“Did you get into trouble for that?”
“I would guess I did. Probably from Grandma Sadie. Those gardens were her pride and joy.”
“I never had a garden,” said Kaitlin, and Zach immediately felt guilty for showing her the album. He’d done it again, parading out his past and his relatives without giving a thought to the contrast with her life.
“I bet you stayed cleaner than I did,” he said, making a weak attempt at a joke.
“Once I realized-” She paused, gripping the edge of the album. “Hoo. I’m not going to do that.” She turned another page.
“Do what?”
“Nothing.” Her attention was focused on a series of shots of the beach and a picnic.
“Katie?”
He gently removed the album from her hands. “I upset you.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“Liar.”
She straightened her shoulders. “It was hard, okay.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.”
“You’re right. I don’t.” He folded the book closed and set it on the table beside him. “I’m sorry I showed you the photos. It was thoughtless.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“What were you going to say?”
She pasted him with a look of impatience.
“I’ve got all night to wait,” he warned her, sitting back and making a show of getting comfortable.
She clenched her jaw, looking mulish, and he prepared himself for a contest of wills.
But then her toughness disappeared, and she swallowed. Then she closed her eyes for a second. “I was going to say…”
Part of him wanted to retract the question. But another part of him wanted to know,
“I was going to say,” she repeated, sounding small and fragile, “once I realized people could give me away.” Her voice cracked. “I tried to be very, very good.”
Zach honestly thought his heart was going to break.
He wrapped an arm around her and drew her close. She felt so tiny in his arms, so vulnerable. He hated that she’d been alone as a child.
“I’m sorry, Katie,” he whispered against her hair.
She shook her head back and forth. “It’s not your fault.”
He drew a deep breath. “You’ve been alone for a very long time.”
“I’m used to it.”
But she wasn’t. She couldn’t be. Nobody should have to get used to not having a family. Zach had lost his parents when he was twenty, and that had been devastating enough. He’d still had his grandmother, and he’d always had the Gilbys. And he’d had Aunt Ginny, who usually liked him very much.
“Look,” said Kaitlin, pulling back and wiping a single tear from her cheek. “There’s a full moon outside.”
He twisted his head to look out the window. “Yeah?”
“You want to go skinny-dipping?” she asked.
“Yes,” he answered without hesitation.
The salt water was chilly against Kaitlin’s skin, but Zach’s body felt deliciously warm. He held her flush against himself, her feet dangling just above the sandy bottom. Over his left shoulder, she could see the distant lights of the Gilby house. And when she turned her head the other way, she could see the Harper castle in all its glory.
The gardens were smaller than they were in the pictures, but they were still lit up at night. And an illuminated path wound its way from the edge of the garden to the sandy beach, where she and Zach had stripped off their clothes before plunging into the surf.
“Lindsay is talking about staying a few more days,” Zach offered.
Kaitlin drew back to look at him. “With Dylan?” Lindsay hadn’t said anything to her. Then again, she had spent most of her time at the Gilby house.
Zach’s teeth flashed white under the moonlight. “I think they have worked out their differences.”
“You mean Lindsay won,” Kaitlin corrected. “Where’s my ten dollars, by the way?”
“Dylan thinks he’s the one who won.”
“He totally caved.”
“I don’t think he cares.”
“By the way, if Ginny asks, they’re not having sex.”
“Ohhh-kay,” Zach slowly agreed.
“She’ll probably ask,” Kaitlin warned. “She’s obsessed with Dylan’s love life.”
“I won’t answer,” Zach pledged.
“Good.”
Neither Kaitlin nor Zach spoke for a few minutes. The cool waves bobbed their bodies, while the sound of the surf rushed up on the sand, punctuating the breeze that whispered through the bushes along the shoreline.
“You want to stay, too?” Zach asked softly, rocking her back and forth in his arms.
Kaitlin stilled against him, not sure what he was asking.
“With Lindsay?” he elaborated. “For a few days? You could work right from here?”
“What about you?” she asked, still wondering what he meant by the invitation. Was he asking her to stay on the island, or to stay with him?
“If you’re staying?” A slow, sultry smiled curved his mouth, darkening his eyes to slate. “I’m sure not leaving.”
Kaitlin’s smile grew in return. “Okay.”
“Yeah?”
“Yes.”
He spun her in a circle, and she wrapped her legs around his waist, her hands gripping his shoulders for balance. His hold was tight under her bottom as she knifed through the water.
The moon glistened high in the sky, surrounded by layers of stars. They were the same stars that Lyndall had used to navigate his way to the island hundreds of years ago. The same stars that Sadie had gazed at as a girl and as a woman, a mother.
Zach slowed and stopped, the waves now the only motion around them. Kaitlin gazed at the lighted gardens that Sadie had so clearly loved. The woman had been the guardian of the castle, the keeper of the family’s heritage. And because of her decisions, Kaitlin had been trusted with the Harper office building.
Zach nuzzled her neck.
The office building was much newer, of course. But Kaitlin couldn’t help but believe the renovations would matter to Sadie. Maybe Zach was right. Maybe wholesale change wasn’t such a great thing. Maybe Kaitlin had some kind of responsibility to his family.
Maybe she needed to rethink her approach.
“Zach?” she ventured.
“Hmm?” he asked, the vibration of his lips tickling the sensitized skin of her neck.
“Could you get me a copy of the Hugo Rosche plans?”
He drew back, brows going up. “Really?”
“Yes.”
“Sure.” He nodded, the nod growing faster. “Of course I could.”
“I’m not making any promises,” she warned him.
“I understand.”
“I’m just going to look.” She had no idea what she was going to do now. She still needed her career, which meant she needed a fantastic project for the Harper building. But maybe there was a compromise of some kind. She
