and she was struck by the even whiteness of his teeth, and the way his dark eyes lit with mischief. There was something so contradictory about him. His entire bearing was so businesslike, reserved, and yet when he looked at her, there was a hint of vulnerability to his dark, shielded depths, and then there were those moments of lightness, not to mention those flashing dimples. She just couldn’t figure him out, and she shouldn’t even want to.

“No, I’m just surprised, that’s all.” Shocked, more like it.

“You can’t see me living here on the Keys?”

“No. Well, you’re from the city. You’re—”

“What? You don’t even know me. How can you say that?” He tossed her own words back at her with another flare of light in his enigmatic eyes.

She stopped in front of the marina, bit her lip. He was sexy, dangerous, all male. And so very close to her, his look on her so very intense.

“You’re right,” she said abruptly. “I don’t have a right to say anything about you at all. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

She couldn’t tell him what she was thinking.

“You’re not completely wrong,” he said.

She blinked. “What do you mean?”

“I’m from the city,” he explained. “The life here on the Keys—it’s not me. Or, it wasn’t me. But things have changed. I’ve changed.” He looked out toward the water. Something in his face struck her as terribly painful, and her heart gave another wrench in response. Was he thinking of his wife, the one he’d lost in an accident? “I want it to be me,” he finished quietly.

She didn’t want to feel anything for him at all, but the look in his eyes made her wish she was a different person, the type of person who could put her arms around him and comfort him. And really just be friends.

“Do you believe people can change?”

His question took her by surprise, as did the look in his eyes, as if her answer truly mattered to him. Which, of course, it couldn’t. Why would it?

“I don’t know,” she answered honestly. “I guess it depends on how much they want to.”

He didn’t say anything for a beat. “Come on,” he said then. “Let’s get a bucket.”

She followed him inside the marina. He paid for a bucket of fish at the counter and they walked out to the pier. She experienced the familiar discomfort that walking over water always gave her, but managed to push past it. She still didn’t like the water, avoided getting in the sea to swim, but she’d gotten used to seeing it every day. It was part of Thunder Key. The sea was beautiful, and she didn’t understand her fear of it. She’d learned to live with it.

There were a few tourists, but most of the early crowd was lined up at the dive shop and snorkel shack. The air was salty and fresh and clean. Watching Roman, she had the craziest urge to tangle her fingers through his hair, as if it would be perfectly natural, and ask him to tell her why he thought he needed to change.

“So you had some questions about the bar,” she said instead.

Business, business, business. She needed to talk about something that didn’t make her want to put her arms around him or hold his hands or probe into the sadness behind those amazing dark eyes.

“Not questions, really. I just wanted to let you know that nothing’s going to change. In case you’re concerned about that. I know that’s important to Morrie.” He leaned over the railing, tossed a fish to the tarpons below, then looked back at her. “Morrie emphasized that he wants you to feel secure here at the bar. He really cares about you.”

“Morrie’s great.” She settled her arms against the railing, stared down at the gathering tarpons. The water glittered in the growing day. “He’s been like a father to me. But you’re buying the bar, so I understand it’s up to you what you do with it.”

A thread of nervousness wound through her words, but like her fear of water, she’d learned to live with the new uncertainty since Morrie had put the bar up for sale. With no past, and the future unknowable, living day to day was all she could handle.

The fact was, no matter how much Morrie felt like a father to her, she wasn’t his family. His family was in New Mexico, and that’s where Morrie wanted to be.

“I like the Shark and Fin just the way it is,” Roman said. “And the people, too. I just wanted you to know. I won’t be asking you to move out of the apartment, and I’m not planning to change any of the staffing.”

“You’ll need a place to live,” she pointed out.

“I’m fine at the White Seas for now. I’ll figure out the rest of it as I go.”

Apparently he had unlimited funds if he could stay at the White Seas indefinitely. It was one of the most expensive resorts in the Keys simply because it was so secluded on sleepy little Thunder Key. There was limited potential for any farther development on the island due to the environmental restrictions preserving most of the remaining natural areas on the Key.

Roman dug into the bucket and tossed another handful of fish to the tarpons. The pelicans near the pier had taken note and a couple dove toward them.

Leah took a handful and a white pelican ate straight from her fingers. Roman fed another, and half the bucket was gone in minutes.

She laughed as one pelican nipped her fingers greedily, and she looked up at Roman. He was grinning back at her.

“I like it when you laugh,” he said. “You don’t laugh enough.”

That sobered her instantly. “Why do you want to buy a bar in the Keys?” Dammit, she hadn’t meant to ask him that.

He had a way of just looking at her and sending her completely off balance.

“I honeymooned here with my wife.”

It was the last thing she’d expected him to say.

“Here? On Thunder Key?”

“At the White Seas. Two years ago.”

The pain in his eyes just about killed her. The urge to touch him grew almost unbearable. There was something about him that just pulled her against her will.

If he’d only been married two years ago, his wife had to have died fairly recently. And now he’d come back. It was hard for her to imagine how it must feel for him to be here. Painful, to say the least.

“I would think this is the last place you’d want to be,” she said. Hide. That’s what pain made her want to do. But Roman wasn’t hiding. He’d come right here, to the very place that must hurt him the most. “I feel like an idiot. I was trying to set you up with Marian and I thought you were interested in me. I had no idea your loss had been so…recent. It must be difficult for you to be back here.”

