Page 49 of Escape to the Sun

“Only superficial from what I could tell.” He filled her in on what he’d seen outside and how he’d opened up all the guest bungalows except for hers. “After we eat, I can go with you to see if your place sustained any damage,” he added. “But I don’t think it did.”

Heather flipped a pancake from the pan and poured more batter in. “Do you want the first taste? Or can you wait?”

Ash’s stomach growled in response. “I’d rather eat with you.”

She winked at him and turned back to the stove. “Why can’t you sleep?”

The question took him off guard. “What do you mean?”

“You said you don’t sleep much. Why not?”

“The heat.” The lie immediately felt sour on his tongue and he shook his head. “No, that’s not true.”

Heather tilted her head and waited.

Ash hesitated in telling her the truth, but for the life of him, he couldn’t come up with a good reason why he wouldn’t just tell her. “I haven’t had a full night’s sleep in years.” He glanced out the window and watched a parrot in the trees for a moment. “Memories become dreams when you sleep and sometimes those dreams become nightmares. I like to wake up.” It was the most he’d said about his story since he’d told Heather the little bit about Carlie a few days ago. But maybe it was time for the full truth.

“Not all dreams have to be nightmares.”

“Mine are.” He didn’t mean to sound as sad as he did, but there was nothing happy about his truth. “You can’t rewrite your memories, Heather. They just are.”

She turned away from the stove, her face lined with worry. “But why? I mean, why do you have such unhappy memories?” She crossed the kitchen and put her hands on his bare knees. Something about her touch encouraged him to talk.

“Once upon a time, I lived a very different life,” he said simply. “And I lost it. Those are the memories I can’t forget. Don’t you have memories you’d rather forget?”

“We’re not talking about me.”

His lip crooked up in a wry smile. She had him there. “Touché. But we will. One day.” He took a deep breath. He liked Heather; it wasn’t fair that he continue doing whatever it was they were doing without the truth. He might as well get it over with. He took a breath. “Remember when I told you I was married?”

She tried to hide it, but Ash saw her cringe a little, before she nodded. “I remember. Is there more to it?”

This was always the part he struggled with. Over the years, it had gotten easier to think about Carlie. Heck, he could even talk about Carlie sometimes. But he couldn’t talk about what happened with them. He still could barely bring himself to think about it.

It was a time he wasn’t proud of. Although it should have been. No, it could have been. If he hadn’t have screwed everything up. Things had been going so well before—

“Ash?”

He focused on the woman in front of him.

“Talk to me.”

* * *

He didn’t answerher right away. Instead, he stepped closer, bridging the gap between them, and took a strand of her hair between his fingers. “This is crazy.”

“My hair?” She laughed, but it was controlled. Something was certainly going on with him, and she wasn’t sure she was going to like it. “What’s crazy about that?”

“No.” He dropped a kiss on her nose. “This. You. Me.”

She stilled in his arms. What was he talking about? And what did it have to do with his dreams that were more like nightmares?

Finally, she spoke up. “What’s so crazy about this? You were talking about your marriage.”

“Was I?”

“You know you were.” She wasn’t going to let him out of it so easy. Clearly he had something to tell her. “Talk to me, Ash.”

Ash shook his head. “I don’t do this.”

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