He'd been nine. He hadn't understood.
Twenty-six years later, kneeling beside a bleaching reef he'd dreamed about for two years, Alex still wasn't sure he did.
He forced himself to finish the documentation—temperature readings, photographs from multiple angles, detailed notes in his waterproof journal. Professional. Thorough. Exactly what the grant committee expected.
When he finished, he lingered a moment longer than necessary, his fingers hovering just above the water's surface.
"I'm here now," he said quietly, feeling ridiculous. "For whatever that's worth."
That was the thing about caring for creatures that couldn't care back—you never had to worry about them leaving.
They just faded, slowly, while you watched.
Alex walked back to the cabin with the weight of the morning pressing on his shoulders. The almost-kiss with Lily felt distant now, trivial—a blip of temporary insanity he could file away underproximity-induced poor judgmentand forget about.
Except he couldn't quite forget the way she'd said his name. Or the warmth of her skin beneath his palms.
Stop it.
He had work to do. Important work. Work that actually mattered.
Lily St. John was a distraction he couldn't afford—especially now, with Site 7 showing signs of stress and his research timeline feeling suddenly fragile.
He pushed open the cabin door, already composing his afternoon schedule in his head.
Lily was exactly where he'd left her, cross-legged on the couch, scrolling through photos on her camera with a furrow of concentration between her brows. She looked up when he entered, and something in his expression must have shown, because her teasing smile faltered.
"Hey," she said, softer than he expected. "You okay?"
"Fine." The word came out clipped. Defensive.
She studied him for a moment—really studied him, in a way that made him feel uncomfortably seen.
"Okay," she said finally, letting it drop. "There's coffee left, if you want it."
He didn't deserve her grace. Didn't know what to do with it.
"Thanks," he managed, and retreated to his notes before she could ask anything else.
The beach stretched beyond the window, pristine and empty, but Alex barely saw it. All he could think about was the pale patches spreading across Site 7, the feel of Lily's skin under his hands, the moment when everything had felt possible before reality crashed back in.
You're an idiot, Carmichael,he told himself as he stared at data that refused to make sense.A complete and utter idiot.
But as he forced himself to focus on his research, cataloging species and cross-referencing temperature data, Alex couldn't shake the feeling that by letting Lily into his little cabin, he'd just made the biggest mistake of his life.
She was like a force of nature.
And lord knows, trying to tell a hurricane not to break things was like shouting into the wind and hoping it had some kind of effect.
But what could he do?
The coral was bleaching. His carefully controlled world was cracking at the edges. And somewhere in the other room, a woman with wild curls and green eyes was humming softly to herself, completely unaware that she'd already gotten under his skin in ways he didn't know how to fix.
This was going to be the longest two weeks of his life, that much he knew for sure.
But he could do it.
His research depended on it.
