She shifted her gaze in the direction of the rumble. A dark-haired man in an armchair. Asleep.
Handsome. Strong jaw, dark with several days’ worth of stubble. Too tall and broad to sleep comfortably in the chair.
Logan.
She whimpered. The sound echoed in her head, like the heavy clang of a bell. His soft snoring stopped and he sat straight up.
“Bailey?” He was on his feet, beside the bed. “Baby, are you awake?”
She shrank back. Into the bedding, then deeper yet, back into her safe cocoon.
Saturday, April 19
5:24 A.M.
Light broke through. Stingingly bright. “This way!” it seemed to call. “Here to safety.”
Bailey resisted. This was the safe place. Soft and close. Protected. But the light beckoned, insistent. Sound with it. And a tingling sensation, as if her entire being had come back to life.
Resistance proved futile. She ran toward the sound and light, hands outstretched.
Bailey opened her eyes and said his name.
PART ONE
CHAPTER ONE
Three Months Earlier
Grand Cayman
“Do you believe in fate, Bailey Browne?” he asked. “That two people can be destined to meet?”
They sat side by side on the beach, she and this handsome stranger she had spent the past eight hours with. The most unexpected, exciting and romantic hours of her entire life.
She turned to meet his dark, intent gaze. She should tell him she thought such notions silly. Play it cool and sophisticated. But cool and sophisticated weren’t her style.
“Yes, I believe it,” she said, voice husky. “What about you, Logan Abbott?”
He hesitated, a hint of vulnerability coming into his expression. “I didn’t. Not until…”
Tonight. Until you.
The words hung unspoken in the air between them. Heady. Tantalizing.
They had been fated to meet.
He found her hand, laced their fingers. “Have you ever seen the sun rise over the Caribbean?”
“Never.” She rested her head against his shoulder. “It’s beautiful?”
“The most beautiful. You could stay and watch it with me?”
“Okay.” Bailey tipped her head so she could see his strong profile. “You’ve seen a lot of sunrises, haven’t you?”
“All over the world.”
“Have you ever seen it rise over a Nebraska cornfield?”
He laughed. “As a matter of fact, I haven’t.”
Bailey liked the sound of his laugh, deep and raspy, like a growl. She snuggled closer to his side. “You might want to put it at the top of your list,” she teased. “It’s pretty spectacular.”
He brought her hand to his mouth and kissed her palm. “Only if you promise to watch it with me?”
She could lose herself in this moment, Bailey realized. In the sound of his voice, the feel of his lips against her skin.
Simply slip away. Disappear forever.
“I promise,” she whispered, and he drew her with him down to the sand.
*
Bailey studied him while he slept. They hadn’t made love. They’d watched the sunrise, then come back to her room and slept, wrapped in each other’s arms.
He took her breath away, he was so handsome. Dark hair and light green eyes, classically sculpted features, beautifully shaped mouth. Mysterious, she thought. The tortured hero of novels. Wounded deeply by someone special to him. Waiting for just the right woman, the one who could make him whole again.
Were all women as hopelessly romantic as she? Bailey wondered, fighting the urge to trail a finger over his chiseled lips. Drawn to the very thing that would eventually destroy them?
He opened his eyes. His mouth tilted into the small, lazy smile she already loved. “Good morning.”
“You were sleeping so peacefully, I didn’t want to wake you.”
“I wasn’t sleeping.”
Heat stung her cheeks. “You were!”
“Nope.” He laughed. “Playing possum.”
She gave in and trailed a finger over his perfect mouth. “So you could tease me?”
His smile faded. “Because I didn’t want this moment to end.”
Inexplicably, tears stung her eyes. She blinked against them, feeling foolish.
“Don’t,” he said.
“What?”
“Try to hide from me. I want to know everything about you, Bailey Browne.”
“I’ve already told you everything.”
“Hardly.” He cupped her face in his hands. “Why the tears?”
“Is this real?” She searched his gaze. “It’s as if my dreams have conjured you, our meeting. All of it.”
“I promise you, I’m real.” He laid her hand over his heart. “Feel it beating.”
She did and pressed closer. Thoughts of her mother swamped her. Her hopes and hurts, dreams and disappointments. Many of them for her daughter. Bailey had told him about her mother’s illness, her passing. How much it hurt.
Bailey lifted her eyes to his. “I took this trip as a way to celebrate my mother’s life. To honor her by … really living. Does that make sense?”
He combed his fingers through her hair. “It does. Completely.”
A smile touched her mouth. “And here you are.”
“And so are you.”
“It’s hard losing someone you love.”
“But they’re never really gone. Not if you truly loved them. They leave a little piece of themselves. Here.”
He laid his hand on her breast. She wondered if he felt her heart leap at his touch.
“And what of you?” she asked thickly. “Who have you loved and lost?”
“Everyone,” he said simply.
In that moment, with that one revealing word, she fell completely, irrevocably in love with him.
Before she could respond, he kissed her. She kissed him back and there, with the sun streaming through the blinds, they made love for the first time.
*
They sat across from each other at a small table at the thatched-roof cabana bar. A Bob Marley tune playing. Fruity drinks with tiny, paper umbrellas. Women in bikinis and see-through cover-ups. Exotic, beautiful women.
And every one of them had noticed him. Several had openly flirted, as if she weren’t even there. As if recognizing, as Bailey did, that he was way out of her league.
Self-doubt swamped her and she leaned toward him. “Why are you with me?”
He looked annoyed. “Why would you ask that?”