Page 31 of A Beach House Beginning

“So in the end Tony did the right thing?”

“Only because he was backed into a corner and had no choice. Don’t paint a rosy picture of him, Jenna. He was a bastard who only admitted the truth after he was caught, in hopes that it might mean a lighter sentence for himself. He was only too happy to let me rot in prison for something I didn’t do.”

The bitterness in his voice made Jenna want to wrap her arms around him and hold him close to ease some of the vast pain of betrayal.

“I’m so sorry that happened,” she murmured. “But at least you learned you had good friends you could count on.”

He somehow managed a rusty laugh. “Are you always such an optimist, Mrs. Haynes?”

“Oh, no,” she assured him. “Far from it. I’ve just learned the value of good friends over the years. I would have been lost without them.”

He gave her a searching look, and she wondered how much truth she had revealed with her words. She wanted to tell him what had happened with Aaron but now wasn’t the time, after he had unburdened himself about something much darker from his own history.

She couldn’t think of anything else to say and realized they had been standing for a long moment, gazing at each other silently.

He was an extraordinarily good-looking man. Once a woman could see beyond his intimidating size and fierce features, she began to notice other things. The softness of his mouth. The firm line of his jaw. Those intense blue eyes fringed with long dark eyelashes.

She felt hot, suddenly, as if she had stood too long in front of the little electric fireplace in her bedroom.

“The rain has stopped.”

He blinked and looked around. “Yes.”

“When I’m going through hard times, I try to remind myself that, just like a rainstorm, nothing lasts forever. Pain and betrayal eventually begin to fade.”

“Has your grief for your husband faded?”

He seemed genuinely interested, so she didn’t answer with the trite response she might have otherwise. “I don’t know if it will ever fade completely. But it has...mellowed over the years. I no longer feel devastated every time I think of Ryan. I now can remember the good times as well as the bad. We had several wonderful years together and I will always treasure them. And he gave me the greatest gift of all, Addie.”

“He was a lucky man.”

Something in his voice, some odd, yearning note, drew her gaze. He was looking down at her with an expression that made her catch her breath.

He wanted to kiss her.

She recognized the hunger deep in her soul because she shared it. It seemed so odd—so wrong—to be talking about her husband to a man who was completely unlike him but who made her ache with awareness.

“I should...” She pointed vaguely to the house, to the door. The girls were waiting upstairs, she reminded herself.

“Yes,” he answered.

He didn’t look away, though, merely continued watching her. She drew in a ragged breath, intending to call to the dog, but the words died in her throat.

When she tried to analyze it later, she wasn’t sure which of them moved first. One moment, they were staring at each other in the garden, the next, they were reaching for each other.

His mouth was cool and tasted of berries but the rest of him was warm. Deliciously warm.

He kissed her with a raw hunger that took her breath away. His mouth moved over hers as if he wanted to memorize every dip, every curve.

Her arms rested against his chest and it took her a moment to realize he was shaking slightly. Not from cold. From hunger.

Jenna found something incredibly powerful and also deeply terrifying to know this man could tremble with desire because ofher.

The rain started up again, just a cool mist that landed in her hair. She didn’t care. She wanted to stand here forever and go on pretending the rest of the world didn’t exist.

He was the first to pull away. She wasn’t sure what brought him back to his senses. One moment, his mouth was tangled with hers, the next, he had eased away and gazed down, his breathing ragged and his expression dazed.

“I’m sorry, Jenna. I didn’t mean to do that. I’ve been telling myself all evening that kissing you would be a mistake.”

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