He took her oth­er hand. “I’m not going any­where, Mila.”

“You say that now.”

“I mean it. I like the slow­er pace in Drift­wood Bay. The oppor­tu­ni­ty to remain a head coach while also serv­ing as a dis­trict ath­let­ic direc­tor means I’m not inter­est­ed in look­ing else­where. Pro­fes­sion­al­ly, this is a great sit­u­a­tion for me. Per­son­al­ly, I want to give Lily con­sis­ten­cy. That means stay­ing in one place. I don’t want her to have to make new friends every few years when I change jobs. I want to raise her here in the Bay. Give her a real home, with a com­mu­ni­ty that is like extend­ed family.”

Car­son gazed deeply into Mila’s eyes. “I’ve put my life on hold these past two years in order to focus on Lily, I’m ready to do some­thing for myself now.” He paused. “And that some­thing is get­ting to know you, Mila.”

“Would we be mak­ing a mis­take, start­ing some­thing between us?” she asked.
“You’re my boss. You over­see all aspects of ath­let­ics in the dis­trict. You’ll be respon­si­ble for eval­u­at­ing my per­for­mance and decid­ing whether or not to keep me on con­tract. The optics of dat­ing your sub­or­di­nate don’t look good, Carson.”

“Is that the only thing hold­ing you back?”

She was afraid to voice how she wor­ried about liv­ing up to his mem­o­ries of Ang­ie, and so Mila said, “That’s a pret­ty big concern.”

“If I can get that straight­ened out, are you will­ing to take a chance on me? On us?”

“More than any­thing,” she replied truthfully.

“I think before we decide to pur­sue this any fur­ther, there’s some­thing we need to do.”

“What’s that?” she asked, her heart ham­mer­ing against her ribs.

“Kiss. If we’re going to fight for this rela­tion­ship, we should see if we have chem­istry. We need to see if that spark is real.” Car­son gazed at her. “May I kiss you, Mila?”

“I thought you’d nev­er ask.”

“Are you all right, Layne? It’s Keaton. Keaton Maxwell. From the wedding.”

She bit her lip, nod­ding wood­en­ly at him. “I remem­ber you.”

“What can I do to help?” he asked, see­ing she was clear­ly dis­tressed. “Can I call Mila for you?”

“No,” she said emphat­i­cal­ly. “I just need some time to myself.”

Reluc­tant­ly, he pushed him­self from the booth. “Okay. I just want­ed to see if there was any­thing you needed.”

Her gaze met his, tears swim­ming in her eyes. “Oh, I need a lot of things, Keaton. Most of all …” Her voice faded.

He knelt beside her. “Tell me. I’m here for you.”

“I could use a friend right now.” She gave him a crooked smile. “Even if it’s a new friend. Of course, if I start dump­ing on you, you may run scream­ing for the hills.”

He reached for her hand and squeezed it. “Try me. Not much scares me—or scares me off.”

For some rea­son, hold­ing her hand felt like the best thing in the world. Dif­fer­ent from any oth­er time he had ever touched anoth­er woman.

Reluc­tant­ly, he released it and rose before tak­ing a seat across from her again. “Fire away. Antic­i­pat­ing tor­pe­do num­ber one,” he teased, hop­ing to light­en her mood.

She eyed him sad­ly. “For starters? My dad killed my mom and then himself.”

Her words stunned him. Keaton was rarely left speech­less, but he had no idea what to say. Layne pulled an enve­lope from her purse. “He left me this. Chief Roberts came to Dal­las and gave it to me. I’ve read it at least a dozen times since Wednes­day. Every time, I keep hop­ing what’s in it will change. That this night­mare loop I’m stuck in will dis­solve and every­thing will go back to normal.”

She gazed at him, her eyes brim­ming with tears, sad­ness radi­at­ing from her. “But then I have to real­ize that this is my new normal.”

His heart ached at her words. Reach­ing for her hand again, he took it.

“Let’s read it togeth­er. Then we’ll go from there.”

“Do you have a favorite book, Piper?”

Sul­li­van watched her face, see­ing it flush at his ques­tion, and she said, “I like to read romances. I enjoy the strug­gle of two peo­ple com­ing togeth­er. Learn­ing about one anoth­er. Fig­ur­ing out how to solve the obsta­cles which keep them apart. I find sat­is­fac­tion when they reach their HEA—the hap­pi­ly ever after. It’s a nice pay­off and just makes me feel good.”

“I’ve nev­er read a romance nov­el before,” he admitted.

“Not many guys have. They could prob­a­bly learn a lot from them if they did so. How to treat a woman. How to real­ly lis­ten to her. How to be a good part­ner. How small, sim­ple ges­tures mean the most. Women read romances because they don’t have any romance in their own lives. My favorite genre is Regency romance.”

He frowned. “Why? What’s it about?”

“It’s a time in England’s his­to­ry when King George the Third was expe­ri­enc­ing bouts of mad­ness. His son became Prince Regent and ruled in his stead. It’s set against the back­ground of the Napoleon­ic Wars.” She smiled shy­ly. “I guess I’m a suck­er for a pret­ty gown and a hero­ine who dances in a ball­room with a hand­some rogue she’s secret­ly pined for.”

He squeezed her fin­gers. “You’re attract­ed to bad boys?”

“Only on a fic­tion­al page. In real life? I’m look­ing for some­one who’s stead­fast. Loy­al. Hon­or­able. Actu­al­ly, that’s what those rogues turn out to be in the romances I read. The hero­ine doesn’t just tame the wild­ness in a rake. She brings him to his knees. The hero fig­ures out she’s what’s been miss­ing in his life, and he falls head over heels in love with her.”

Sul­li­van wished he could be that hero in real life for her, but her future was in the Bay, while his was any­where but on the Texas coast.

“What hurt you so much that you had to seek pro­fes­sion­al help?”

Zane inhaled and blew out a long breath. “My ex-wife.”

“You were married?”

“For all of three months,” he said, and Kylie detect­ed a note of bit­ter­ness in his voice. “I was a fool. It was a long, hard, painful fall.”

She saw the hurt in his eyes. Instinc­tive­ly, she reached for his hand and squeezed it.

“No, Zane. She was the fool if she let go of some­one like you.”

Sur­prise filled his eyes. “No one ever said that to me.”

Kylie saw him turn­ing over what she had said. Her hand was still wrapped around his, and she let go.

But he took it again.

Zane’s gaze met and held hers. “I want to kiss you, Kylie. I know it’s a stu­pid thing to do, espe­cial­ly because we have seri­ous busi­ness to dis­cuss tomor­row. Once it’s fin­ished, though? If you let me, I’m going to kiss you. Long. Deep. Hard.”

A shiv­er ran through her, caus­ing her to trem­ble. “What if you don’t like me too much after I’m done with you?”

He looked at her with yearn­ing. Need. Kylie even saw approval mixed in.

“If you’re as good at nego­ti­at­ing as I think you’ll be, that’ll just be some­thing that makes me want you even more,” he said, his voice low and rough.

Her heart began beat­ing rapid­ly, pound­ing against her ribs violently.

“I’m very good,” she told him. “And I def­i­nite­ly would like to kiss you, too, Zane.”

His smile grew. “Tomor­row can’t come fast enough.”