“Any hints on where we’re going?” he asks. “Or am I driving aimlessly?”
I blink, coming out of my boater-in-a-suit reverie, and pick my way over to join him at the wheel. “We have a very specific route we’re following, actually.”
I guide him out of the canal and into the bay, and we head north.
“Whereexactly are we going, though?” he asks. “I want to make sure we have enough gas to get home. Unless we’re eloping.”
“You’re certainly dressed for it,” I say. “But I think that might send Grams to an early grave. She’s coming around, but best not to press it. To answer your question…remember when you took me out on the boat when I first got to the island?”
“You mean my failed attempt to get you to change your mind about Sunset Harbor?”
“Stop here,” I say as we draw nearer our first destination.
He looks around, but there’s not much to see on this part of the island. It’s the stretch between the retirement center and town square.
I turn toward him, and he looks at me like he’s starting to think I might be crazy. And dangerous.
“You dropped me off early that night,” I say.
“Because you asked me to.”
“Right. But I’m a woman of my word, so I still owe you an hour of island touring. Except tonight I’m takingyouon a tour.”
His gaze fixes on me more intently.
“I want to show you all the places I’ve come to love here.” I point toward land. “Right about there is where you pulled me over on my first night back.”
His mouth pulls into a smile, and his eyes unfocus a bit, like he’s remembering it. Just like I am.
“I think I already started unhating you that night,” I say. “So so so sosoagainst my will.”
He laughs and puts his hand on my waist, bringing me toward him. He kisses my hair, then inhales softly. “I swore that night to change how you felt about the island. But really, I wanted to change how you felt aboutme.”
“You really outdid yourself.”
He smiles. “You know how they say shoot for the moon, and if you fail, you’ll land among the stars?Ishot for the stars and somehow got the moonandthe stars.” He tips my chin up and kisses me, soft and long, keeping me upright as the boat lists with the gentle waves.
“This tour will take a lot longer than an hour at this rate,” I say when we break apart, my heart and body on fire.
He straightens his shoulders. “Okay. I’ll try to refrain for a while. What’s next?”
For the next hour, I guide him as near as I can to the most important spots on the island. The old woman’s house, where I watched him entertain and care for her so naturally. The town square where I got to watch him with little miss Violet. The canal where we first kissed. The beach where he pulled me in.
Finally, we make it to the secluded cove in the preserve that he took me to my first week back.
He guides the boat to shore, and within a few minutes, we’re walking on the sand together.
“You know why I wanted to go home early the night you brought me here?” I ask.
He shakes his head.
“I was scared,” I say. “Scared of how easy it would be to fall for the island again. To fall foryou. I watched you wade into the water to clean up that gross garbage, and I could practically feel the cracks in my hatred. It terrified me.” We stop, and I face him, scanning his face and wondering how I ever hated him. “I wish I would’ve just embraced it and saved us some time.”
“No way.” He threads his fingers through mine. “Winning you over was the best few weeks of my life, Gemma. I wouldn’t trade that for anything.” His lips quirk up at the edge as he runs a hand through my hair. “Grain by grain, I’ll tip those scales, GG.”
I laugh. “You know what happened to those boulders?”
“What?”
