Page 86 of Escape to the Sun

“Chica.” Mick appeared behind her. “I thought that was—whoa. Are you okay?”

She started to nod but shook her head instead. “No. I’m not okay. I need to go. I need…” She turned to look at Mick and got an idea. “I need the key to the engine lock on my boat. Do you—”

“Ash left the keys behind the bar last night. Let me grab them for you.”

She nodded. That would be good. If she could get the keys and get her boat back, that was a good first step. Ash didn’t need to be with her. He didn’t need to pretend anymore. That was fine. She didn’t need him. She could get her guests and get them back to Casa del Sol without him. But he had no right to take her boat.

She paced on the street in front of the hostel, letting her thoughts clear. She was no closer to understanding anything when she heard her name again. This time it wasn’t Mick’s voice. She turned slowly to see Ash in the door, the keys to the engine lock in his hand.

“Mick told me you were looking for these.” He took a step down, but Heather crossed her arms and he stopped. “Heather, let me explain what you just saw.”

“There’s no need.” She kept her voice as calm as she could, to the point where she knew she sounded cold and detached. She didn’t care. She couldn’t. She needed space. Or it would hurt too much to do what she was going to have to do.

“There is.” Ash took the steps down to the street and stood in front of her. “Nothing happened with Sara. Nothing.”

“Sara.” Somehow it made it worse to know her name.

“I went to bed last night and she just…she…well, she climbed into bed with me.” He must know it sounded bad because Ash closed his eyes and squeezed the bridge of his nose. “I’m not interested in her. It’s not like that.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“It does!”

“No, Ash. It doesn’t. You told me you would never love again.” Heather had to focus to get the words out, but she needed to say them. She needed to hear it as much as he did. “And now you’ve demonstrated that. If you were trying to make the point, you did. Now if you’d please give me the keys, I have guests to pick up. Because you didn’t think of that either, did you? While you were running off into town to scratch an itch, you left me stranded when I have a business to run. I assume you’ll be able to find your own way back, or…wherever it is that you go when you’re not at Casa del Sol. But I don’t think—”

“Stop.”

She shook her head.

“No, Heather. Stop.” He gripped her upper arms, and forced her to look at him. “You need to listen to me.”

She shook her head again, harder, before she focused on his eyes. “No. I don’t.” She could feel the crack in her heart as she spoke, but she had to get it out. “It was nothing. We were just fooling around and I know it wasn’t anything serious. It’s fine.”

“That’s not true.”

“You tried to tell me, and I wouldn’t listen. But I get it now. I know who you are, Ash. I get it.”

He dropped his hands, his face twisted into a mask of hurt, but she couldn’t let herself care. “Here.” Ash held the keys out and she took them.

There was something final in his surrender and that might have been the part that hurt the most, but she took the keys and tucked them into her bag. With one more look and her heart breaking into a thousand pieces, she turned and walked down the street to the airport and her guests. She still had a job to do.

* * *

He let her go. Every fiber in his body yearned to go after her, pull her into his arms and kiss her until she listened to him. He needed to make her understand. Force her if necessary. But it wasn’t the right time because she was right—he’d said those things. He’d told her he would never let himself love again.

He’d been wrong.

Very wrong.

And he’d prove it to her, too.

Because as he watched her walk away, Ash knew one thing with complete certainty: he loved Heather Holt. And he wasn’t going to lose her.

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