He leaned against the railing. “This is the only place I want to be,” he said. The wind picked up, almost carrying his words away. She had to move closer to hear him. The salty air mingled with the musky male scent of him.

“I’m truly sorry for your loss,” she said. What would that be like, to care so deeply—and then to lose that person? She wondered if she would ever know. If she had known in the past. It was one of the things that frightened her, to think there might be someone, somewhere, who missed her. It was one of the reasons she couldn’t bring herself to date. What if she had a husband? Children? She didn’t even know if she was free. But she had convinced herself that if she had a family, she would know. Somehow. Wouldn’t she?

Most of the time the questions were just too awful to contemplate.

“I was a bastard,” he said, surprising her again. The sharp darkness of his eyes pierced her as he cut his gaze to her again. “I wasn’t a good husband during our marriage, and then it was too late. I lost her. Don’t feel sorry for me. Everything that happened was my own fault.”

He dug in the bucket again, tossed another handful of fish at the tarpons.

“Wow, not hard on yourself or anything, are you?” she said. “And you said I put myself down. I think you’ve got me beat.”

“I believe in a person taking responsibility for his actions. Especially when the person was wrong.”

“That’s admirable, but still… It takes two people to make a marriage. You can’t blame yourself entirely.”

“She did,” he said.

Leah didn’t know what to say to that. “I think if you can admit you made some mistakes, that says a lot about you. You don’t strike me as a bastard.” Nope, not at all. He was being so damn nice, she felt the shield around her peeling back with every second she spent with him. And that was bad.

Very bad.

She had nothing to offer a man like Roman Bradshaw. No past, no future, barely a present. There were solid reasons she’d made up her mind not to get involved in a relationship, and just because Roman was hellaciously good-looking and nice to boot didn’t change any of it. Discovering he was a sensitive guy didn’t mean he wasn’t dangerous.

She needed to get things back on more solid footing. Something she could handle. “Morrie told me to give you whatever access you need. If you want to look at the books today, I can make them available to you. I’ve been keeping the books and managing the bar myself since Morrie’s been gone, so I can fill you in on most of the business details and any questions you might have.”

“Great.” He threw out some more fish and neither of them said anything for a time.

The pier grew more crowded as day tourists arrived, making their way from other islands to sample the small Key’s quieter attractions.

“Do you still dive?” Roman asked when the bucket finally emptied.

Still? Her expression must have revealed her confusion.

“I thought you said you enjoyed diving,” he explained.

“No, no, I didn’t. I don’t dive. I have a phobia about the water, actually.”

He watched her for a strange beat. She was very aware of how close he stood to her, of the strangers walking past, of the sun hitting his strong arms and the warm scent of him pulling her and pushing her away all at once.

“You live on an island that’s two miles wide and you’re afraid of the water?”

“Yep. Well, I don’t mind looking at it. I just—I don’t go into it.”

“Do you know why you’re afraid?”

She shook her head. He picked up the bucket and they began walking back toward the marina.

“I believe in facing your fears,” he said. “Headon.”

“You don’t want to see me have a panic attack,” she told him. “It’s not a pretty sight.”

He stopped short.

“You have panic attacks?” Concern etched a new line across his forehead.

“I’m making a great impression on my potential new boss, aren’t I? I’m freaked out about dating, I’m afraid of water, I have panic attacks. I swear, I’m perfectly fine at the bar. I don’t crack up in front of customers. Much.” She looked at him. “That was a joke,” she added.

“I don’t think you’re nuts,” he said. He cocked his head, regarded her for a beat. “I think you’re everything Morrie said you were.”

She wondered exactly what Morrie had told him.

They reached the marina and he returned the bucket. There was a sink for hand-washing, and after they finished, he held the door open for her again. Great. He was gorgeous, rich, nice and polite. She needed to find some faults, quickly. She reminded herself that she barely knew him and had no reason to trust him. She brushed by him, back into the harsh glare of the day.

“I need to get back to the bar,” she said.

“I thought you didn’t have to be back till later.”

No, damn him. “I could show you the books.” Anything to cut short their outing. “You don’t want to spend too much time in the sun right away,” she added, trying to think of more reasons they should go back to the bar. “I’m used to it, but you’re not. The sun here is seductive. It’s stronger than you think. You can tell the tourists because they’re the ones who are sunburned. And by the way, don’t swim after dark. That’s when the sharks are most active. The mosquitoes here are ferocious, too. And you need some sunglasses—the kind that protect against ultraviolet rays—”

She stopped. He was watching her with his curiously level gaze shuttered and hard to read now. But he could read her, apparently. And she hated that. It made her heart thump and pound, and she wanted to run, hard, fast, until she couldn’t think or feel.

“I didn’t want to make you uncomfortable,” he said. “Or take up too much of your time. Let’s go back.”

All he did was make her feel uncomfortable. But now she felt like a jerk.

“No, I’ll walk you into the town. Morrie asked me to do anything for you that I could, and I owe him…everything. If you’d like me to show you around some more—”

“And take me shopping for sunglasses?” The teasing note returned to his voice.

She felt her cheeks heat. “I really wasn’t trying to ditch you,” she lied.

He didn’t believe her, she suspected, but he didn’t confront her about it, either.

“Good thing,” he said. “Because I’m not going anywhere. I’m here to stay.”

That was exactly what she was afraid of.

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