Page 61 of Beached Wedding

I glanced guiltily at him. He wasn’t looking at me, but his brow pulled with remorse, as though some thought or other was torturing him.

“I didn’t know we’d be swimming or I would have worn my bathing suit.” I slipped out of my sandals and waded across the slippery rocks to my shins, holding my skirt above the surface of the water.

He didn’t follow, only stood looking across to the waterfall, expression tense and inscrutable.

“Are you mad at me?” I asked.

“No.” Quick and sure, but sharp.

“You sound mad.” I waded a little further, holding the skirt a little higher while lifting my gaze to the walls of greenery around us. Birds twittered and odd little flowers bloomed next to broad, variegated leaves.

“I’m not mad atyou,” Fox said grudgingly.

“Who then? Yourself? Because we kissed? Just pretend it didn’t happen. That’s what I’m doing.” I was also pretending it was working, apparently.

The sounds of nature filled the silence, idyllic, but the remoteness seemed amplified by the distance between us. I wasn’t even facing him, but I could feel him behind me on the shore, close enough to reach out and touch me.

He wouldn’t, though. We were too far apart in other ways.

“The irony is...” His voice dried up.

I glanced over my shoulder and he was still looking off to the side, gaze faraway. He seemed reluctant to go on. His mouth twisted and his sardonic tone seemed aimed at himself.

“I want to talk it out, but there’s no one to talk to. That’s why I stayed so late at Harry’s last night. Sometimes it’s easier to talk to a stranger, but he doesn’t get it. He doesn’t have a business partner who’s been there for him all his life. He comes from money so he doesn’t get how hard I worked to get what I have. Which is chicken scratch compared to the way he lives.”

“Don’t disparage what you’ve achieved.”

“I’m not. I’m just saying it was a failed effort to use him as a sounding board.”

“And you can’t talk to Shane because he’s not here. And it’s me.” The words seemed to stick like a spear in my breastbone. “I’m the problem.”

“I wouldn’t talk to him anyway. We don’t do girl talk. That’s why it took until the last minute and more alcohol than any man should consume for our frank discussion in the cab.” His hand skimmed his hair, then he made an impatient noise of ironic-laughter. “You’re right. You’re the problem and you’re also the person I want to talk to about it. When I call you my friend, that’s what I mean. I trust you enough to tell you anything. More than I’d ever tell Shane. Turns outyou’remy best friend. I bet you didn’t know that, did you, Ash?” The words gusted out of him on a laugh that held the force of a small hurricane.

I didn’t even know how to respond to that. It was lovely, but it also made me feel more wretched about this ridiculous situation.

My hands crushed the cotton fabric of my dress as I realized I was suffering a similar frustration. I didn’t want to talk to my sister or Izzy about these conflicted feelings I was having, or the attraction that grew by the minute, fuzzing all my well-developed sense of caution. I wantedFoxto help me make sense of this and he was the source of it.

“Which makes Shane my brother, I suppose,” he mused. “Because I’ve never had thoughts about him like the ones coming into my head about you.”

A wobbly smile tried to land on my mouth. I pressed curled fingers against it, closing my eyes against a hot sting. My hem landed in the water and I felt the skirt weigh heavier on my hip. I came out a few steps so I could wring it out.

“When we get back, I’ll get my own room.”

“No,” I pleaded softly, straightening. Experiencing such a profound loneliness, I didn’t know how to process it. “What you said yesterday about seeing as much as possible of each other... I want that, too.”

“Ash.” His palm came out, beseeching. “That wasn’t a nightmare this morning. I was dreaming about you.” He was glowing with a hard blush. He dropped his hand to his side. “It was pretty graphic.”

My whole body prickled with a shivery tingle and my ears rang. How graphic?

“It was all I could do not to crawl into bed with you. I can’t...”

Don’t say it, don’t say it?—

“I wanted you to,” I blurted.

He physically jolted. Paled, maybe, but he was standing in a shadow so it was hard to tell.

“After you left, I imagined you coming back,” I confessed in a scraped-thin voice. “Joining me.”

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