He blinked the dampness from his eyes and felt his stomach grind, like he’d downed too many cups of coffee without eating. “Good morning, Lilly,” he said, resigned.
She stepped closer, looking waif-like in pale gray yoga pants cropped at the calf and a sweatshirt of the same color that hung to her knees with sleeves that nearly brushed the tips of her small fingers. The mist had caught in her hair, tiny crystals that dotted her dark, wavy locks. The swirling gray surrounding them made her mouth look pinker than ever before, her tip-tilted eyes and their plush lashes more exotic.
“Are you following me?” she demanded.
He sighed. “I was out for a stroll just like you.”
“Bad penny,” she muttered.
Clearly her night hadn’t been any more restful than his, though her bad temper somehow made him want to laugh. She looked like a cranky fairy who’d been prodded from her bed beneath a toadstool before she was quite ready to wake.
“I’ll walk on ahead of you,” he said. “In a few moments you’ll lose me in the fog.” Taking a step around her, he made to do just that.
Her hand shot out to clutch his sleeve. “Um…”
Alec looked down, into her small face. Christ, that sweet mouth inspired dirty thoughts. “What is it?”
“Did you talk to your mom? Tell her she…misconstrued things between you and me?”
When his parents had come upon them the night before, Lilly had broke free from him, stammered out her goodbyes, and fled.
“I told her not to jump to any conclusions.”
“Well, good.” Her hand dropped from his sleeve. “Though she does worry you work too hard.”
“Yeah. I’ve heard that.”
“What is it you do exactly?”
“I work in venture capitalism—my dad started the firm. Matching businesses with money in order to grow or matching ideas with money in order that they can become businesses.” He cocked his head. “But you know what that is, right? You work in financial management.”
She nodded. “For the Montgomerys. I majored in accounting and I also have a master’s.”
“You’re a number-cruncher.”
“It’s why I always have mental balance sheets running.” She paused. “One for everything…including personal relationships.”
“Not too subtle, sugar.” He had to grin.
“What?”
“I get what you’re saying—or not saying. You mean you’ve run the calculations and that the liabilities outweigh the potential offered by our possible involvement.”
She made a face. “Well—”
“And I happen to agree with you.” He saw her eyes widen. “I was going to let sleeping dogs lie—and aren’t we full of metaphors this morning—and not mention it, but hell, I’ll admit I made a mistake yesterday. I shouldn’t have kissed you.”
“Oh.” She shoved her hands in her front kangaroo pocket. “So we get to just forget it ever happened?”
“Right,” he said, sounding brisk and completely convinced that there’d be no more sleepless nights thinking of the maid of honor. “I’ll be on my way now.”
“Okay.”
“Have a nice single life.” Determined to get on with his own, he attempted to move forward again.
Again, she caught the edge of his sleeve. “Uh…you’re going back to the resort?”
“In a while.”
She bit her bottom lip and glanced around. “Doesn’t this strike you as what purgatory would be like?”
Shifting his gaze, he could see what she meant. In the minutes they’d been talking, the fog had thickened until he couldn’t make out any features of the landscape. Even the ocean was obscured and the only way he knew its direction was from the muted sound of the surf. “This is the kind of weather that shipwrecks sailors,” he said. “It’s why foghorns and lighthouses were invented, so that their vessels wouldn’t crash on rocky shores.”
Lilly shivered. “What if you were in open ocean?”
“These days they have GPS and all kinds of instrumentation. But before that, they were at the mercy of the weather.”
“I don’t like to be at the mercy of anything,” Lilly said. “Or anyone.”
He suspected she’d revealed more than she knew. “Chalk off playing old-time pirate from your bucket list then,” he said lightly.
“Yeah.” She dug a bare toe in the sand. Her nails were polished in a bright, sparkly pink. Just like a fairy would wear, he thought, surprised by the whimsy she inspired in him. He was mostly a numbers guy too, after all.
“Here’s the thing,” Lilly suddenly said, looking away. “I have a terrible sense of direction.”
She confessed it quickly, then glanced up to see his reaction. Clearly she hated revealing her vulnerabilities.
“Lilly,” he said, taking in the mist enshrouding them, then shifting his focus back to her. “Are you lost?”
“I’m not afraid,” she said, chin jutting up. “I’m just a bit, a tiny bit, unsure how to get back.”
“Head south,” he said.
She looked at him like he’d suggested she strip off her clothes and make a bonfire out of them. Hmm…tempting…
Shaking the thought from his head, he cleared his throat. “Keep the ocean on your right.”
“How do I find the ocean in this soup?”
Her aggrieved tone had him grinning again. “Okay, okay, sugar. I’ll walk you home like the good Boy Scout my mama always wanted me to be.”
Her relief was evident in her lack of protest. Taking her by the shoulder, he turned her around and nudged her forward. “This way.”
She was quiet for a few minutes as they ambled back, shoulder-to-shoulder. “I really appreciate the escort, Alec. You’re not so bad you know.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“Maybe it seems as if I’m holding you responsible for Jacob’s defection, and I’m not, truly, but…”
But she needed something to use as a wedge between them. “I get it.”
She cleared her throat. “If we happened to run into each other over the next few days, that probably wouldn’t be so terrible. We can be friendly, right?”
Hmm. There was a note in her voice he just couldn’t place. It took him a minute to identify it as loneliness, with a little melancholy thrown in. “No luck in cheering up Audra?” he guessed.
Lilly shook her head, her wavy hair
