When she didn’t spot it, her stomach dipped. Had they already left? Had he taken the woman back to the beach house? The thought sent a sharp pang through her, even as another part of her felt foolish for caring. Disappointment and relief tangled together in a knot she couldn’t begin to sort through.
Shaking her head, she forced herself to face facts. It shouldn’t matter. She and Sean had shared a few meals since returning to Whisper, but none of them had been official dates. They’d simply fallen into easy companionship, two old friends reconnecting after years apart.
That was all.
The kiss they’d shared had clearly meant more to her than it had to him, and the realization hurt more than she wanted to admit. Still, Grace refused to sit around waiting while a man kept his options open. If Sean wanted to date other women, that was his business.
Once her business was up and running, she would find a way to meet new people. For now, she’d have to be content with the few she knew in the area.
“Maybe tomorrow I’ll go to the shelter and adopt a kitten. At least that would be something I could cuddle up with.” The words sounded hollow even to her ears, but saying them out loud helped push back the thoughts she’d spent the entire drive trying to ignore.
By the time she pulled into her parking space and let herself into the condo, the idea had taken root. The silence waiting inside made up her mind. She would swing by the animal shelter sometime tomorrow.
She’d had a cat when she was little—a gray tabby named Muffin who had followed her everywhere and somehow always known when she needed comfort. Since moving to Whisper, she’d told herself she was too busy getting Pro-Care ready to think about pets. Tonight, the stillness of the empty condo made that excuse feel thin.
It would be nice to have something waiting for her at the end of the day. Something warm and alive to greet her that she could talk to on nights when the quiet stretched too wide.
After switching on the lights, she dropped her purse on the entry table, hung up her coat, and slipped off her shoes. She carried the remains of her dinner to the refrigerator, slid the container onto a shelf, then made her way to the bedroom.
A few minutes later, dressed in soft cotton pajamas, she returned to the living room and curled up on the couch with a stack of magazines Bonnie had given her earlier in the week.
Refusing to let her thoughts drift back to Sean and the woman she’d seen with him, Grace reached for the remote, switched on the television, and flipped through the channels, searching for something light enough to distract her.
Anything but a romance. And definitely nothing sad enough to make her cry.
Sean showed Suki to the spare bedroom, then retreated to his own room to ditch the suit he’d been wearing since morning. By the time he changed into jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt, some of the tension in his shoulders had eased, though the frustration of the day still clung to him.
When he stepped back into the living room, the house was quiet except for the hum of the refrigerator. Beyond the wide windows facing the back porch, darkness had swallowed the beach, leaving only pale moonlight glinting across the restless surf. The steady rush of waves rolling onto shore filled the silence, a familiar sound that usually helped clear his head. Tonight, it wasn’t enough.
He checked his watch. It was a quarter to ten.
Even though it was late, he knew neither of them would be sleeping anytime soon. There were still hours of reports to comb through, and if something was buried in those pages that they’d all missed, he intended to find it.
Dropping onto the couch, he reached for the folder he’d brought from the station, but his focus drifted to Grace.
The memory of her soft mouth against his surfaced without warning, stirring the same low ache of desire that had followed him all day. He had meant to call her earlier, but after realizing he’d left his laptop locked inside the conference room, he and Suki had doubled back to the station before heading to the beach house. Now he wondered if it was too late.
Pushing himself upright, he grabbed his cell phone from the dining table and pulled up Grace’s number. She had entered it into his contacts the night before while they sat on her couch talking. Leaning against the doorway between the living room and kitchen, he hit send and listened to it ring.
Once. Twice. Three times. Then voicemail.
He ended the call before the leave-a-message prompt could finish. He wasn’t even sure what he would have said.
“Got a girlfriend you haven’t told me about?”
Sean glanced up to find Suki emerging from her room wearing gray sweatpants and a loose T-shirt, her dark hair hanging free around her shoulders. She crossed to where she’d left her briefcase near the porch door, picked it up, and carried it to the loveseat.
He shrugged and tossed the phone onto the couch. “To tell you the truth, I’m not sure.”
The corners of her mouth curved upward. “Want to talk about it?”
He shook his head. No chance. He barely understood what was going on in his own head, let alone how to explain it to someone else. Instead, he eyed the stack of firewood beside the brick hearth.
“We’re going to be up for a while, aren’t we?”
“I know I am. Why?”
A grin tugged at his mouth as he rubbed his palms together. “I’ve been looking for an excuse to start up the fireplace. What do you say?”
